This JBR is not my usual effort as we were only away for 7 days. I really only wrote it as I dont think anyone has covered the Ocean Blue Villas & Hotel before. Anyways it doesnt hold much detail other than places we ate and the few things we bought
Having just visited Bali in March (possibly our worst trip ever...). This was only a quick trip as my husband had a seminar to attend to at the Conrad. Left Perth on time with Jetstar, clocked the bogans to our right who were well and truly into the drinking at 8am! Hmmm, we hoped it would not be a sign of an unpleasant flight. But no, all was good, flight left on time and arrived a bit earlier. Another plane was in before us...but no problem as the queues had progressed down to a small amount, all up in and out of the airport within 15 mins. We saw a few people doing VOA but they were still at the other end waiting for their luggage when we cruised through. LOL.
Our friend Wayan was there to meet us....bintangs at the ready. He declared it was their first rain free day in 2 weeks, so we were happy...but boy does that humidity get to you upon exiting the airport after there has been so much rain! Sun was blistering hot, we didn't mind we were here in Bali. Having already been over in March, this was only a quick trip as my husband had a conference to attend for 2 days. The conference was in Nusa Dua so we had decided to stay in Nusa Dua and chose the Ocean Blue Villa Hotel a little away from the hub of Nusa Dua, but still in Nusa Dua. We stopped on the way for supplies, and fully loaded arrived at the hotel. Initial and subsequent impressions were this place is stunning. We were processed quickly, they didn't require a credit card for security reasons, they told us to dial 1 for everything - i.e. restaurant booking, room service, buggy ride etc etc. We were given the key and off we went to our villa in the buggy. This place is set out over a large mountainous area and so if your not into too much walking or the many steps that you need to climb to reach your villa then a buggy is for you. The villa's are beautiful, no doubt about it. Large lap pool with a level of water that came up to your waist, pool was an infinity pool. Massive bale with cushions to luxuriate upon, alongside 2 pool loungers for the ever essential tanning! Villa had a lounge room with TV, massive bedroom with heaps of wardrobe/storage space, massive vanity with his and her sinks, massive bathroom with deep spa bath for 2, large walk in shower and a toilet that looked like it belonged to a space ship. It had so many buttons on the remote dial for washing, drying, massage??, seat warming etc etc. I never tried it but hubby did! The seat warmer came on though every time you sat on the seat! The view was stunning. We just got settled and down the rain came!
We headed out for an early dinner with Wayan as we hadn't eaten anything but a sandwich since around 10am. We ended up at Warung Nyoman in Tanjung Benoa (just down the road from the Conrad - but on the same side as the Conrad). This was our little find from last year. The food is plenty and also plenty cheap. Spring rolls, pizza, Balinese chicken, rice and soto ayam was had by us and with full belly's we headed back to the villa. A quick stop on the way to grab some DVD's for us to watch during our stay and an early night was to be had by us. Whilst the villa had cable TV it didn't have any movie channels except Korean! We were to find out that we were in actual fact staying in a Korean dominated, owned and managed hotel! We were the only Australians, in fact the only Westerners there for the whole time we were there bar the last day when another Australian couple checked in.
Morning dawns and we make our way down for breakfast. This was when we discovered that we were the only Westerners there. It was pretty obvious from the way that the toaster wasn't plugged in, there was no indication of an egg station and the food in the buffet was all catered for Korean tastes! We were asked if we wanted a coffee (something that occurred every single morning), but were never delivered a coffee until the last morning we were there. Each morning throughout our stay, I hunted down a staff member to get the toaster operational. Just as every morning my husband hunted down a chef to ask for some eggs! It actually got tiresome towards the end of our stay and things only improved when I presume either the owner or the GM (drove a very swanky black Mercedez) ripped into staff on our second last day. Well at least I presume he did, because you couldn't have gotten a bigger turn around in attitude if you tried and that was right across the board from the lethargic waitstaff right through to the pool bar attendant who actually was at the pool bar on the last day of our stay, whereas was never sighted prior to that! I do have to say though, the cleaners, gardeners and pool attendant for the villas were champions - so thorough and so polite.
Fri 4th June (day 3) - A special day - its our wedding anniversary! - well we had been advised the day before that we have one free 2 hour massage each, 1 free 4-course dinner and 1 free shuttle into Kuta during our stay. We decided to make use of the massage on our special day. Breakfast arrived with the usual idiosyncrasies we had learnt to accept, the coffee that never appeared etc etc. A quick lay in the sun and swim and we were off to the Massage/Spa Centre. Wow - beautiful little rooms these are - all separate too so you are in your own little hut. The massage consisted of a footbath, 1.5 hour massage all over - including stomach and rose petal spa bath complete with 2 rounds of ginger tea! We were so relaxed after the best massage I have had in a long time, that we found it hard to put one foot in front of the other and haul our butts up the hill. We had decided to get room service for lunch in our villa. OMG, the prices! We are talking 65,000 for spring rolls here...what the? Anyways we bit the bullet, decided it would be the first and last time and ordered our lunch. I again got soup - and it came in a bowl that was seriously no bigger than a tea-cup. DH ordered pizza....the pizza base was rather unusual in the way it looked like a biscuit base!! Anyways when they delivered it they advised us that we have 20% off food and beverage during our stay (wish they had told us that earlier!). Anyways still made no difference because the cost of eating in worked out to be more expensive than catching a cab to and from Nusa Dua and eating there! Food over and after some more swimming and bathing by our pool, we decided to run a spa bath crack open the bottle of bubbly we had bought with us. We were supposed to be catching up with a group of 12 friends and friends of friends for dinner at the Living Room (including our friend Wayan and his wife) but we actually couldn't be stuffed after the luxurious day we had and so ended up ringing Wayan and bailing out. Unbeknown to me he had organized a massive bouquet of flowers to go to the restaurant, so he had to change the delivery address to our villa..felt so bad!!! Anyways the flowers arrived around 7.00pm and they were just gorgeous. We headed into Nusa Dua and ended up at Nyoman Beergarden Restaurant on JL Pantai Mengiat. A beautiful meal was had and during the course of the meal, I was fiddling with my ring under the table, and DH asked if I wanted another one and I said ‘yes, why are you going to pull it out of your arse' and he goes ‘ok' and proceeds to go to his pocket...I am still laughing and saying behave, and he whips open a ring box and inside is a sparkling 5 diamond eternity ring...OMG...stunned I was. He proceeded to put it on my finger and whipped the box away so as not to attract attention. What a gorgeous husband. I am so very lucky....I couldn't stop smiling, nor could he!
Now so as not to drag on I will stop doing the day by days and do a summary:
Places we ate at:
Warung Nyoman (Nusa Dua) **** cheap and delicious
Uno Italian (Bali Collection) **** beautiful Italian
Banyan Corner (Bali Collection) **** Crayfish to die for!
Coco Bistro (Discovery) **** never had a bad meal here - pizza, ribs and the best soto ayam I have come across.
Jamaica Blue (Discovery) **** never had a bad meal here - try their crab cakes and pad thai!
Nyoman Beer Garden **** again never had a bad meal here - try their steak and their soto ayam
Blue Ocean Bali Villa Hotel *** we had a complimentary 4 course meal here. Whilst the salad and soup were spot on, both our mains came out raw in the middle, DH had the steak and I had chicken (which was covered in gravy). I didn't realize my chicken was raw until I was able to distinguish the taste through the gravy. Feeling decidedly off, we skipped dessert and headed to the room. Needless to say I was ill that night. Can't say whether it was the chicken or just the thought of! Room service was a bit hit and miss. We had room service on our last night and they forgot the cutlery....it took 10 mins to come back with the cutlery by which time our meal was cold.
We hadn't intended to buy much this trip as we had just returned in March but places we shopped at:
Planet Sports (In Sogo Bali Collection) - DH got a fabulous pair of addidas trackie pants...the type he had been searching far and wide for, for ages. A bit costly at around 500,000rp but totally worth it considering he has not been able to find them anywhere in Perth.
Billabong Surf Shop (Bali Collection) - DH got a wicked pair of boardshorts here - they were the same price in the Kuta surf shops as we checked them when we got to Kuta as he was going to by another pair.
Surf Factory Outlet - got a couple of wicked skirts here and a couple of t-shirts all for under 180,000.
Centro - we bought a couple of metal tree stands which hold tea-light candles...really pretty and we had discovered them in March and bought one for my sis-in-law who was housesitting...so of course I had to get a couple for me this trip! They cost 200,000 each. We also got some colourful tealight holders for our outdoor table setting - from memory they were around 24,000 each. We also topped up on some Stone tealight holders I think were 40,000 each.
Discovery Mall - to the left wing - where all those different art obiects, carvings etc are. We bought up big here. We bought 6 stone lanterns for the garden, 2 stone plaques, 1 stone flower holder and a stone carving. OMG the weight of these things...I started to immediately stress about the fact that we would be paying for excess! They are all things for our garden and they are stunning. The girls packed them all so carefully and we got them home all in one piece. All up for the lot we paid around 1,200,000 rp.
Last day we checked out of Ocean Blue and checked into J Boutique hotel (just around the corner from the airport). We had booked this as a place to hold our cases (and our friend's cases - they attended the same conference) as we were not due to fly out till 10.30 that night. It only cost $50US on a last minute website and suited our needs as a place to store our luggage, have a swim and a few drinks and it was on JL Kartika so central to restaurants, shopping centre and airport!
As the sun checks out, we stroll up for our last Bali meal, last drink and head back to the hotel just as the heavens open! And I do mean open! We experienced 3 days of rain out of our 7 night stay. Wayan arrives, loads us all up and we head to the airport. Our friends have bought way too much and are considered about being over. Luckily for us all we were all spot on our weight limits. Given that we are allowed 20kg check in and 10kg carry on each, we thought it would be okay to use our carry on weight allowance as part of our check in allowance. Not so! We had to unpack 20 kilos of stone to take as carry on! I had to laugh cos DH was carrying it all (backpack and we bought a sturdy bag at the airport for the other 10kgs) and he was sweating, and I was saying don't sweat cos they will think your carrying something illegal! I don't think he was that impressed with the comment, but I thought it was funny!
Our Jetstar flight leaves about 20 mins early and we land around 30 mins early. Flight was uneventful, I stuck my ear-plane plugs in and fell asleep on DH's lap, DH also slept against the window. We had a spare seat next to us, so all good. The only disturbing part of the trip was the person coughing behind us...we prayed that we wouldn't catch whatever it was that he had...and luckily we didn't. We land and after retrieving luggage, going through the nothing to declare without so much as an xray, and we were out and off to get my car from long term parking and head home. Another Bali trip over!