It took a couple of hours to get from Ubud to the Alila Villas Uluwatu. There wasn’t really gridlock, but the route simply goes through a lot of congested and busy areas. We finally arrived around noon and our room was not quite ready.

I had paid 35k Hyatt points per night, which is the off-peak rate for Category 8. It’s a lot of points, but this is one of those aspirational properties that I really wanted to experience.

We were ushered to a lovely seating area with views of the infinity pool and the ocean. They checked our passports and credit card and provided some cold tea.

The resort is sprawling, with four levels of villas off to the right side of the property and some family villas on the left. The lobby opens to a water feature and there are two restaurants (one Western, one Indonesian) with one on each side along with the spa and shop on the right and the whiskey bar on the left.

The check-in agent then walked us to the sunset bar in front of the pool where we were given a welcome drink and snacks while we waited for the room to be ready.

The views from the sunset bar were stunning.

It’s about 500 steps down to the beach from there – more about that later.

Our room was ready after about 1/2 hour. We had been upgraded to a panoramic view villa, which basically meant we were on the third level out of four and had a view of the water from our deck.

We were taken up to the villa by buggy, but first I took a quick look at the gym as it was right there in front of the lobby. It looked nice, but it was the only time I visited. The resort offers some paid and free activities every day such as yoga and archery, but we didn’t partake.

Our villa was really nice, featuring an indoor shower with seven jets plus an outdoor shower, a bougie Japanese toilet with an auto open and close function, a private pool and lots of different seating areas.

There were several welcome gifts left for us in the room including fruit, cake and drinks/snacks.

My one criticism of the room was that it was tough to keep it cool. It wasn’t too bad when they closed the huge sliding doors over the front and back windows at night, but during the day, the A/C was struggling a bit. We saw a few monkeys around the property, including one on the roof of our villa, but they left us alone and weren’t nearly as forward as the ones in Ubud.

That afternoon, we took a Grab to Thomas Beach, which was about 25 minutes away on the western side of Uluwatu. There were about 100 steps down to the beach, but it was rewarded with lots of shells and a lovely view.

After we returned to the hotel, it made sense to just eat dinner there and so we dined at Warung, the Indonesian restaurant. It was a great meal and we ended up eating there the next night as well. The meals started with a huge tray of relishes/pickles with prawn crackers and chips. I really enjoyed my curry as well.

There were also some great sunset views even though the actual sunset was slightly out of view this time of year.

In the morning, breakfast was served at the other restaurant. We sat outside with a great view. It was similar to our previous resorts in that it was an a la carte menu. The main difference was that the menu changed every day rather than just a few specials. Here is day one and some of what we ordered. We were served a bread/pastry basket and fruit before the meal both days and the bread/pastry basket had different items in it each day.

Here is day two’s menu and some of what we ordered.

While the types of things on the menu and the a la carte service were similar to both the Andaz and Viceroy, I felt that the food at the Alila Uluwatu was a step up in terms of quality and freshness. They also had some interesting drinks that weren’t available at the other resorts.

On the second morning in Uluwatu, we took a Grab to Melasti Beach which is fairly close by. It’s more of a commercially oriented beach, with an entrance fee and several beach clubs. Renting a lounger there cost 200k IDR, double any other beach we went to during the trip. It was a pretty beach with huge waves and unfortunately for my wife, not many shells. There’s also a fake pirate ship there.

We spent most of the afternoon relaxing in our villa and staying out of the heat. My wife started organizing and cleaning up her shells for the journey home. I read and watched some shows on my iPad in between dips in the pool. The Wi-Fi signal was strong.

That evening, before dinner at Warung again, we stopped by the whiskey bar at the resort. The prices for high-end whiskey were not bad at all.

Dinner was excellent again. We tried the Indonesian version of satay this time.

On the last morning, I got up at 6am to walk down to the beach as low tide was around 6:30am and it was the only time you could actually walk on the beach. It took me about 30 minutes to get down there and a little longer to get back up. It was nice to get some exercise and the steps down weren’t too scary, especially after hiking up and down the volcano a few days earlier.

We left the Alila around 11am on the last day as we were headed to one last hotel near the airport to wait for our late night flight. We enjoyed our stay there, but the location of the resort fairly far from beaches and other restaurants makes it tough to recommend unless you really want to switch off for a few days. It’s also a Category 8 Hyatt property so it could be as much as 45k points per night.

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