Honeymoon planning

skylineboy

skylineboy

skylineboy

Associate
Joined
2 Aug 2010
Posts
1,890
Location
Egypt/ Surrey
Hi all,

The Mrs-to-be has told me she really wants to go to Bali for the honeymoon. I’m all for it!

Any suggestions, experiences or good companies you have experience of? Budget isn’t endless, but as yet not decided. The plan is to travel early/ mid July next year.

Thanks,
Alex
 
Toured South Asia for my honeymoon, started in Bali in the middle of the rainforest in a bliss of a resort called Komaneka at Tanggayuda (in Ubud). Absolute peace & tranquility. Villas were personal heaven in the middle of the jungle, all staff were so friendly and helpful, food was delicious... but it was the peace which did it for me, the calmness of nothing but me and the wifey in the middle of no where being pampered to our every whim in the laps of luxury... Heaven!

Was perfect place to start the honeymoon after all the wedding hubub, but it is forrest so no beach/sand. If you're hopping around islands/countries and have beach elsewhere on the itinerary then I really recommend this place, if it's just the one stop then go coastal, but choose which side based on the time of year you go as if its just after the monsoon season the waters get full of pollution on one side (this could have been another island and not Bali, but worth a check just in case).
 
For a company to just take care of it, trailfinders are excellent. Used them ~5 times including one round the world trip. Never been to Bali though can't help you there.
 
We did 2 weeks in Bali for our honeymoon last year, staying at a variety of places.

Karma Kandara:
Southern part of the island, wouldn't risk going in to the ocean as a result.
Beautiful resort and villas, and fantastic spa, but in the middle of nowhere and a bit clinical as a result.

The Griya Villas and Spa:
Drove up north to Amed to visit this place next. Amed has a lovely laid-back beach-bum vibe, and our villa was awesome here. Spa was a meh, but food in the restaurant was decent.
We did a sunset fishing boat sailing that was amazing.

Then on to Ubud!

Villa Awang Awang:

We wanted to try something a bit quirky, and this certainly was that, with us nestled right in the jungle with plenty of creepy crawly guests. It was an experience, but definitely not for us.

The Royal Priti Maha

Highlight of the honeymoon, location is fantastic, the resort is beautiful, the villa was amazing, I can't big this place up enough.

In general Ubud was great, loved walking around, visiting random restuarants (ALL the nasi goreng!), as well as more touristy stuff like visiting the water temple, monkey forest, and the like.

Then we finished up in Seminyak.

Alila Seminyak:

Beachfront hotel, with a nice pool and bar, but certainly no authentic feel to it. The nearby Mano Cafe was excellent though!

As Seminyak was more built up, we also spent a day at the Waterbom Bali water park, which was a great day out.
 
I also loved Ubud in Bali. It was a while ago now but we stayed at the Amadari. It is inland but in a beautiful and peaceful area. We later stopped at the Amankila on the coast but preferred the Amandari.
 
It really depends on what you want to get out of it. Beach bums? Seminyak is the place (avoid Australians in Kuta). Yoga and enlightenment? Ubud (although it’s a bit touristy for true enlightenment). Scuba diving? Komodo National Park.

We did our honeymoon to Indonesia in September 2015 and it was awesome.

Singapore stopover.
Borobudur temple at sunrise in Yogyakarta.
Ubud - went mad and stayed in the Hanging Gardens.
Seminyak for some beach time (although we were a short drive from the beach).
Komodo national park - actual Komodo dragons and scuba diving with manta rays. A truly astonishing experience.

I absolutely love Indonesia, everyone is super friendly and helpful. It’s also a mind blowingly beautiful place. The food is also awesome.

I pretty much planned it myself. It ended up being about half the price of an organised trip and we got much better accommodation. Took some time, but with the power of the internet you can be very discerning.
 
tom_nieto said:
It really depends on what you want to get out of it. Beach bums? Seminyak is the place (avoid Australians in Kuta). Yoga and enlightenment? Ubud (although it’s a bit touristy for true enlightenment). Scuba diving? Komodo National Park.

Komodo national park - actual Komodo dragons and scuba diving with manta rays. A truly astonishing experience.
Click to expand...

Even if you're not in to scuba, Komodo is worth it for off the beach snorkelling, it's comparable to some of the best areas I went to across 5 area's in two trips to Fiji...absolutely stunning.

In all honesty, with cost being no object, i'd go to Komodo again before I went to Fiji.

Was also excellent seeing the Komodo Dragons, they're scarily fast though, had no clue until we were quite close up to them.
 
Hades said:
I also loved Ubud in Bali. It was a while ago now but we stayed at the Amadari. It is inland but in a beautiful and peaceful area. We later stopped at the Amankila on the coast but preferred the Amandari.
Click to expand...
We did both of these in 2017 for our honeymoon and it was totally the other way round for us. Amankila was incredible and a must visit in our view, whereas Ubud has so many nice hotels that the Amandari didn't seem that special. The service was better at Amankila too.

Ubud is an overtouristed hellhole anyway, and quite 'backpacker'-y rather than romantic honeymoon type. Same goes for a lot of other places near the airport like Seminyak.

If you do go though, visit Naughty Nuri's for the ribs :)
 
SixTwoSix said:
Even if you're not in to scuba, Komodo is worth it for off the beach snorkelling, it's comparable to some of the best areas I went to across 5 area's in two trips to Fiji...absolutely stunning.

In all honesty, with cost being no object, i'd go to Komodo again before I went to Fiji.

Was also excellent seeing the Komodo Dragons, they're scarily fast though, had no clue until we were quite close up to them.
Click to expand...

Always make sure there's another tourist between you and the dragons right? We went to see hippos in Kenya and the rangers had assault rifles. In Komodo there was a skinny bloke with a big stick.

I'd echo the point about snorkelling in Komodo, you can see the majority of what you want to see by snorkelling. We snorkelled with mantas too and it meant that we could follow them for quite some distance rather than sit on the bottom and watch them fly over. Astonishing creatures!
 
tom_nieto said:
Always make sure there's another tourist between you and the dragons right? We went to see hippos in Kenya and the rangers had assault rifles. In Komodo there was a skinny bloke with a big stick.
Click to expand...

LOL...it was literally a skinny bloke with a stick. On a sidenote, my wife is Polish and the guy started chatting away with her, totally blew my mind, the random things you see on holiday. He was a lifetime Komodo area native but said he's had such an influx of polish tourists in recent years, he's picked up a lot of the language.

tom_nieto said:
I'd echo the point about snorkelling in Komodo, you can see the majority of what you want to see by snorkelling. We snorkelled with mantas too and it meant that we could follow them for quite some distance rather than sit on the bottom and watch them fly over. Astonishing creatures!
Click to expand...

I was lucky enough during my honeymoon in Fiji to snorkel alongside Manta's...some of the most stunning creatures i've seen in my life, i'd happily spend day after day floating along with them. Whale sharks in Mexico are a close second.
 
Got back from 3 weeks in Bali about 8 weeks ago, Loved the place, can't help on the travel organiser front though, we flew Air China as the flights were dirt cheap with a layover in a chinese airport.
Then we travelled around Bali a bit, we stayed a few nights on Nusa Penida (Easy boat ride from Sanur port) which was beautiful but beware the roads anywhere outside the main town, your basically doing the paris-dakar on a scooter.
Ubud is lovely, most places are within walking distance, very busy with tourists though.
My favourite place was up north of Ubub, in an area called Tegalalang, basically in the rice paddies, there was 0 restaurants so had to eat at the Hotel unless we wanted a long drive, but this place felt the most authentic, the locals were so friendly and happy to show you how they live their life etc, and we got lucky in the 3 nights we stayed there they harvested the rice fields so that was an experience to see.
My gf's favourite was Uluwatu, which is the bottom left of Bali, it's a very chilled place, very surfer vibe, lots of nice beaches and places to go surfing.
100% want to go back one day, didn't see any of the West side of Bali and also would love to do Komodo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom