Honeymoon Venue: Ubud Village Resort and Spa
When considering an overseas honeymoon (or even a destination wedding), the venue selection can be rather harrowing with an entire world to consider. As part of our #honeymoonhumpday series, we're going to be bringing you a variety of venue profiles, honeymoon styles and tips every Wednesday to help you narrow your options down to somewhere truly amazing.
Today's venue is the Ubud Village Resort and Spa in Ubud, Bali.
Winner of the Bali Tourism Awards 2015-2016 'Leading Luxury Resort' award, TripAdvisor 'Hall of Fame' award, and winner of the World Luxury Hotel Award 2014, the Ubud Village Resort and Spa is the empitome of luxury and elegance in the heart of Bali's treasured country village, Ubud.
On approach, the sounds of the bustling Ubud village fall away leaving only the faint sounds of the Balinese music being played in the grand lobby of the Ubud Village Resort and Spa.
As you wait to check in, you’re presented with a complimentary welcome beverage and a cold damp hand towel to refresh you. A hotel ambassador sits with you and explains the resort’s location in Ubud, how to get the hotel’s complimentary shuttle and how to get around. As your hotel ambassador guides you to your villa, the grand Balinese doors welcome you, as does the sign, personalised with your name. Inside, you’re overjoyed to see the grand level of luxurious detail afforded to you in your private villa. Two daybeds, an outdoor dining table, private plunge pool, complimentary jandals for wandering the resort and then, you go inside. Through the glass and wood doors, you’re greeted by the scent of jasmine and frangipani wafting throughout the villa as well as the gentle soothing Balinese music and welcome chill of the air conditioning. There’s a birdcage of Balinese fruit and chocolates waiting for you on the side table, all natural organic bath products (and even an organic insect repellent which you’ll use for near every use, just to smell the amazing scent of the herbs and minerals inside the bottle.) You have an indoor and outdoor shower, an expansive bathroom and outdoor sunken bathtub surrounded by fish ponds.
Each evening, hotel staff conduct their turn down service, replacing mosquito coils and readying your villa for rest. Each 294 square metre villa was designed after Balinese traditional architecture with local natural materials like paras stone for walls, alang-alang grass for roof thatching, palimanan stone for flooring, and tanah taro water-based paint for wall-finishing and has spectacular views of the neighbouring rice terraces. Outside the villa, you have 4.5 hectares of resort property – rice paddies, beautiful mature gardens, gorgeous architecture to explore through walkways and bridges like something out of Jurassic Park until you reach the main pool area where you’ll find the largest pool in Ubud, a pool table, sunken bar, gym and restaurants and is also where you’ll take your breakfast each day.
Included in your room rate, the breakfast is a three course masterpiece that changes each day. Choose from fresh fruit, roasted fruit or granola for your first course, a basket of handmade and toasty warm freshly baked breads and pastries, fresh juices and Balinese coffee and then opt for a western breakfast of eggs benedict, French toast or waffles.
While there are many restaurants in Ubud for a romantic dinner, or even the choice of an expertly prepared and decorated dinner for two in your private villa, Angkul-Angkul (Balinese for Entrance Gate) restaurant is a sumptuous Balinese style two storey open pavilion surrounded by lush tropical landscaped gardens, terraced rice paddies and water features located at the main pool area is also the perfect location. The staff decorate the pool area each evening with candles, the pathways with fire torches and the rice paddies with hanging lanterns and at your feet, an incense burner giving off that same incredible jasmine scent of your villa. If you’re lucky like we were, you’re afforded the entire area to yourselves with course after course served at your leisure by wait staff who are all but invisible until the second you need them. We recommend the seafood platter entrée which was a fine dining experience in itself.
Retire to your villa via a romantic candle-lit and lantern-lit walk back through the gardens and have a bath drawn and awaiting your return by the hotel’s willing staff.
Every aspect, every touch at this resort is thoughtfully crafted and applied to make every element of your experience, one of considered opulence. Such a large resort could easily mean that the small details are forgotten or the cleanliness hard to maintain and yet the Ubud Resort and Spa has a concentrated focus on the details. Nothing is overlooked, nothing forgotten, everything considered.
Ubud itself is a stark contrast to the rest of Bali. While the other villages are bustling with the sounds of tourists and hawkers, Ubud is more of an arts and crafts town out of the way in the middle of field after field of rice paddies. The ambience there is far more relaxed and the streets emit more of a Parnell or Newmarket vibe with the clean storefronts and higher end stores on the main street.
Take the hotel’s complimentary hourly shuttle into ubud Village to the resort’s sister hotel, the Ubud Village Hotel, a central location for your day’s events and wander to nearby temples, the Royal Palace, the Monkey Forest or the Ubud Markets. While the temptation to hire a driver or wait for the next shuttle may be hard to resist in the Bali heat, we recommend walking back to the resort. It’s about a half hour saunter but you get to see and experience so much more of Ubud than you would by car and it’s such an easy village to navigate.
If you head out to town to eat, we recommend ‘Kebun’ for a French bistro feel and ‘Oops’ for the best burger you’ll ever eat in Bali and a constant stream of Bintang beer.
Back at the resort, you’ll find on offer, local activities such as dance lessons, woodcarving, painting, making offerings, rice planting, and cooking classes as well as the two-storey Kama Karana spa for ritual treatments and relaxation.
If you’d like to venture a little further out of the village, hourly, half day and full day programmes can be arranged for you to ride elephants, go white water rafting or hiking or to take a trip out on the water for various watersports like snorkelling, diving or paddle boarding. Between 5 and 6pm each day, take a trip to Petulu, a village which is home to thousands of white herons and egrets who return each day to roost about this time.
If you’re an early bird, take a morning trek accompanied by resort staff at 7am to explore the river valleys and village life.
At 4pm each day, take in a complimentary yoga class at the resort or have a complimentary high-tea style afternoon tea served to you poolside.
One thing you’ll find everywhere in Bali, no matter where you go, is the overwhelming happiness and friendliness of the Balinese people. Constantly smiling and willing to help you in any way possible. Consider the Ubud Village Resort and Spa for your honeymoon and you won't be disappointed. This was the most beautiful, most opulent resort we'd ever laid eyes on and we wish we could have stayed far longer than our time allowed.