Hi all

Well to give an update... we used:

http://www.balinicetour.com/

There is a box on the right of the home page marker 'airport services' - and you can follow the links through there.

Booking was very easy and the initial replay was received within about 12 hours, and once we had booked thre was a reply in about an hour if there were any questions.

So - how did it go?

Well - they were NOT at the gate. There were three of four people at the gate but not for us. There were another three of four people about 20 metres further - again not for us.

Our rep was waiting *with another goup) just before going into the arrivals hall (just prior to the visa on arrival stand).

So they were there - you just had to keep walking. (I couldn't tell which companies got to stand closer to the plane, but some had green uniforms.)

The service itself:

It was all very quick and painless, you first stand and wait while the guy goes and gets your visa (you give him the USD25 per visa at this stage).

You are then taken past all the immigration queues via the domestic/crew channel.

You are taken to the conveyor belt for luggage for your flight. Note: you have NOT cleared immigration at this point - it's just a quick passport check at the crew desk for your identity.

While you are waiting for luggage the guy takes your passport and goes to get the visas and all the arrivals stamps.

By the time our bags were coming through (First class - so it was pretty quick) they guy had come back and gave us the documents.

He then helps you with the luggage and you join the baggage screening queue - which took us about three minutes even through there would have been 20 people in front of us in each of the three queues. We handed the USD30 per person to him (at no time was he pushy for money, and it was us that offered to make the payment at this time ^)

The guy then hands you over to your hotel/tour representative etc. (As an aside our hotel got the flight details wronf and weren't there to meet us - the VIP giy waited with us for about 20 minutes going around looking and having the hotel paged. At that stage i could see he probably wanted to go so we said goodbye and off he went.)

So all up it was very good, the longest wait was for the luggage (about 4 mins) and for the bag screening (about three mins).

Just don't get worried if you don't see your guy right at the gate.

Out of interest, EVERY passenger in the F cabin had booked an arrival service!! There would have been a total of about 16 arrival VIP guides waiting for the arrival of our flight plus one other that landed just after ours.

Happy to answer questions.

Great info, LHR! Thanks! Just a few minor questions:

1. Did the guy's sign say your name, "Bali Nice Tour" or both?
2. Was he in uniform?
3. I'm curious--were you on the CX flight from HKG? That's the one we're taking.

Thanks again!

Thank you very much for that report. We will be arriving on the Cathay flight at around 2PM on Friday, August 27 in F. Since you had such a great experience, it is pretty much a "no brainer" in terms of booking the service. Thanks for offering to answer questions. If I think of any, I will surely give you a shout.

Hi

Not sure if there was a sign with the name of the company � certainly had our surname on it � we were more thankful he was there and I didn�t really notice any further details!

I don�t think he was in uniform � he just had a shirt and slacks on (but again � it might have been a uniform � hard to tell). All the arrival guides had airport security tags as you would expect.

We were on the CX flight leaving HK at 1005.

For those of you able to get a seat in the F cabin the service was outstanding and was full traditional F service (but with biz food/drinks). This included fully stocked F lavatories, the F cabin and lavatories closed off from the main biz cabin, personalised service (including addressing you by name from entry to the aircraft and whenever asking you what you needed or when delivering food or drinks), F pillows (but no duvets), everything delivered by hand (no trolleys), priority disembarkation (biz class held back until the F cabin was cleared), F uniforms for the crew.

The meal service was over in about an hour allowing about 2.5-3 hours of sleep if you wanted. Being in the F cabin there was an individual �wake-up� service with a hot towel and coffee or orange juice delivered as each passenger woke from snoozing.

(sorry to hijack the thread away from the pure arrivals service but it looks like a number of people are taking the CX flight so thought I would outline what to expect!)

More great info. Thanks again!

Just came back from a trip to Bali. Because of my previous experience 18 months ago using Bali Concierge, but knowing they no longer handle arrivals, I was a bit concerned. So, I checked out online and found Bali Easy Services. I contacted them and within 1 hour they confirmed our meet and greet servicesfor $35 per person (plus the cost of the Visa on Arrival for $25 each). Our TG flight from BKK was due to arrive at 2pm, but we arrived 45 minutes early. Not a singe international flight was there. Airport was almost empty. There was a jetstar plane sitting there, but it had been there for awhile already. The inside of the terminal looked deserted. In fact, after we went down the escalator, just before the Visa on Arrival counter, I saw the young man with our name on it. There wasn't a single person in line for a visa and 4 lanes of immigrations officers were also completely empty. I could've just bypassed the guy and screwed him over, but I didn't. From stepping off the plane to walking out with our checked luggage was 6 minutes 30 seconds. Was it worth the $70 we paid? No, not this time. We had to wait about 10 minutes for our driver to arrive (even he wasn't expecting us so early!). As we pulled away, we saw a China Airlines A330 coming in for it's landing. So, if we had been behnid that aircraft, the $70 would've been money well-spent.

That TG flight from Bangkok is often early and arrives in a little gap in action of other international scheduled arrivals. So if taking this flight to DPS, I'd probably gamble without paying for meet-and-greet, and just dash for the immigration lines. Definitely in low season.

Yes - BaliFastTrack.com provides this fast track service at Bali. See airportjakarta.com for the same service at Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya airports.

Yes you are right - airportjakarta.com all does this service in all the major arrival destinations: but they are upfront and they warn you that there is a chance there will be not queue: this is particularly the case in the mornings before the rush has built up... but it can still be bad.

Premium Track dot com does the same service round the world

Even in high season, it's worth the gamble. I was on it on Sunday and we landed on time... behind an Australian flight (but those pax were mostly through the lines already) and ahead of the China Air which came in just as I was walking out the doors into fresh air. I'd say it took me ten minutes total and that was only because I got in the VOA queue behind an idiot who was having to calculate the currency conversion himself and then borrow cash from friends in other lines.

Another FTer had told me that they recently stopped doing the full-page visas - he got one in July but had heard they had gone back to the stamp. I can confirm that the old stamp was all I got this time around as well.

It may be worthwhile to see what flights arrive when your plane lands. Also note, most ASEAN countries do not require a visa to enter (so Air Asia maybe ok). but I would be weary if a CX or SQ plane lands - you can expect that plane will be filled with foreigners, from the US, Canada, UK etc.

In our case - I insisted we use the arrival service (even though I had a passport from an ASEAN country, the bf (now ex) with the US passport did. We flew SQ and landed in the evening.

The airport was empty. The guy (we did it though our hotel), was holding our names on a card, took both our passports, ran to the front of the line. He escorted us to baggage claim. The whole process took 15 minutes tops - and we were off to our villa. Painless.

In this case the value wasn't so great- because the airport was empty. If you land when a Jetstar plane (from OZ) lands, the service would be totally worth it.

Just wanted to add that my wife and I used balinicetour also and had almost exactly the same experience. The one slight difference was that they guy was gone for about 15-20 minutes when he went to get our passports stamped. My usually calm wife who's traveled less than I have got a bit nervous about this. So if you think you or your travel companion might do so also, look at the fellow's ID badge for his name and ID # before he temporarily disappears, just to assure yourselves and know whom you gave your documents to.

Anyway, that very small matter aside, the guy was great...made sure we found our driver and helped us get our bags to the car before saying good-bye.

Airport was empty landing at 6 pm early Oct and it took 5 min for VOA/immigration and 1 min for customs -- who did diligently check that alcohol was within the dutyfree allowance limit (Bali has 300%+ tax on alcohol). Both immigration and customs looked to be well staffed, with dozens of (idle) inspectors, perhaps needed for the later evening rush. Looked a lot more efficient than in my last visit to DPS a few years ago.

1) I was reading the visa rules for DPS. It mentions:

I don't have a credit card, does a debit card work? How do you show access to $1K, do i bring a copy of my bank statement.

2) I have to arrive in DPS 2x during my upcoming trip in May. I know two separate entries would be $50 or if i get multi entry visa ahead of time from the consulate in the US for $100. Are there any perks to getting visa ahead of time?

They don't check unless you look dodgy or are stopped for some other reasons, then you would need proof of funds ... but probably the least of problems if it comes to that. Having a visa ahead of time means you skip the first queue and head straight to the 2nd queue (immigration). Sometimes that can be worth an hour, but more typically it is 5 min. Getting a multi-entry visa can be difficult, however, esp. if you don't have a credit card.