Flew out of Brisbane with Virgin, booked Blue Zone for extra leg room which was good but there wasn't that many passengers on the plane and most people had extra seats next to them. Flight Attendant told us that the plane can carry 180 but Virgin was only flying with a maximum of 130 to keep weight down for fuel reasons, our flight had 102 passengers on it.
VOA Concierge organised by Netfare travel was excellent, the que's were long and we were greeted as soon as we got off the plane, taken to a lounge given refreshments and snacks while they organised our visa's and picked our luggage up, then they escorted us through customs to the Taxi rank all within 20mins (there was 6 of us). I would recommend paying the $38 but I don't know what will happen when everyone starts using the service. We were the only one's on our flight that were in the lounge.
We cought 2 taxi's from Airport to Garden View Cottages in Legian (cost 55,000ea). This was 4th trip to Bali, the last was 4 years ago, and our first time at GVC. You get what you pay for , this was a spur of the moment trip for all of us because of the cheap fares offered by Virgin and because they were flying out of Brisbane (I refused to travel to Sydney, so we have been going to Thailand) so we decided on cheap accom. as well (the better half is a 4 star person). GVC is being demolished in March/April and they are building 6 storey 337 suites which you can buy off the plan now. Staff are very disappointed as they don't know what they will do for the next 12 mths. While wer were there they had a big celebratiion for the 20th Anniversary of the Hotel.
Tourist were non existent everywhere we went, our hotel was 30% full, should have been 70% but a lot of cancellations because of the Govt. warnings I guess. Security was the same as 4 years ago, I didn't notice extra measures because of the executions. The big Hotels still checked under cars and the big shops (Centro, Matahari, Carefour) scanned your bags and backpacks.
Weather was mainly overcast, which kept the temperatures down, heavy rain some nights, surf small on-shore winds. Beaches were filthy, rubbish and dead fish littered the beaches from Tanahlot to Kuta (millions of stinking Pilchards).
Safari Park is a full on great day, we left hotel at 8.30 for a 40 min. drive and got back at 6pm. Like all theme parks once you are inside it is expensive for food & drinks especially for Bali standards. I would like to spend a couple of nights there, we didn't inquire about the price, but if it's like their food & drink it won't be cheap. Extra for waterpark and rides, marine park wasn't open when we were there.
See part 2