The best way to get good value is to book everything yourself. I’ve made a few attempts to get a good deal via Flight Center and what they were offering was way too expensive. Then I started searched hotels and flights on Internet and after spending couple of nights in front of computer got us a pretty good deal. The biggest issue was to understand which hotel is good and which one is not. TripAdviser.com was a real helper. Basically my rules for using this site are.
- Look if there are enough reviews. Small number if reviews means you can not get more or less complete understanding of how good this hotel is.
- Reading good or bad review try to turn on your common sense to understand if it is genuine. Some reviews are definitely fake. I suspect there is a lot of adverting bullshit on Trip Adviser but is still can be used as a tool to avoid really bad hotels.
For us the biggest mistake was not getting Indonesian visa in Australia. After your plane arrival you are facing a good one hour or so in a long queue inside not well air conditioned, crowded and noisy Denpasar airport. So get visa in Australia and your holiday start on Bali won’t be so disappointing.
Advertisement
We stayed in hotel Melia Benoa that claims to be 5 star though I wouldn’t give them more than 4. It is located close to Nusa Dua (were all fancy 5-stars hotels are) but is not as expensive as hotels in Nusa Dua itself. Service was exceptional, food was good, beach could be better. Alcohol is extremely expensive! Local wine is a disaster and for Australian you will pay around $40 for something that would normally costs under $10 in Dun Murphy. We managed to get a few bottles through custom which saved us probably couple of hundreds. at least local beer is alright.
The best way do not loose to much on currency exchange rate is to pay by credit card wherever it is safe to do so. Checking my bank statements after coming home I’ve discovered that exchange rate on all credit card purchases was much better than those I was getting when exchanging cache. Especially if you try to exchange money in the airport.
After couple of days having lunch and dinner in hotel restaurants we discovered better and cheaper options outside. Just get a taxi (we paid $40 for half a day or $10 return to closest town) and enjoy cheap food , massages and shops. We were a bit cautious going to resturants outside hotel but I can tell you quality and service were really good.
Don’t forget to leave some Indonesian money when departing. They’ve got this ridiculous law when you need to pay for your exit from Indonesia. Don’t remember how the stuff you pay for called but without it you can not board the plane. I had to run back through whole airport to ATM to get some money.
EmoticonEmoticon