On my second trip to Bali during our holiday in Indonesia, we stayed for three nights at Kampoeng Villa. It is on Kerobokan area and distinctly quieter than Seminyak. Few reasons that made us went ahead to book at this villa are the price per night (Ag*da had a good deal back then), their swimming pool is fairly good size (not the plunge pool type), they offer free shuttle to Seminyak, and there is an extra toilet downstairs. Since we are in group of three, having an extra toilet would be great!
As usual, I would check out reviews on TripAdvisor to short-listed my options and by the way, Google Map is such a helpful tool to give you an idea of what sort of surroundings you would be expecting. I then emailed Kampoeng Villa just to confirm their facility, size of their pool, and whether or not any constructions around the area, which they responded very promptly and informative. We had also booked the airport pick up and had no problems at all with the service.
Upon arriving in the villa compound, it felt so quiet and serene. And although we arrived past midnight, the front staff greeted us with friendly smile and showed us to our villa – Villa Ubud. Cleanliness of the villa was not so great, perhaps it has been vacant for a while; we felt the floor was sticky (especially in the bedroom and bathroom), bath tub was dusty and some of the lights were flickering throughout our stay. We didn’t make fuss of these little issues as it was already late and we could always wear the slipper provided, not used the bath tub and not turned on the flickering lights. The size of the pool is 6 m x 3 m and is 1.5 m deep, so it is a nice size pool.
Apart from those little mishaps, the villa itself was beautifully designed, it was huge (way too big for a couple), the bedroom and bathroom are just massive. I also loved the bedding, comfortable mattress with soft linens. There are four units of air conditioner in the entire villa (two on each floor), which all worked fine while we were there, had no issues with water pressure either, no mosquitoes problems. I really like the Balinese carved wooden door to main bedroom as well as the bright and huge all-closed bathroom. All closed bathroom is one of the most important criteria when I shortlisted my options, so Kampoeng Villa totally ticks the box for this!
You will need to order breakfast the night before and they will bring them over in the morning at your specified time. Breakfast was hit and miss for the three days we were there; the food was either too bland or too salty, they were served with fruit juice (not fresh fruit juice, these are loaded with sugar) and tea/coffee. There is a kitchen with stove and pots and utensils in the villa, but no microwave. I was told that if you need to heat up your food, you can always ask the staffs to do that in their kitchen where microwave is available.
There are not many shops or restaurants nearby, but we had expected this before and since we rented a car it has not been a problem. A lot of nearby restaurants offer delivery options or else you could order food from the villa itself. Taxis are cheap and easy to find, plus the villa has free shuttle to Seminyak area which we used once. Our villa was at the very end of their property and next to us was the paddy field, great view from balcony at the same time expect some noises in the early morning.
In summary, we had a fairly good stay in this villa. Yes there were few mishaps but I guess for the price on offer we could not complain. If you want a peaceful stay, not too fussy and maybe have arranged your own transport, this could potentially be a good place to stay.