In Reply to: TLM - Kids stuff posted by goingback on Friday, 19. August 2005 at 18:13 Bali Time:
Hi,
When our 4yo talks about Bali, these are probably what she mentions most;
1. Elephant Ride as we've discussed
2. Turtle Ride at Turtle Island. We stayed at Tanjung Benoa. From there or Nusa Dua you can take a glass bottom boat out to Turtle 'Island'. About 30 mins in boat to get there, stopping along the way to look thru' the bottom at coral and fish (she loved that). Turtle Is. itself is quite small, an enthusiastic guide takes you round each pen with different animals in. "no problem no problem" was his constant chant no matter what our kids did/wanted to do. You get to hold various sized turtles, put a macaw on your arm, a snake round your neck, eagle on arm, see a bat...and the definite highlight - sit on Bob the 50+ turtle who goes walks a couple of steps with you on the back. The guide got all 3 of our kids to sit on at once for photos (much to my horror...poor Bob!) 4yo just LOVED all of this, and is so proud of her photos with these different animals.
3.Monkey Forest at Ubud - we found the monkeys there v good, she fed several with no problems.
4.DVD's - we took our portable dvd player, was a lifesaver when we needed some down time. She's now hooked on 'Dora the Explorer', and the many other kid dvds you pick up so cheaply over there.
You're v right re Waterbom Park - she started on the kiddie slides, but after an hour or so was running along with the rest of the kids no problems. (There are kiddie life jackets all round there for free too, which gives parents some comfort!)
re food, she loves rice and noodles, so we never had problems feeding her. Her favourite restaurant however was Green Garden Cafe (mentioned often here), just down from Discovery Mall/Waterbom. In her opinion (and shared by our 8yo), they had the best nuggets & chips in Bali! Plus a great pool to swim in while you wait for meals.
On a final note, our 4yo is not fond of walking. After 2 days of constant 'i'm tired, carry me' (this started as we were walking out of the hotel door!) we gave up and bought the cheapest pram we could find at Matahari. It was 460,000 rph, but we used it non stop for the next 3 weeks (great for storing shopping).
Hope this helps...this was our first trip, I'm now hooked on the BTF and plotting how soon we can go back!