Sunday 1st February, we have a 7.30pm flight from Darwin to Bali. We are now flying Jetstar. We booked with Air North in September, a few days later I read on the forum that from 31st January Air North would no longer fly to Bali. Apparently Qantas who did a code share with Air North were stopping the code share. Jetstar would now fly Darwin to Bali. We rang Air North and were told that they would get back to us within a week. Three weeks later I rang again, I was told to ring Jetstar as all passengers had been transferred to them. I ask for a reservation number, I'm told they don't have one as it's a bulk booking. I ring Jetstar, sorry we can't help you, we don't know anything about this. This went on until the 1st December, I came home and received a phone call saying I would now get an email with our new Jetstar booking.
We had booked a full service flight with Air North, our new booking stated that food and drinks would be available for purchase on the flight. I then went to have a look at our flight on Jetstar only to find that the current cost was about half of what we had paid for Air North. The only good thing was that when our son decided he couldn't go to Bali with us I rang Air North and not Jetstar, I told them that my son had decided that he didn't want to fly with Jetstar and wanted a refund. I was told that the refund would come back to my credit card within 2 weeks, one week later I had the refund.
So here we are flying with Jetstar, lucky again no one has been given the third seat. Also the flight leaves 15 minutes early. We stretch out glad that we only have a 2 hour 20 minute flight. Next thing the stewardess arrives and hands us both a comfort pack, we wonder why. A few minutes later they are back again with trolley service. When they get to us we aren't asked what we would like to purchase, we are given a choice of meals, we must have looked at her with blank looks because she goes on to say that as we are Qantas code share passengers. We get a meal and soft drink or tea or coffee, (we just eat the salad from the meal as we plan to get something to eat after landing). Obviously some one who had the same problem as us must have complained about the cost and inclusions.
We land in a wet Bali, there must have been a recent downpour. As we are in seat 5 we are off quickly, At VOA we hand over US$50.00 and we are second through to the baggage area. All very fast and no hassles. Whoops, what did I say, it isn't until I am asked to open the locked suitcase that I see the white chalk cross on the lid. (We are going to Tamu Seseh in Canggu tomorrow, they have emailed me their menu & breakfast was really expensive for Bali. The brochure said we were welcome to self cater.) As we never eat much for breakfast at home I have packed two packs of the 10 small packs of breakfast cereal in our suitcase. This is what they are after, I explain that it's cereal, the customs officer decides he needs to open it. He opens a pack and then one small pack, all the other packs go all over the desk. I had great visions of him opening all of them but he didn't.
Finally we are outside and into a taxi. We are going to Ray & Robyn's apartment at the Jayakarta Hotel. What great value this apartment is AU$55.00 per night, we are only here for one night but we are really impressed. We are met by Putu as Ray had advised, he is fantastic young man, he couldn't do enough for us. We quickly lose the suitcases and set Joe & Flo free to enjoy the apartment (Joe is still not feeling great after his Darwin experience) as we head out to Blue Ocean for our first Bintang, vietnamese spring rolls and satay. We sit and people watch for while and I realise that I am really glad we didn't cancel, it's good to be back.
Tomorrow our adventure begins, we have booked a hire car and I am driving as H has rarely driven manual cars and never driven in bali. First we will head to Carrefour to pick up some supplies. We then head to Canggu for 6 nights and from there we will go to Amed for 8 nights.
Will I ever drive in Bali again, probably not, why??, there is more to come.....