The Halcyon Villas Bali

My wife and I booked this villa sight unseen off the vrbo website. We had had a tiring 2019 and a taxing Christmas / New Year period, so we wanted somewhere quiet where we could unwind for a week or so. Our 26 year old son and his fiancé joined us on this holiday, so it was 2 couple in a 3 bedroom villa. This place was perfect. The precise villa was Villa Lily, Jimbaran Jalan Karang Mas, Bali 8036. It cost AUD$168 per night for 8 nights = $1496. It was exactly what we hoped for. The villa was in a secure compound and was walled off from other villas. In the centre of our compound was a beautifully clean swimming pool - a word of caution if you have young children or weak swimmers - the pool is 1.9 M (6ft) deep so most people cannot stand up in it. At one end of the pool was the entrance to our compound. On one side of the pool was the common area, complete with TV, lounge suite, breakfast table and a kitchen with a large fridge, as well as a drinking water dispenser and the world’s slowest electric kettle. On the other side was the master bedroom with 4 poster king sized bed complete with mosquito netting - this was quaint but unnecessary - we had no problems with mossies or any other bugs. At the other end of the pool was the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. The second bedroom had another 4 poster king sized bed while the third bedroom had 2 large singles. The bedrooms were all air-conditioned and had an en-suite bathrooms. A novel touch was that the showers in each en-suite were actually outside and had no hot water. This was fine because: * the outside shower area was surrounded by high walls so your privacy was assured * the ‘cold’ water was so warm you didn’t need to add any hot. * the outside shower made it a little bit different and helped give a ‘holiday feel’ to the place. The staff were very courteous and discrete. They serviced the villa when we were out on most days, but when we were at home, we hardly noticed them. If we wanted, they could arrange for a chef to come and cook for us, but we decided against that and for breakfast used the local ‘Uber Eats’ company called GOJEK - it is incredibly good and very cheap. If you go to Bali, download the app as soon as you get there. For dinner we would go down the road to the Movenpick Hotel area where there is a very upmarket restaurant area. There are multiple restaurants serving local, western, Indian and Chinese food and a wonderful Gelato shop as well. If we didn’t eat there, we would go down to Jimbaran Beach and have seafood from one of the many restaurants there. The villa itself is a bit isolated - you cannot walk anywhere from the villa because it is too far and the roads are very hilly. So we used taxis. We only used Bluebird Taxis. They have a great app, reliable cars with good air con and very reasonable rates. We followed our routing a couple of times using Google Maps on our phones and the drivers never tried to take us the long way to any destination. A thing to remember is that the minimum taxi fare is IDR 30,000, so even if the meter says IDR 15,000 you still have to pay the minimum fare of IDR 30,000. One Aussie Dollar is about 10,000 Rupiah, so the minimum taxi fare is about $3. The villa also had a great laundry service. We had 4 adult’s laundry done and it cost about AUD $12 for the lot. Brilliant. Our villa also had its own discrete internet service. The internet was high speed and you could stream You Tube videos without any buffering. My only criticism of the villa would have been that all the walls meant that there was very little breeze. With no air movement, the villa could get stifling hot, so the common area could do with one or more additional ceiling fans. But apart from that, it was wonderful. Great villa. Great staff Great holiday. Many thanks to all the beautiful people of Bali who made our stay so enjoyable.