7 Days in Bali - Days from Ubud and relaxing time in Sanur.
Indonesia
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Jul 31 - Aug 7, 2023
The trip was very well organised overall. There was good communication and documentation collection before I left for Bali, (such as pre arranging the visa on arrival ), good. My driver (from the airport up and to Ubud and Sanur ) was Supartha who was friendly, helpful, knowledgeable and reliable. He always made sure I was clear about everything and double checked arrangements through Whatsapp . The VW 'Safari Tour' driver was Agul. He was great and nothing was too much trouble for him in terms of me wanting to stop for taking photos wherever and whenever I wanted.
My main concern is the Mount Batur trip that was planned for me. I had already made it clear that I need to knopw the level of difficulty for this trek and was told that it was doable, even for my age. In reality, in my opinion, it was not. There were hords of people, which already made the pathway clogged and put pressure on me to keep moving, (so that those behind me to make progress /pass by) The climb, after around 2.5 km, left the road and became very steep and rocky, a scramble up loose rocks. This was not easy and I felt there was a real risk of tripping and causing injury;-many walkers were falling and grazing themselves in front of my eyes. I decided not to continue, although my guide tried to encourage me to continue, but kindly without forcing the issue. So, in the end, I sat on a rock for almost two hours, halfway up with the guide and several others who also could n't make it.
There are not guide ropes or warnings about saftey on this path. In future I recommend you clearly state that this walk is for fairly experenced trekkers and will be challenging. (I have trekked a lot in the UK in rencent years, and I would say this is far harder than described in by Kimkim).
If I knew about the climb before hand, I would have cancelled this part and looked for an alternative activity-This part of my trip was a waste of money and time.
The trip to Nusa Penida was enjoyable and to snorkelling with manta rays was truly memorable and amazing.
However, this trip was not exactly as stipulated in my itinerary as it was a group tour and not private as I had thought. There was no mangrove trip either, as outlined originally. I let this be known to Ana who was apologetic and arranged a free compensatory dinner in my hotel in Sanur, which I kindly accepted. I later enquired to do the mangrove tour myself from my Sanur hotel, but I was told this trip is not running now, since Covid - I would have thought KimKim tours would have known this, if this is in fact true.
Thank you for the trip and I hope the feedback is useful.
Hotel Review
The place is very nice and extremely relaxed. I found the rooms more basic than I had hoped, but comfortable. The noise from others in adjecent rooms is an issue, one can hear every word spoken by the occupants in the rooms next to and below. I would tell your guests that this could be anissue. The pool was very nice and so was the gorgeous setting for the cottages. Breakfast was poor in my opinion as the taste was not good, the sausages were disgusting and the curry I ordered was tasteless. I did nt tell them this as I did want to upset the staff. A nice place overall, but not as good as it looks on the internet!~
Activity Reviews
Please see previous comments.
I have already posted in my general comments
I already made my comments in the generla comment section.
Hello dear Laurence,
Thank you for your review. I really appreciate it, every guest is different and has different expectations, so having a wide spectrum of reviews helps me improve a lot.
I hope to welcome you in Indonesia again!
All the best,
Ana