honey and fizz: Our Bali Trip

We've just come home after an amazing 10 days in Bali and I thought I would share some photos of my trip on here. We stayed at the Intercontinental Jimbaran Bay which we have stayed at before.

(you can see pics from that trip here)

Originally I thought we would use the resort as our base and explore the surrounding regions on day trips, but once we were ensconced in the beautiful surroundings of the resort it was very hard to get the motivation to leave it. Plus the Bali traffic is a killer!

Our days were spent swimming, lounging around and relaxing, some surfing, a day trip to Ubud, the boys visiting the kids club and reading. It was perfect for us and it felt great to decompress after a stressful start to the year. ( our renovations, my operation, kids stuff)

The grounds of the resort are huge so you feel like you can always find a space that is not overly crowded plus they are so beautiful and tropical and immaculately kept. Sun loungers are dotted around everywhere and staff are always on hand to offer fresh towels or a drink.

There are 3 main pools plus lots of other little pools around so it was nice to have the variety and change location every few days. The club pool is Adults Only, so this was a lovely retreat whilst the boys were at kids club. The resort is beachfront so it was great to have the option of a surf (small waves only) or splash around in the salt water or a walk along the beach.

Noah and Jasper loved Planet Trekkers (kids club), Finn found it a bit young and roamed around the resort with a few new friends instead. They had so many fun activities to do like fishing, kite making, cookie decorating, computer games, puzzles etc and it was a great place to go in the middle of the day for a couple of hours when they had had enough swimming for a while.

Noah at 3 was under their minimum age (4) so he had to have a nanny with him at all times while he was there. All the ladies were lovely and well trained and the whole set up felt very professional and secure. It was nice to have the same faces there through the week as they knew the boys and their habits. It was nice for Simon and I to have that break through the day as well and feel like we were on holidays too!

We hired a driver one day and drove up to Ubud stopping at the Bali Zoo for an elephant ride and the Monkey Forest along the way. The traffic turned it into a longer trip than it should have been so Noah was asleep for most of it! I would have loved to see more temples, rice fields, shops and restaurants in Ubud and Seminyak but it was not to be on this trip. Even though I had my list of must sees.

Note - the Monkey Forest is not for the faint hearted, those monkeys are scary!

Finn and Simon enjoyed feeding them and taking photos of them, Jasper and I were freaked out by their aggressiveness and Noah slept through it all!

There was also a trip to Uluwatu for some waves. Our trip coincided with what was dubbed the "swell of the century" so Simon had a couple of half days away surfing at Padang Padang and Bingin.

We mainly ate at the resort and there were 5 restaurants to choose from.

A variety of Western and Balinese food with a Japanese and Italian restaurant thrown in too.

And cocktails, lots of cocktails! My favourite was the lemon sorbet daiquiri.

Nothing screams holiday more than a photo of a cocktail at sunset ;)

The sandy floored Sunset Grill was our favourite spot for a cocktail and to watch the sun set over the ocean. We also loved the buffet breakfasts (one of the best I've seen) and we had high tea a couple of times too. Most days lunch was by the pool, either a salad or a nasi goreng.

Some of our favourite things were the soccer fields and playground for working off that excess energy when you had had enough swimming and for me the day spa. Sigh.