Hi forum, We have been back about a week from our 10 night trip to Bali and we miss it already. We took our 2 daughters ( 4 years old and 5 months old) and stayed at the Bali Hai Resort Tuban in a Kiddy Suite. This was a great hotel and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Breakfasts were really good, pool was nice except for when we got there it was a green pool, then there was this algae stuff in it then the pool was crystal blue??? only complaint from hubby was the main pool was very deep and quite hard for a non swimmer like myself to get to the pool bar ( on the odd occasion there was a spot there) The only thing with our room compared to others in the hotel we saw was that our walls were very dirty, but no big deal. the kiddy suites are a lot smaller than most rooms but plenty of space for us 4, we had a cot in the main room and also the matteress from the bunk beds for our daughter as she had bats painted on the walls in the kids section and couldnt sleep in there, we still had room to move and put all our shopping. All up a nice hotel with beautiful grounds. Next year we are planning to stay a little nearer to Kuta though just for our own convenience.
We did plenty of shopping, bought around 150 dvds from Helgie and Bali gong, all have worked so far and have been good quality. Bought lots of wood from Geneva ( great place..Huge!!) On the last day we decided to buy a few more wood items and cushion covers from Legian.. next time we will go back to Geneva as they just wont match those prices. Bought a 1mx1.5m oil painting and a matching 0.5mx 1m painting from stall near Art Markets, they were great in there.. so many to choose from and they keep pulling more out when they know what your interested in ( could have bought heaps)the 2 cost about $90 AUS which was a bargain, probably could have got it for less but we were happy to pay that. Also if you see the table runners that are made from like chunky twigs, its ok to bring them home. We did and customs checked it and said that 6 months ago you couldnt bring them in but they have changed it.
Shopped in the Discovery Mall ( mainly a few Ripcurl items from Centro, Bintang shop and Martha Tilaar products, try the bread shop at the entrance, they are really good) Went to Matahari in Kuta and Denpasar ( Kids Clothes) Bought heaps of watches(25,000) sunnies(30,000) necklaces ( 7000) Billabong tshirts and shorts ( 30,000) LV bags (60,000 - 75,000) Found it very difficult to get that sort of price for Chanel bags though.Bought Balinese outfit for daugther from Denpasar markets for 75,000 its beautiful, red top with pink skirt and sash with gold embroidery. I struggled to find Dora the explorer stuff in kuta, heaps at Denpasar markets. We found that at the begining of June it was very quiet. we walked in to the Kuta Art markets and there was only 2 other tourists in there which lead to full onslaught from sellers..good fun though.
Used metered Blue taxi's and the odd white cab..all were fine and cheap. i love the way you can just decide to go somewhere, turn around and there's a cab waiting for you.
Ate at Pantai ( fantastic location) Bubba gumps ( bit pricy) Green Garden, Kunyit ( we had the balinese banquet which was lovely, beautiful resturant and food) Bamboo Corner ( so Cheap and great food) Poco Loco's, Indo National (very busy place) Legends, and our favourite Papa's Cafe ( beautiful resturant and food) All the toliets we went to were fine, they were no worse than the public toliets here in Perth and some were lovely ( pap's and Kunyit).
We went to the Elephant park at Taro and did the rides. Highly recomend this tour.
Went to Melasti Spa for their 3 hour package...wonderful experience ( love the black nappy pants) i felt like i was floating out the door.
Eldest daughter loved the bungy thing outside waterbom park and went on it 4 times. the baby was fine in Bali and slept alot during the day when she was allowed to. Ive never experienced such feeling from people ( old and young, male and female ) for babies as the balinese. everyone we passed made comments to her, looked at her, held her, played with her chubby cheeks. In centro we had all the girls that worked there holding and passing her around ( she loved the attention) It was lovely to see. Next time i wont be as over cautious with taking every medical item under the sun as we never used it and if we needed it there were plenty of good pharmacies. With bubs bottles we just washed them with detergant and boiling water from the kettle ( the room kettled boiled that hot it would kill anything) and used bottled water to make formula, we used the waterless antibacterial stuff religiously for us and the kids and we never got sick once.
We had a fantastic time and are counting down the days till we can book again. the mood over there is relaxed and fun and a million miles away from all the media hype, i wish i had bought more as we were suprisingly under on our weight allowance. We flew with Garuda and would definatly use them again. We got the bassinette on both trips which was a great help ( we got to the airport 3 hours early and were the first ones to check in to guarentee them)
All we can finish with is that We love Bali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And thank you to all the formites that gave us the fantastic and helpul information here on the forum that helped make our trip so good!!:)