Destination: Bali
Airline: Air Asia
Hotel: Royal Tulip Springhill resort
The journey from the Maldives was smooth. We checked out early from the Adaaran Prestige Vadoo and had the option to leave the island at 1pm or 6pm. Our flight was at 9pm and we had to checkout of the hotel at 12pm so we jumped on the 1pm speedboat off the island.
It was rainy and the waves crashed fiercely against the boat, however with 10 guests departing at the same time, we weighed the boat down perfectly. Within 10mins we were back at the Male Velena international airport.
We spent time in the airport, enjoyed lunch/dinner at Burger King and waited for our flight.
If you want an airport that will get you through to the gate in 30mins, this is the airport for you. Boarding the plane we knew the flight would be roughly 4 hours… so yes… the sleep occurred now.
Being the last flight out, the connecting flight onto Bali would be a 5hour transfer time. We therefore had to go through security, customs and bag drop!!! LONNGGGGGG! But we found a Burger King, that wouldn’t serve us 👀 and sat and rested in there. We later found a McDonalds that mainly served meat breakfasts, but we made it work.
Check-in for the KL to Bali flight was stressful. We had to self-register and get our boarding passes before joining the bag drop queue.
NEVER EVER BOOK YOUR FLIGHTS VIA KIWI.COM. Our joint booking was actually under 2 bookings, meaning we could not pool our baggage allowance and we weren’t sitting together. What manner of foolishness is this?! They were lucky the bag drop man took pity on us and that there ended up being no-one sitting next to us. This was an absolute nonsense.
Landing at Bali was simply, but for some reason Air Asia has a tendency to leave or land late… EVERYTIME!! They must have to pay a lot of fines.
We were picked up by the hotel transport and took our 20min transfer to the hotel. What a hotel it was!
The Royal Tulip Springhill Jimbaran is a 5* hotel built in 2016 and is stunning. From the marble glass bathroom to the oak fixtures and the balcony with the second sofa, yes, I’m here for it!
Food
We stayed at the hotel on a B&B basis, but also experienced dinner.
Breakfast is… interesting. The fresh orange juice tastes just like squash, but there’s also a squash option. The bread was cardboard, and the hot food included stir fried egg noodles, stir fried rice, roast pumpkin and BBQ roast chicken. Let’s just say we had an experimental breakfast experience overall.
Basil and Thyme Restaurant (Dinner)
It must have been a quiet season for hotel, as the restaurant was always empty in the evenings. The service was slow, but the food was well presented and tasted great. We tried the pan-seared salmon and veggie burger which were both great. D had the Chicken burger, which was not as expected… fried with no breadcrumbs 👀 It is safe to awesome that she never ordered that again.
Batur Sari Resto
This restaurant was experienced as part of our full day volcano excursion. A restaurant at the edge of the volcano offering Indonesian and Indian buffet style food. It was tasty, but every dish was ready to blow your face off with red hot chilli peppers. If you don’t like spicy food… beware!! *🤯
Excursions
Kintamani Volcano VW Safari Bali Tour
We had a lovely guide called Eddie. The journey is in a drop-top vintage VW safari 4×4 car. It was at least 30degrees, so the beating down of the sun was a bit much after 2.5hrs drive. Thankfully the roof can be pulled out to shield you from the rays. This tour is great, from the Luwak Coffee tasting (CatPooChino – as known by the locals 😉), to all the temples, local artists shops, wood carving shops and the rice fields we covered a lot in this 10hr day.
Bali Monkey Forest, Mengwi Temple and Tanah Lot Afternoon Tour
This was an afternoon tour starting at 1.30pm. If we were to do it again, we’d opt for the morning as it’s still a 7hr tour.
This was again an amazing day seeing the sites. The Tanah Lot Temple is a must. A temple dug out of the rocks in the sea. We saw the sunsetting around it… the pictures don’t even give it justice. Now the monkey Forest is hilarious. Even the shop owners have a currency with the monkeys… they steal the clothing and the shopkeepers have to give them snacks as a way of getting the items back. It was amazing to watch and one of the ladies explained that to get a pair of sunglasses back it’s around 5 packs of crisps! 🤣They are too much.
Overall
The hotel was amazing, the excursions were perfect, and our time here was not enough. Bali we will be back. We were told that Jimbaran where we stayed was the luxury hotels area… if you plan to backpack Ubud is apparently the place to stay.
The journey continues, see you in Sydney✈
Leave a Reply