Bali Day 1, Part 1

ever since the husband completed training a couple of weeks ago, he has A LOT of free time on his hands. since the children were still on school holiday, he decided to bring the elder two for a short swim-holiday. my kids are swim freaks, berjemur under the sun until hitam legam and they still won't care haha.

so were up bright and early at 5am, got the kids ready and left the house at 6am. the night before was total chaos as i hadn't finished packing, and it had to be the day that the old trusty refrigerator decides to break down on us. we had a bit of a chore on our hands to try and 'save the veggies' (we went holidaying in Cameron the day before) and especially with very limited fridge back-up (we only had a standalone freezer) so we turned down the thermostat on one freezer and made it into a makeshift 'fridge' while waiting for someone to come repair our fridge the next day.

well anyway, this was our first time flying on standby; unfortunately wrong timing as it was school holidays, therefore most of the flights were full (sweat). the 9am flight was full, so we had to wait for the next one three hours later (MAS flies to Bali three times a day, did you know? lol. the crew don't have night stops there unfortunately, boo). it happened to be that there was another family of 5 also waiting on standby for the flight to Bali, so it's 4 of us against the 5 of them hahahahahahah what were the odds that there would be NINE available seats on the next flight?

ZERO to NONE i tell you!

the lady behind the counter told us the 3pm flight was overbooked, and the next morning flight was also unavailable. all nine of us were on standby for the noon flight but there were only three available seats. the husband was already thinking that if there was no other choice, the kids and i would fly first, and he'd catch the next available flight (say whaaa....?). but then he had the bright idea to request jump seat for himself (a friend he met earlier this morning requested for jump seat to KK but the flight was totally full), so off he went to seek the Captain's permission. the husband flew with the Captain once many months ago; apparently he wasn't too thrilled about having an extra person in the cockpit, but after much pleading he finally relented (yay!).

i kinda felt bad for the other family though. but their party wasn't able to fit into the noon flight anyway; and she also told me she's gone for holiday many other places before this, so kasi can kat kitorang la, ok? hee~~~~~

waiting standy

i actually got a seat at the emergency exit while the other two kids got a seat together at the back. but the lady who was supposed to seat beside them graciously offered to exchange seats with me since she was traveling alone and didn't mind the change. i'm so grateful for her kindness!

MH851 KUL-DPS
time to destination: 2 hours, 49 minutes.

off we go

the mandatory winglet photo

we had the option to choose either fish+rice or roti-canai+chicken curry; the two kids chose roti canai so i took the other dish (and guess who had to finish the leftovers? lol). i practically had to force them to drink thousands of miles in the air pffffft such picky eaters *roll eyes*. there wasn't much interesting in-flight movies to watch, so i randomly picked Four Christmases; the other two decided on watching Despicable Me *roll eyes again*. they can watch this at home, why watch the same thing again??? lol oh well.

to kill time #planneraddictmalaysia

we arrived around 3.50pm in Bali! after going through immigration, we took an airport taxi to our hotel. the husband opted to take the Bali Mandara Toll Road (we had to pay 11k extra) to avoid the heavy traffic (o.m.g. traffic here is horrible!). the husband chose The Laguna in Nusa Dua as our holiday stay, as the hotel was under Starwood Hotels. we were greeted with air jamu welcoming drink which nobody liked except me (so i had to finish all four of them hahahahah).

buat2 minum tu, in the end i had to finish everything haha

we checked into Room 311, with an awesome view of the swimming pool. urmm there's actually seven different swimming pools in The Laguna, so take your pick. did i tell you the room was awesome? the kids were thrilled that there was a bathtub (he-llo! why chill in the tub when you have a choice of seven different swimming pools to chill in????).

awesome fluffy bed

wish they had a couch instead of... that.

the usual desk, tellv and minibar

balcony with a wonderful view of the pool below

the bathroom

marble flooring is freaking cold

toilet selfie!!! cc. Ariep =P

welcoming note & snack

while the husband decided to chill in the room and wait for the luggage to arrive (and officiate the fluffy bed), the three of us decided to do a bit of exploring on the hotel grounds. the kids wanted to see the beach. the resort was so big i had to take a photo of the resort map so that i didn't miss anything (or get lost lol). it started to drizzle when we were walking around. the hotel provides umbrellas but i didn't find out about that until we were heading back to our room.

Resort Map

for those whose rooms were on the ground floor they had direct access to the pool via their balcony. just open balcony door and jump straight in. lol. photos does not do justice to the place. it really is gorgeous in real life.

direct access to the pool

one of the seven swimming pools

artifical 'beach' within the pools

the children's pool

the beach wasn't bad, but it didn't really fit the 'white sandy beaches' description as the husband was hoping it to be. but it wasn't overcrowded and clean, so i'm ok with that. i noticed there were wave breakers further out at sea; you could observe waves breaking against some invisible barrier before it reaches the shore (i'll have to check this out later). i told the kids to wake up bright and early tomorrow if they wanted to do some swimming.

Nusa Dua Beach

evening walk on the Beach