Our Bali trip is coming up next month and as it approaches, I’ve made some tweaks to our plans. The flights to Bali on Cathay Pacific and the return on Qatar Airways have been in place all along. Unfortunately, we had a couple of equipment downgrades. Our flight to LAX on Delta was downgraded from an A350 to a 767-300, but at least it’s still a DeltaOne seat on what is technically not a DeltaOne flight. The flight from Hong Kong to Bali on Cathay Pacific will now be on a regional A330 which has a 2-2-2 configuration with recliner seats instead of the original lay-flat 1-2-1 seats in the long-haul version. On our return, the overnight flight from Bali to Doha is now on an A350-900 without QSuites, but it’s still a comfortable 1-2-1 configuration so that’s not too bad. As of now, we’ll still have A350-1000 QSuites on our Doha-Atlanta flight. Of course, things could change again for the better or worse.

For the lounges, I have realized that the Qantas First lounge at LAX will close around 8-8:30pm so we’ll have to slum it in the OneWorld business lounge for a bit. On the bright side, the Wing First lounge at Hong Kong will not close for refurbishment until after our trip, so we’ll have our choice of First Class lounges at Hong Kong on our layover.

As for the hotels, I’ve kept the points bookings at the beginning and end of the trip at the Andaz and Alila Uluwatu. For the Ubud portion of the trip, I’ve switched from the Alila Ubud to the Viceroy. The Viceroy is a SLH hotel, which are now bookable through Hilton. I decided to use two Hilton free night certificates plus 105,000 Hilton points for the three nights, with the room I booked (a pool villa) going for $800 per night. The Alila Ubud does not apply suite upgrade awards, so I had to make a cash booking into the villa we wanted there. The change will save us a bunch of cash and make good use of those free night awards. The Viceroy only has 25 villas and is also closer to town than the Alila, but it is perched on a cliff above the river, so it should still have lots of great views and lots of monkeys hanging around.

Given that our flight from Bali is just after midnight and the checkout time at the Alila Uluwatu on our last day is at most going to be 4pm (likely earlier given that late checkout is subject to availability and this is a small resort with about 60 villas), I’ve booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express near Bali airport for 10,000 IHG points (value of around $50) so that we have a place to relax, nap and shower before we head to the airport. The hotel is actually close to the beach, has a rooftop infinity pool, and gets good reviews. We will basically spend about 6-8 hours there before taking their shuttle to the airport.

To get around to all these places, I received a recommendation for a local driver. He is picking us up at the airport and driving us to the Andaz, picking us up there at the end of our stay and driving us to Ubud with a few stops, picking us up at the Viceroy and driving us to the Alila Uluwatu, again with a few stops and finally driving us to the Holiday Inn Express on the last day. All in, this will cost about $120 including a tip (assuming he’s a good driver) so pretty good for private transportation all around Bali. I’m sure I could get it a bit cheaper, but I’d rather go with someone reliable and recommended from a fellow traveler.

I’ve booked two excursions, but just for me. I’m going snorkeling on a private boat that leaves fairly close to the Andaz and stops in four different places for snorkeling plus adds a quick tour of some places on Nusa Penida, another island near Bali. My wife doesn’t snorkel anymore thanks to vertigo, so she’ll hang out near the Andaz for the day and look for shells. I’ve also booked a very early sunrise hiking tour up Mount Batur when we’re in Ubud. It’s possible we’ll add some other tours like whitewater rafting or some other things while we’re there.

The trip is fairly well put together now. Unlike last year in SE Asia, the trip will be more relaxing with less moving around, no internal or regional flights and more beach/pool time. I look forward to sharing reviews of the flights, lounges and resorts here along with our impressions of Bali after the trip.

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