Returned home from Bali on Saturday after a 8 day stay at the Hard Rock Hotel.
The HR is a lovely big hotel, awesome swimming pools and has a great entertainment venue 'Centre Stage' with fantastic bands playing nightly. Very expensive to drink in there however, small Bintang Rp.50,000 + tax.
Wasn't super impressed with our room, a deluxe premium. Quite small, no balcony to sit out and relax on and the bathroom wasn't really that clean. Not the standard I expected of the HR considering the price per night. Corridors outside the rooms tended to get a bit noisy at night with people returning from the Kuta night life. Room service was great, food lovely though quite pricey although I kind of expected that anyway.
Breakfast was delicious, ton's to choose from and the breakfast area is lovely and cool.
Dined at the Hard Rock Café a couple of times too, great food but pricey. Dinner for 3 of us, 2 Bintangs and 3 soft drinks (no entrees or desserts) came to around Rp.850,000.
Not a negative word to say about any of the HR staff. All were just lovely and friendly and helped me along while I attempted to chat to them in Bahasa Indonesian. Had a great laugh with them, particularly two of the pool staff, Netta and FBI.
We usually stay in quiet old Sanur so Kuta was (way) out of my comfort zone. Not really for me but I can understand the attraction if you're into the night life. Bit too busy and full on for us lot.
Our first 4 days were spent doing some shopping around Kuta but as it was pretty hot (got very lucky with the weather) most of the time was spent in the pool and generally relaxing and chilling out.
Day 5 we decided to take Master 12 over to the Circus Water Park to check it out (we planned on a big full day out at Water Bom the next day). Dead as a door nail there. I think there were (maybe) 5 other people in the whole park. It is quite small however. Very cheap entry fee, Rp.60,000 each I think it was. Locker and towel hire cheap too. This is where our holiday turned for the worse. My hubby and Master 12 flipped over on the inflatable boat(?) coming down one of the slides and hubby was slammed full force into the side of the slide landing heavily on his shoulder. He was in a great amount of pain and was whisked (hobbled) off to the First Aid room. The attendants there took good care of him while we waited for a taxi to take us to BIMC in Kuta. To cut a long story short he broke his collar bone and we spent the remainder of our trip pretty much hotel room bound.
The staff at BIMC were excellent. He was seen to very quickly, had x-rays, set up with a sling and sorted out with pain killers and anti-inflammatory drugs and we were on our way back to the HR within 1.5 hrs. We had travel insurance but had to pay approximately $180 up front which we are in the process of claiming back.
It's looking like we will have an ongoing claim, loss of income etc. as hubby is now unable to work because he can't lift anything heavy (which is what his job here at home requires). Fingers crossed it all works out well. He has had further x-rays since our return and it turns out he also has pneumonia. Geez!
Master 12 also came down with a nasty stomach bug within 12 hours of arriving home. Severe headaches, vomiting, high temperatures (40c) and ended up in hospital for a few hours to be re-hydrated. I thought it might be Dengue Fever and have been checking him endlessly for the tell-tale rash but the doc's here at home think it was a stomach virus of some kind. He has slept the last few days away inbetween being woken for panadol and water.
All in all not the wonderful trip to Bali we had been so looking forward to but the good bits were good and we will still return, but probably head back over to our beloved Sanur next time.