Bali Fun

We had an absolutely fantastic time in Bali. We arrived at the airport late on Thursday night, and taxied it to our hotel - The Hard Rock Hotel in Kuta. I cannot speak more highly of a hotel that is completely family friendly, fun, clean and not too expensive. We paid more than usual - 120 dollars a night for a family room (two double beds inside), but chose this in favor of the cheaper hotels as it has an amazing pool and kids club. For 25 dollars per child, no matter how long you stay at the hotel, they can be looked after from between 9am - 6pm with heaps of fun activities, like cooking, dancing, wall climbing, arts and crafts etc (we only really took advantage for a few hours a day for the activities the girls wanted to do - we went shopping round the markets and sat in lovely cafe bars enjoying purely adult time!) They also get a free breakfast and lunch and free drinks 24 hours as Lil Rock members. This saved us a a heap of money as the girls waste so much food and drink when we are away - it didn't matter if they only had a sip of this or that here. (I know, waste is bad, but it's a reality).

The pool was enormous - and had a central beach island with gradual entry into the pools. I love having sand under my feet in a pool - it's so soft! The girls could build sandcastles and get thoroughly covered in sand, and then jump into clean off in the gorgeous pools.
The girls also loved the giant inflatable turtles that they could float around the whole pool on.

Every afternoon at 4pm there was a 'beach party' for the 'Lil Rocks' where Annalise and Juliette danced to the Macarena and YMCA and other cheesy songs whilst Andrew and I supped beers at the sunken pool bar!! They also had doughnut and melon eating compeitions, tug of war, soccer etc games on the island. Lots of fun!

And the great thing about swimming every day is that at the end of the day, the girls were EXHAUSTED!!

Andrew managed to complete his latest Masters essay whilst sitting at the pool - how many people can say they were doing their Masters whilst supping beer at a pool in Bali?!

The hotel had great bands playing in the pub, and some good eateries (although they were more expensive than many others in the area) and it was on the beachfront so we only had to walk 50 metres to the really rather pleasant beach of Kuta. There were hundreds of touts which is the only drawback, but Annalise got her hair braided for next to nothing whilst Juliette and I paddled in the warm waves.

We had a gorgeous afternoon and night with Jane & Ricky and Tyla in their villa that they own near Seminyak - oh my goodness, it's beautiful. They put on a wonderful BBQ for us and it was just beautiful sitting in the open air lounge, overlooking rice paddies and whiling away the hours with great conversation. We wil truly miss this wonderful family - our NJIS soul mates!

The last two nights out of the seven, we moved hotels (The Hard Rock was fully booked) to a hotel we knew of from our single days. 'The Bounty'. Now, this was 60 dollars a night and known as the party hotel for young people which was slightly worrying, but it was actually brilliant! The pool was great, a sunken bar pool as well so Andrew was happy! And the restaurant had good food. The pool and bar was open 24hrs, which could have been bad, but meant that in the morning up till lunch time, we had the pool basically to ourselves as the young guests were all sleeping off the previous night's sessions!

We met up with Caroline (NJIS) & Freddy who were staying in Bali too for one night which was fantastic. We all ate our last Indonesian meal - pretty yummy really! And look how well presented it was!

The girls had a great time, we managed to relax and it was a super way of ending our time in Indonesia.

I have heaps of beautiful photos on my new phone but it beats me how to get them off and onto this blog. I will have to go into a phone shop and ask for help!