Me (7th time), friend - first time, my mum - first time, and my two children (6 & 8 ).
9 nights - Sanur, Ubud and Legian.
1st part Sanur
Well, each trip gets better and better and I loved watching the newbies (such as my son, mum and friend) faces as they got to see Bali for the first time. We flew with Jetstar from Brisbane via Darwin to Bali. Now that I take my children (first time taking both) I will always source a direct flight - it wasn't that bad but too long for the kids I believe. The video on demand units are a must - used them on both flights and the kids were kept occupied.
So lucky for us that our plane came in first out of 5 planes so it took us approx 20 mins to get though VOA . Yeah!
First four nights were spent at the Griya Santrian - I used Made - Aussie Bemo (out front of Dynasty) - he had a big Van enough to accommodate 5 of us plus luggage and pretty much used him for the whole trip - kids loved him - wonderful man.( thanks Ron). Now - my first change for next time is that if we get in late - I will book a cheaper alternative for accommodation as we did not get in to the room till about 10.30pm and it's a bit of a waste to pay all that money for a few hours. That's what I'll try next time - obviously each to their own.
The Griya is awesome - can't fault this place - it cost us approx $ 1,365 for four nights for two rooms. We stayed in the garden rooms and the whole place is lovely. We ate at the place, and a couple of the restaurants one each side. I love the food in Bali (just look at my husband face when I came home a lot bigger than normal)- each meal was lovely. We shopped a few times in Hardy's - love the supermarket and upstairs you can get some good bargains on shoes. They helped us out on a mobile phone - bought my own but it died a few days later so bought a new Nokia (about $45) there. Got a Bali sim - don't do what we did - first day used the +61 to call home and used up all our 100,00 credit in 2 calls - went back got more credit - listened to what they told us and the other 100,000 credit lasted us up till the last phone call on the last night. Excellent way to do it.
I love the beachfront at Sanur - the restaurants with the beach chairs on the sand. The only downer of the place is the Sindhu Beach markets - those women are sooo persuasive. They don't leave you alone. We checked out Toot Sie's (fixed priced) then had an idea of prices and went to a couple of the others ladies that latched onto us..I rest assured my mum and friend that this is the only place that they seem to follow you until you give in. Still it was nice to share the shopping around.
Because it was a quick trip (9 days just not long enough though it's hard to get more time off) didn't get to do a lot of things I planned - Tupperware was out - teeth fixing was out..so may sneak in another trip to do all this.. (that will go down wellwith Hubby ...NOT).
Hatten wines...really enjoyed the sweet Hatten wine even over a couple of days. Lovely taste and cost approx 110,000 per bottle. My friend had 'Singjara?' wine tasted okay first day though bottle smelt like a sewer..but next day was a bit offy...
Loved Sanur, really was interested in what my friends would think about the different places...that to come. After 4 lovely nights - off to Ubud, once there I did regret the decision...more to come.
Thanks for reading :-)