Ericka

Thanks to many on this board for helping plan our trip! Here goes…

Travel
We flew on a UA *Alliance award from BOS-DPS as follows. UA BOS-IAD in economy, UA IAD-AMS in a brand new 1st suite, SQ AMS-SIN biz in a Spacebed, and then SQ biz from SIN-DPS. The highlight of the travel experience was definitely UA. They’ve done a great job with the new international seating which lies perfectly flat in both biz and 1st. Our widescreen TV screen was gi-normous and the video-on-demand selection, while not as large as SQ, was more than adequate. The UA short ribs were probably the best meal I had the entire trip (did I really say that?), and service and individual attention were far better than I would have expected. Kudos to UA!

For our Amanwana portion, we flew Transnusa from DPS to Lombok to Sumbawa (where there is a darling little Aman lounge) and then were escorted by boat to Amanwana. It was a fun way to see other parts of Indonesia, but took about a half-day. On the return, we took the seaplane directly from Amanwana to Bali which was only an hour flight. I was a little disappointed in the scenery as I had read accounts of a lovely crater lake, but didn’t notice anything like that on either flight. Perhaps that is part of the Komodo/Flores flights?

St. Regis Singapore (1 ni)
Once we decided to spend a night in Singapore we had a tough time deciding on a hotel. We’ve always loved the RC (I’m a sucker for the view and the club level), but after reading reports of wear and tear and all the best employees being poached, we decided to try something new. It didn’t hurt that the St. Regis Virtuoso rate and amenity package were a really good value (thank you David O).

SERVICE
Once we had our reservation, we were contacted by the sales office to confirm our upgrade, gather our arrival info, and make transfer and activity reservations in advance of our stay. (Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take advantage of the Bentley airport transfer but I’ve heard it’s very special as there is more to it than just the car ride.) All in all, the staff was proactive and friendly with us. They knew our names when we arrived by taxi (luggage tag check?) and a few people even knew our names the next day which is unusual for a large hotel. When we first arrived, all of the check-in tables were full, so they offered us in-room check-in in order to expedite the process. Lastly, the room came with butler service for pressing, tea and coffee, etc.

DÉCOR & ROOM
We thought this hotel was beautiful. The décor is traditional but the modern technologies throughout make it impossible to forget how new this hotel really is. We loved the attention to detail in the rooms…the extensive use of marble, marble inlay and dark lacquered woods, the chandeliers, 10-11' ceilings, leather headboards, silk embroidered wall coverings, freestanding tub and the bathroom’s mirrored TV. At the time of our reservation, we were upgraded to a Grand Deluxe room on the 20th floor with views toward the Botanical Garden.

DINING
To be fair, we didn’t spend enough time at the St. Regis to use the restaurants, but we thought breakfast was very good. We’ve heard others describe the buffet as uninspired, but what we found was a large selection of fresh-baked pastries, artfully cut fruit, French imported cheese, butter and yogurt, English options like baked beans, Asian options like congee, every cereal imaginable, breakfast meats, salmon and eggs cooked to order. There was also a complementary wine-tasting every evening in the bar but I’m sorry to say we were asleep before it began. Blame the jetlag!

ACTIVITIES
While I was having a manicure, Mr. Ericka enjoyed the innovative (and complementary) parts of the Remede spa like the steam chambers, cedar wood sauna, heated wave lounges, and the ice fountain. We also managed to get out of the hotel for a walk down Orchard Road but there was so much construction I really regretted it. And how many Louis Vuitton stores does one city need? (no offense, vuittonsofstyle) We enjoyed a quick hawker lunch in one of the malls but I wish we’d have walked to the Orchid Garden instead.

ISSUES
We only had a few issues while we were at the St. Regis. The automated drape in our room wouldn’t close all the way. It got to about 80% closed and then got stuck but we were so exhausted we didn’t care. Also, while checking out, an errant limo charge appeared on our bill. After we pointed out that we arrived by taxi, they quickly removed it.

Ericka

Amandari (3 ni)
Once we decided this trip would be based around Amanwana, we knew a Bali stopover was inevitable. Amandari seemed like a great choice to complement our Amanwana beach experience and it was only an hour’s drive from the airport. We opted for the 3-night Classic Bali package with a complementary activity each day. We also mentioned to the GM, Liv that this was our 10th Aman property/stay and she was kind enough to upgrade us.

SERVICE
Upon arrival at the Bali airport, we were escorted through immigration by one of the airport’s VIP visa-on-arrival officials. Once in the hands of the Aman representative, we were welcomed back to the island of Bali and thanked for our continued Aman patronage. Once we got to the resort, it was more of the same…lots of “welcomes”, especially “welcome back”s. We kept having to explain that we hadn’t actually stayed at Dari before, but had enjoyed dinner there while staying at Amankila. At any rate, everyone was incredibly friendly throughout the course of our stay and service was fantastic. We missed meeting Liv, however. She was off-property for most of our stay and we never got a chance to properly thank her for the lovely room!

DÉCOR & ROOM
We stayed in a duplex pool suite (#15), the layout of which we really enjoyed. The top floor bedroom had a four-poster bed and small powder room (which kept us from tumbling down the spiral staircase in the middle of the night). The downstairs featured a big open living area that got even bigger when we opened the sliding doors to the outside patio, dining bale, and large edgeless pool that appeared to hang directly over the Ayung River gorge. The view was nearly panoramic as this was a corner suite with the gorge to one side and the rice terraces to the other. And I loved how the Balinese jasmine was everywhere. I really miss that smell when I’m home from our Indonesian vacations.

Most of you know that Dari closed for 3 months for a 20th anniversary refresh. Overall, the resort looked wonderful and was meticulously maintained. But there were still a few areas where we could tell the property’s age. Some of the wood paneling in our room was dinged up. And our upstairs bathroom looked like it hadn’t been updated at all which left things feeling a bit like a tree house - rustic, but fun.

DINING
The food was good. But I didn’t have anything as spectacular as I did on our dinner here 6 years ago – the babi guling. It serves me right. I gave up babi guling once I figured out what “babi” meant. I’m such a girl that way.

ACTIVITIES
For our Amandari stay, we opted to do only what was included in our package…this was meant to be a jetlag stop after all. We started with a Balinese massage on our first afternoon. The next morning we did the Ayung River trek which amounted to some pretty serious hiking up and down the humid gorge. Interestingly, much of the way was paved with concrete steps which had to be grueling work to complete. We ended up at our guide’s village and got to see his home and his wife’s batik business before having breakfast in a bale overlooking the gorge. On our last day, we went to the Bali Bird & Reptile Park. This is a much better facility than we expected with lots of personal attention. They are successfully breeding the bali starlings and they are the only operation that has been able to breed the birds of paradise. Speaking of birds, did I mention the profusion of birds at Amandari? Many of them liked to use our pool as their own personal birdbath. If we return, we would strongly consider doing the ornithologist-guided bird trek. I guess we’re bird people now.

ISSUES
There were a couple of issues during our stay. For anyone who has done an offsite Aman meal experience you know that everything is set up before your arrival. Well, it seems our trekking guide and our driver had a miscommunication about which bale was being used that morning. The result was that our breakfast was setup at the wrong bale. They worked together to quickly correct the situation and we weren’t waiting longer than 10 minutes. They apologized profusely and we were so exhausted we didn’t really give it a second thought.

On a lighter note, while reviewing our final bill, we noticed they had our address wrong. Since this was not an address or state we had ever lived in and Mr. Ericka has a very common name, we were left to assume they had him confused with someone else of the same name. Maybe this was why we were being so profusely welcomed back; that we were being confused with a regular Dari guest or a more serious Amanjunkie like paul2, bearbrick, deer, or zigzag? LOL.

Ericka

Amanwana (6 ni)
As many of you know, we started planning this trip over a year ago. We had always planned to avail the 4-night Nature package, but we were also considering the week-long Komodo Expedition. Alas, the economy did not cooperate with us and given that the Expedition is now pricing out at USD $22k for a single couple we decide we’d need to put that off for another few years. (Interestingly, when you book with two couples the cost works out to only $13k. They are also using a brand new boat now!)

SERVICE
We knew in advance of our stay that the GM Kevin would take care of us - which he did, checking in daily, making recommendations, etc. And we knew that the service would be great. But what we didn’t expect was how close-knit the staff would be. You can really feel how much they like their jobs and each other. There was even a rumor that the old GM Ian was coming back to celebrate his birthday. Lastly, I was pleased with how they handled my sunburn. A staff member showed up at my door with huge chunks of aloe which they have growing in the garden alongside the chef’s fruits and vegetables.

DÉCOR & ROOM
The tents here were definitely more rustic than Aman-i-Khas, but we knew this ahead of time and were able to comfortably settle in. We had originally requested #18, thinking it would provide a nice combination of privacy and view, but there was a lot of exposed (dead) coral in front of that tent which left the beach looking rocky and really hampered the view. Kevin had his staff show us a few more tents and we ended up choosing #4 as anything higher than 8 seemed to be adversely affected by low-tide coral exposure. All of the tents were identical and the layout was well thought-out with lounging areas up front to enjoy the ocean view and bathroom facilities in the back. One nice feature about the tents was the large, canvas-covered water cooler. This is great for the guests because water is always available, and it’s got to be better for the environment than bottles. Aman should look into getting these at all of their hotels.

DINING
We loved the “chalkboard” approach to dining. Each meal held 3 new possibilities (local, western, other) but we were always free to request something not on the menu. The food was good but not necessarily great. There were a couple of standouts, though – fresh-made yoghurt, pastries, anything with moyo honey (especially the honeycomb ice cream) and for a taste of home, they made a really good cheeseburger and fries (be sure to order the Bintang with that).

ACTIVITIES & CRITTERS
The things we loved most about Amanwana were the critters. We’d be having a meal or just walking to/from our tent when we would spot geckos, crabs, rhesus macaques, megapods and wild boar. In addition, we carefully chose our activities to deliver “Planet Earth” moments.

The first thing we did was snorkel on-property. At the time we were there, the best spot was just off the jetty to the left along the upper most parts of the house reef. The coral there was a little bleached but there were signs of color and new life. There were lots of fish in incredibly varied species and some sea turtles as well. At one point, we did a guided night snorkel. It was beautiful to be out in the calm water under the stars but we didn’t see much fish life we hadn’t already seen in the daytime. Our guide suggested this was due to the full moon. Nevertheless, we enjoyed waving our hands in the water to see the plankton light up. Mr. Ericka also did some snorkeling along Turtle Street and saw a lot of larger fish, barracuda, etc.

We did our first dive on the house reef, going a little further out than our snorkel. I took the Discover Scuba course and found Wana’s setup to be perfect for the novice – you start in the shallows off the beach to learn some skills and gain confidence, and then gradually go deeper. On this dive, we discovered fish species in the Flores Sea are similar to what you see in the Maldives but often in different, exciting colors. Later, Mr. Ericka dove Labuan Aji. I had trouble equalizing so stayed topside for that one but there were many wonderful little guys – make sure to ask about the now famous tiny crab that has taken up residence in a soft coral.

For our next adventure, we booked a day charter to Satonda, the volcanic island best known for its crater lake. The crew had brought along a kayak so that we could explore the lake. We were the only ones on the water or even the shoreline and could see a congregation of flying foxes and several of the most beautiful blue mountain butterflies. We also did 2 dives along the coastline of Satonda. These were the best dives of our trip if not our lives. The soft corals and fish life were phenomenal though the staff insists there is even better diving by Komodo. Lastly, we were able to enjoy lunch on the deck of the boat and gaze out over Tambora. If you don’t know the story of Tambora, look it up. It was the largest volcanic explosion ever recorded and affected weather patterns across the world for years. Think Krakatoa on steroids.

Besides the hikes close to the resort, we made a point to do the guided bat cave trek. The hike was a bit long, but not overly challenging. Once inside we got to see, and smell, what we think were false vampire bats…lots of them. It was pretty cool the way they would fly up in your face and their sonar allowed them to dart out of the way just before collision. I should warn future trekkers that there was guano and cockroaches but that’s all part of the experience. We had really hoped to see a python in the cave, but our deadly snake experience wouldn’t come until later. On the walk back, our guide took us past the Amanwana deer breeding station. Unfortunately, there aren’t many deer left on the island and the resort is trying to get the numbers back up.

We managed to take a break from all the activity by having an Amanwana massage in the jungle cove. The setting was very pretty but we did hear some vehicle noise during our treatments.

On our last day, we did the Amanwana signature waterfall excursion. Sure, the waterfalls were beautiful and the rickety little bridges were charming. Yes, we swam in the crystal clear water and drank from a coconut. Yes, Diana swam there too. Now, let’s talk about the snake! It was the most lovely shade of green, posing in a low-lying tree limb for us. Our guides told us it was poisonous but once back at the resort, Kevin wasn’t so sure. He said it would probably only be poisonous if it had a reddish tail. Now that we are home, our photos and a Google search reveal it to be a bamboo (aka white-lipped) pit viper. Reddish tail. Poisonous. Cool.

For our last night, we booked the private beach barbeque. The staff set up candles and fishing lanterns leading to a spot of sand in front of the water sports center where they had a bonfire and more candles artfully buried in the sand. We opted to eat off of the menu rather than eating a custom meal from the grill. It’s nice to know guests have an A and B option for this where you get all of the romance of the private beach dinner but don’t necessarily have to book the private chef.

ISSUES
Issues were few and far between at Amanwana. We missed having music in our tent (in Bali, we left the gamelan music to play on loop) but we understand the sound would carry too easily from one tent to another. This is where the property’s music pavilion comes in handy. On a more serious issue, we were shocked by the wine prices. We know this is a problem throughout Indonesia, but we can’t recall ever seeing it this bad. Wana was charging USD $20 for a glass of wine that costs $6 per bottle in our local grocery store. Luckily, each adult may bring one bottle into the country and Wana is happy to open it, keep it chilled as appropriate and serve it to you in your tent or at the restaurant. Looking back, I see now what a generous welcome gift the bottles of wine and champagne are.

Ericka

Amanusa (1 day)
When we knew we’d have several hours between our seaplane transfer and our departure from Bali, we contacted Amanusa GM Monty and arranged a day rate.

SERVICE
People were very warm to us but not many seemed to know who we were. For a 6 hour stay, how could they? But when we left a full restaurant after lunch, the bill found its way to our account without anyone having to ask for our room number.

DÉCOR & ROOM
This is a gorgeous hotel and so much fancier and newer than the other Amans on Bali. We loved all of the marble and elaborate stonework. Our room (#15) had two outdoor terraces, a canopy bed, a water garden that wrapped around the tub and outdoor shower, and a lovely bale overlooking the golf course. I’m sorry we weren’t there overnight as I’m sure the architectural lighting is otherworldly.

DINING
We had lunch at The Terrace which was very busy. I suspect local people and tourists from other hotels dine here as well. The food was wonderful and they did a great job with one of my special orders.

ACTIVITIES
That afternoon, we took the VW Thing to the beach and enjoyed the great service from our beach bale. On the way back, our driver stopped when he noticed a traditional ceremony underway (we won’t discuss the details as it’s not really PC by western standards). When we thanked him for sharing this impromptu moment with us, he told us how much fun it was for him to share. “My job is my hobby. My hobby is my job.” And that pretty well sums up why we try to include an Aman in all of our vacations.

Musken

Oh, thank you so much for the great report, Ericka. Makes me looking forward to viting Amandari next year, and makes me want to go back to Amanwana!

Reading about your river trek at Amandari, makes me wonder if you think this will be too much for our six year old son. He is sporty and likes walking, but the way you described it sounded like we should maybe avoid it? What do you think?

zigzag

As always a great trip report with wonderful details. I think Amanusa is one of the most underrated Amanresort's in the world. It has everything, beach, views, pools, great food and shopping, golf, tennis, gym. I'm very happy here at the start or end of any Indonesia trip and surprised so many skip it. Are the resorts in Indonesia busy?

luxury

Thank you, too, for this wonderful report. Having never set foot in an Aman Resort (yet, and we hope to change this next year) it gives me a lot to look forward to.

Ericka

Of the properties we visited, only Amanwana was busy. I guess they've seen increased occupancy over the last few years.

Ericka

We let our guide know that we were avid hikers and that we could go for pretty long. I'm sure they could tailor the hike to your son's abilities. It wouldn't be so difficult if it weren't for the heat. We live in a much cooler climate and it's hard to adjust sometimes.

Kagehitokiri

incredible report as usual

FS explorer also has 50% off deal
$770 > $1815 per nt
after discount, including taxes/etc

vuittonsofstyle

Terrific report, Ericka. Made me want to rush back there. Glad you liked Amanusa as it is a wonderful hotel and much maligned.

By the way, the Louis Vuitton reference in my Flyer Talk 'name' is meant to be ironic. I can't stand the stuff.

Londonjetsetter

Ericka this is a fantastic report. We are due to spend 8 nights at Amankila at the beginning of November. I had always written off Amanusa, but may now spend a couple of the nights there.

paul2

Fantastic report Ericka ! I'm looking forward even more to my upcoming amanfilled trip shortly.

Ericka

Ayung River Valley


Duplex Pool Suite


Room Service


Locals Enjoying our Pool

Ericka

Restaurant


Ocean Tent


Sunset


Bat Fish


Satonda Charter


Bat Action


Bamboo Pit Viper


Colorful Reef