JBR 25/12/10 - 29/12/10 Myself & 7yr old
19/1/11 - 26/1/11 The Family
Will do a combined JBR of the two trips. In the months approaching Xmas my 7yr old and I decided we would like to go to Bali over Xmas. Hubby didn't want to go & the 4 yr old wanted to stay with daddy so it was negotiated that as my husband went on a week's fishing trip to Darwin in October we would do our Bali trip. Hubby quite happy to agree before his fishing trip but changed his tune closer to Xmas - too late!! We've already booked.
We have been going up to Bali 3 - 4 x a year with the cheap AA flights from Perth and I usually book with their sales up to a year in advance paying between $89 - $150 return for the flights. As we booked much later for the Xmas trip and it was peak time we paid a heck of a lot more for the flights. There was actually quite a reasonable fare going up with Strategic on the 24th, but as I wanted to be at home on Xmas morning for our 4yr old's benefit, paid a lot more to fly out with Virgin on their midday flight Xmas Day. A few weeks before departure, just after I booked, they changed the flight to a evening flight. Not happy with that so changed to the Jetstar 10am flight. Meant an earlier start Xmas morning, leaving home at 7am but arriving just after lunch. We were away for one week, 4 nights in Bali and then on to Singapore for 3 nights including NYE. Booked 4n at the Baleka Hotel in Rum Jungle Rd.
Our trip in January was all of us: 2A, 3C - 4, 7 & 17yrs which I'd booked last March in the AA sale for 7 nights. We were a little limited in choice of hotels that would accommodate 5 of us comfortably in one room for a reasonable cost. Ended up booking a Loft room thru Qantas Holidays at the Hard Rock Hotel. Have never considered staying here before as I always considered it a high risk target for possible attacks but came down to a choice of what was available for what we wanted to pay and also because we have such an age difference we thought there might be more there for the 17yr old to do.
Flights: Jetstar - great. Left on time - arrived early. As we'd had to book an expensive Jetflex fare we'd got to choose our seats and had Row 3 with a spare seat.
Air Asia - fine as usual. (after flying home from Singapore at Xmas with Singapore A/lines the 7yr old was none too happy about going back to budget flying with none of the perks - he had no idea you could get all that stuff on a plane!!)
As usual we booked the front row, I think there's heaps more room here and I don't have to worry about the kids banging the seat in front the whole way. We left on the 4.50am flight which left early and landed early just after 8am ‘parking' at the terminal.
Both times we were out of the airport within 15mins and on the way to our hotels.
BALEKA - this is a budget hotel and we'd booked a Deluxe Room. I wasn't expecting much at all, just hoping for a clean room. I'd booked budget in Bali and 4 ½ - 5 * in Singapore because if you pick right, budget in Bali can be ok but is usually REALLY bad in Singapore. We were VERY pleasantly surprised by the Baleka. Our room was newly refurbished. No balcony as such but as you go in the front glass doors you are in a separate room from the bedroom with doors that shut off. To the left was a large sun bed/lounge and coffee table. To the right is a dining table and kitchette with fridge, bench, sink and microwave from memory. There is also a TV in this room. Then thru to a large bedroom with another TV & DVD player. This leads to a storage/cupboard/dressing table area. Then into a large bathroom with a full bath and then into a semi-open shower.
The hotel is in lovely surrounds. Nice pool that whilst not overly big was plenty big enough for the people there.
The deluxe rooms are clearly the best and worth the little bit extra money. I could see into some of the other rooms ‘superior' and they were tiny and very old - I personally wouldn't have been happy with one of them - footnote: on returning to show my husband in January, ½ of these rooms from just before the start of the pool down to the other end had all been knocked down to make way for building of new rooms. The girl said it should be finished by June.
No B/F included here but we went around the corner to Tommy's most mornings and also down to what was the ?Foo Kin pub, which is now a restaurant which did a good B/F as well.
HARD ROCK HOTEL - strongly considered changing our stay here for January but very glad we didn't. As my husband said, I think this is the best hotel we've ever stayed at. We arrived early by 9am. We went to check-in obviously not expecting to get our room but at least drop our bags and let them know we'd arrived.
Staff very impressive and welcoming from the get-go. Handed over my accommodation voucher and he said you've booked a Loft room. I said that's correct unless you've got 2 x I/C rooms available. (depending on the cost we were maybe going to upgrade to this for more room). After a few minutes fiddling on the computer he came back and said he'd upgraded us to a kids suite. Well, that's great I said, thanks very much! He asked if I wanted to check the rooms first - uh, uh, - I'd seen them online so I knew what a good deal it was! He was apologetic that room wasn't going to be ready till 11am (are you kidding me - checkin's not even supposed to be till 2pm!) Off we went to check out the kids club - 7 yr old wanted to stay here right away - and then the rest of us went to P1 to get some B/F.
Back to the hotel ~ 10.45 to see if room was ready - he said no, ha ha , just kidding - your room's ready now. Great! Amazing service, then... printing off our room keys he says ‘ we've got you in the kids suite for tonight then tomorrow you move to the Loft room you've booked' - What the?? I said ‘Why would we do that?' ‘That's not what you said to me before'. I said why would we unpack only to move again tomorrow? I've got no problem being given the room category we'd booked but if they're going to move us anyway why wouldn't we just go straight into the Loft room, no point having a kids suite for 1n no matter how good it is. Ok, wait please. A few more minutes of phone calls and he came back and said no, you can stay in kids suite for your entire stay - whewww! (I think there'd been a rethink while we'd been out about the upgrade. I didn't get upset about it but just said I didn't see the point of moving after 1n - may as well go straight into whatever room we were having for our week's stay). We were then taken straight to our room.
It was amazing. Brand-newly refurbished large suite room. Small bathroom just inside front door with toilet/shower. Thru to a cubicle ‘kids' section that had bunks, beanbag, chair, tv/playstation and all sorts of other extras like: toys, books, kick-boards, swim goggles and lots of other kids items. Into large lounge area with dining table, long day bed ~10ft long that teenager slept on, and huge plasma tv. There were then heavy sliding doors that once shut you couldn't hear a thing thru which went thru to a large bedroom. Another huge plasma tv in here, shelves, cupboards, dressing table etc.. Then into a large bathroom that had full-size bath, separate shower and toilet. The room was amazing and nothing to fault about it.
There is a small balcony with is standing room only but just enough to step outside for some fresh air and handy if you're a smoker. The wing we were in was undergoing refurbishment but it is boarded off and we didn't hear a thing. Never heard the bands playing downstairs in our room, very quiet.
We found the whole hotel amazing. We've stayed in lots of different hotels in Bali, sometimes at the same hotel more than once, but mostly move around. This would definitely be one of the best hotels we've stayed at anywhere in the world that ticked all our boxes for this trip. Kids club was good, B/F was really good, pool area is amazing and can see why it's considered one of the best in Bali. Huge with lots of different areas. A new kiddy section over the far side. Lots of different sections including a ‘sand beach' and 5 water slides for the kids. Yes, a security guard does check your bag on the way into the pool (no outside food/drinks) but I don't have a problem with this, that's pretty standard for big hotels.
Every staff member from lowest to highest greeted you with a smile and hello around the resort. There are two entrances to the hotel, the main one and also a side entrance from 10am - 10pm which comes out near Starbucks across from KFC.
Of course, food and drinks are quite expensive in the hotel but no more so than any other similar standard accommodation. Mug of Bintang 48k ++ (buy 2 get 1 free), frozen daquari 99k ++. Pizza 89k ++. Coke 25k ++.
This has gotten very long-winded (as usual!) so will stop now and put the rest into another JBR!