Flew air asia on bargain flights, booked Oct 2010 for the $50 tickets each way, airport time was over 1.2 hours arrived at 5pm have previously used the VIP but not this time, wished we had.
Stayed at Villa D'Va beautiful Villa and easily sleeps 9 people cost about $350 per night, excellent housekeeping staff, got washing and ironing done for about 30 cents per item, what ever the bill was I tripled it for our housekeeper.
Booked Dolphin tour with Putu Ria Agus Wirawan got recommended here on forum, found him on facebook, got us into dolphins when nobody elso could. He then came to our villa and we booked driver for the day and water sports with him, great contact, very good prices, safe cars with seat belts and good english speaking drivers.
Stayed at Mara River for one night, booked it with Agoda, no problems here and cost of the night equals entrance, dont know why more people dont do this, Got there at 10am and because we stayed there no entrance fee, left our bags at reception and went around the park, checked in at 2pm - checkout 12 the next day, so we got 2 full days at the park, price includes breakfast, photo, and day safari ride. Elephant rides must be pre booked which you did not have to do last year. Night safari not as good as last year as animals are not hungry.
Dolphins was an experience my kids 5 & 7 will never forget, great opportunity for the conservation talk and they will pass this on to their class for news.
We did Bali orchid Garden, entrance was 250,000 rp for family, way over priced, did buy some orchids and hope to get them to grow here. I paid 50,000 for quarantine certificate which was delivered to Villa but quarantine officer in Perth said paper is useless, dont need it and they go by a visual inspection only, must be clear bottle, no colour in the plants and full botanical label.
New Kuta Green Park (Water Park) is not in Kuta grrrr it is near Nusa, but good value for money 100,000 rp p.p. for children maybe 7 and under very quite compared to waterbom and smaller rides.
Waterbom park great value for all day, 15% discounts everywhere on the street near it.
Burong Bird park, this is quite good, cost about 400,000 rp.
more later.