The villa was absolutely gorgeous and the staff were all amazing and very welcoming. Our flight was cancelled on the way in which resulted in us arriving a day later but the staff replied to our email immediately and ensured us everything would be fine. When we got there we were welcomed with drinks and the check in procedure was very smooth. They had the bath tub filled with rose petals and done up the bed with the towel swans. They had also put a sign near the pool that says "I love you" which we later found out is all hand carved out if polystyrene (super impressive). When we settled into our room, we got a call asking if they could deliver a gift to us, we said of course! They came to us 2 minutes later with a heart shaped cake with "happy honeymoon" written on it, the cake was super delicious! This was such an amazing gesture!
We read a LOT of reviews before selecting Alam Bididari as the villa we wanted to stay in for our week in Bali, we were celebrating our 1 year anniversary so it was important that we got it right! The location is fantastic, it is walking distance to the largest Starbucks in South East Asia which was great as we are Starbucks lovers. It is quite close to other major food chains and not too far from the Seminyak high street. The only thing I would say is communicate with your taxi driver if using GoJek or any other taxi service as for some reason, they NEVER come to the right place and completely miss the entrance of the villa despite there being a rather large sign saying "Alam Bididari". I guess Google maps doesnt have the correct location for the entrance set and they follow the map rather than looking for signs. Some people in their reviews mentioned road noise, and this is correct, there is road noise but this was not excessive at all. It did not bother us, did not wake us, did not keep us from falling asleep. I can imagine it being an issue for those that are used to complete silence however.
The bed is huge and super comfy, they give you a selection of pillows to choose from. The shower is AMAZING and also very large, you could literally fit a small family in there showering at once. The toilet thing; I needed to address this as many people commented about how it's an issue that there is a glass pane between the toilet and bedroom. My husband and I don't personally have an issue with this in general but there is a simple solution to this; pull the curtain down! They have a curtain you can pull down if you do require privacy when doing your business. The toilet paper was replenished daily and we loved that they had a water function (like a bidet) attached to the toilet seat controlled on the right hand side. Though with us not being used to this particular function, I do have to say it felt a little weird being sprayed with water from behind! Very effective and useful nonetheless and this did not stop us from using it.
They also replenished water bottles daily, as well as towels. Take out the bins etc.. your daily cleaning usuals. They do not enter the room if you have asked them not to, you must put the "do not disturb" sign outside your outer door. I must also stress that the staff did not at any point enter the perimeter of the villa unless calling us to make sure it was fine first. Me being a covered woman of Muslim faith, this was very important and we had absolutely no issues with it at all! Another point about being a covered woman, it was also important for the pool area to be completely private, and it is. There is a taller building overlooking the villas but they have put shades up to cover the pool so that no one can look in and the walls are really high too.
A lot of the reviews on the breakfast were really bad, my husband and I went there with very low expectations for the breakfast but were pleasantly surprised and have no idea what on earth everyone else was talking about! You simply fill in the form they provide for what you would like with any special requirements and they delivery your breakfast at the time specified after calling you 2-3 minutes before to make sure you are happy for them to enter the villa area. They do not come into the room as there is a walk way straight to the pool area from the front after the first set of doors for the villa. We had eggs, chicken sausages, toast, butter, and mushrooms daily, as well as a plate of fruit. We tweaked it as we went, opted out of the tomato and wanted more mushrooms and things like that. They are very flexible with it. We asked for salt daily as that is just our preference and on the last day we had the bread basket which was very tasty too! The only thing we didn't like was their hot chocolate as it was basically tasteless and their juice wasnt great either besides the orange.
Now our overall experience was amazing but there are a couple things that I wish we could change.. the first and actually the most important thing to me anyways was that the pool was too cold to swim in. I didn't see any other reviews with this comment and to be honest, this would have been a deal breaker for me. Pools can be cold but when you're in, it's fine. This one was not, it was so cold that even when submerged in it, I was still really cold. This may have something to do with the privacy shades over the pool. I asked if they could be removed so that the pool could heat up a bit under direct sunlight, and the staff regretfully said that they could not as they are fixed. I was staying in Villa 6, and I could see that my neighbouring Villa did not have the shades over their pool so I don't know if this is the case for all the Villas.
Sunbathing is ok between the hours of about 12pm and 4pm as you will get direct sunlight (reference to villa 6 only). Any other times as there is not a spot with full body coverage sunlight.
There were ants around the pool as others have mentioned in their reviews but this wasn't a huge issue for us as they did not enter the room at all. It was inevitable for there to be ants with all that greenery around. There are also mosquitos so make sure you stay stocked up on your repellant if you don't want to be bitten, but this goes for the whole of Bali basically..
We had a little visitor in the middle of the night one night. A lizard which we later named Johnny. I am unsure how it even got in but it was high up on the wall. We called the reception desk at about 2am when we discovered it and they came to take care of it immediately, but Johnny got away through the roof and for the rest of the stay was perched up on the wall on the outside of the Villa.
Inside the villa itself is very dark and although this is super romantic, it was quite annoying when you just needed to able to see things. It would have been nice if there were different lighting options. We resulted to packing our bags in the bathroom and using the torch on our phones to look for things when we needed to in the bedroom.
Somewhere to hang wet swimwear outdoors would have been nice but not 100% necessary.
I would definitely stay here again but opt for a villa closer to the entrance so the pool is not covered with the shades! The price, location, staff and overall experience was impeccable!
I think I've covered everything. If you've made it to the end, I hope this helps you make your decision!
