Originally Posted by
Big_Foot
Mandapa - must be a Rice Villa, basic pool villa s@x. No view, nothing to look at.
Way better than Aman, better landscape, new, great pool, great rice terraces.
Amanjiwo is amazing, pick a villa on the upper level. They will upgrade you
if they can. Don't stress out about steps, if they stay on the upper level,
restaurant and main pickup area is on the same level.
Would skip Shanghai, honestly not sure why anyone would go there.
Terrible on every level. Depending on the air connections, I'd do Tokyo instead.
Highly recommend what we did - US->Tokyo, 4 days in Tokyo, then the direct Garuda
to Bali flight, Bali-Jogjakarta (direct on AirAsia, not bad if you book prime tickets
and pick row 1 - lots of leg room), from Jogja you can fly direct to SIN
on SilkAir in business - from there you can do Phuket and Hong Kong easily.
Thanks for the comments. By booking basic pool, was hoping that STARS would upgrade to rice villa at Mandapa. Your pictures of Mandapa were incredible, BTW.
Flights can't change. They are fixed / non-refundable / not award tickets.
They want to do Shanghai as a bucket list item. There's a lot to see for a first-timer...art, food (the food!), history, etc. Not Beijing when it comes to history, no, but definitely things to do. 3 days is a good amount of time IMO.
I believe they've actually been to Tokyo. If not, Japan warrants its own dedicated trip, IMO.
Now you've got me all torn up about Mandapa vs. Amankila again. Here we go again.....................