JHR - Day 1 - Saturday 21st August
Woke up early Saturday morning to fly with Strategic to Bali from Perth with 2 kids (2 and 8), my mother and of course the lovely mrs.
We are a little bit manic when it comes to airports and we like to get there way earlier than necessary, this time made a little easier as a friend was flying out to Singapore at a similar time so plan was to meet up for breakfast. So we arrived at Perth airport for our 9am flight at 5.30, time went quickly though and we enjoyed a coffee before checking in.
As we were first to check in I was able to get row 7 so I happily took our boarding passes and went easily through customs, claimed the TRS on my recently purchased iphone and ipad and went through to meet up with our friend for breakfast. Unfortunately though she was running late and breakfast never eventuated, all we saw of her was a mad dash onto her flight as they were doing final boarding call.
Boarding took place at 8.30 and we were amazed with the leg room and comfort of the seats in row 7. Sitting right behind business class does have its drawbacks though, the TV was too close to be viewable and we had curtains drawn across in front of us the whole time which was a little annoying. Food was probably the worst I've ever seen on a plane, they had a breakfast fry up but it was probably closer to "Fried up digested 3 day old breakfast" if you get my drift... needless to say, I enjoyed my OJ and sent the rest on it's way. Other than the food, the staff were great, flight was uneventful and enjoyable and I would not hesitate flying with them, much better comfort than Garuda and having an aussie pilot makes me feel a lot more comfortable.
My 2 year old decided he really didn't want to sleep so we struggled for 45 minutes trying to get him to settle, finally did so but an hour in, the little sh*ts across from us with their european parents decided that controlling their children on the flight was not for them, needless to say we fought for the rest of the fight to keep our little man asleep.
Arrived at DPS at 12.45, only 5 minutes late and was worried after all of the scare mongering here on BTF, the previous 5 times I thought maybe we had just been lucky previously and today was going to be hell all wound up into one arrivals lounge.... Well, I was wrong.... We were first off the plane and first off our flight into the arrivals lounge due to good planning and a little luck on securing row 7 on the plane. I went straight to the VOA purchase line, paid $150 AUD for 5 people, while the wife, mother and children all waited in an immigration line. Their was maybe 25 or so people in front of them but the line was moving quickly, maybe 15-20 minutes? And a lot of them had not purchased VOA prior to going to immigration so the line was moving very quickly... anyway, again a stroke of luck and the guy at the crew line pointed to us and waved us over, so within 5 minutes we were waiting for our bags.
We had arranged for hotel pickup by the Hard Rock which we eventually found and although it is not the cheapest way to do it, I find it stress free and saves going in a smaller taksi. We arrived at the Hard Rock within half an hour of landing and as this was our 4th visit to the Hard Rock, the staff all recognised us once we arrived into the check in area and we received a free upgrade to two deluxe rooms instead of the standard rooms we had booked. We received room 3310 and 3312 and I have found them to be excellent, very clean, in good working order, great location, couldn't be happier.
Following check in we walked to our usual money changer and got loaded with Rupiah, gave my mother a quick orientation around Kuta and then came back to the hotel for a much needed swim.
I had phoned Ultimo to make a reservation and they told me that unfortunately they were all booked up for the night but to come anyway and they would try and seat us (Surely they are either booked our or they are not??)
6pm comes and we arrived at Ultimo for an early dinner, the food was great although my meal came out about 5 minutes after everybodys else which was a bit off putting, and while I had asked for Extra Red Wine Jus, i had received actually none, so by the time this was all sorted I was frankly over it and everybody else had finished, so I quickly ate and finished up.... Don't get me wrong, I am a huge Ultimo fan and it is still probably my favourite restaurant in Bali but they seem to be slowly slipping from their former glory?
Wow this has ended up to be longer than I had planned it to be.... If you're still with me, thanks for reading! :)
More tomorrow (Seminyak, Losing my mother & children, Shopping in Kuta)