Day 266: Free Day Soaking Up Alila Manggis
[Slow internet, minimal pics]
With the trek yesterday and a full day cooking class tomorrow, we scheduled absolutely nothing for today. But we squeezed in two massages!
We spent the day soaking up the loveliness that is Alila Manggis.
As mentioned a few times this week, this has been one of our favorite hotels of the year. It’s actually a Hyatt property but it doesn’t have a “major hotel brand” feel to it.
Here’s what’s great about the property — why we like it, what I hope to remember and the reasons why we should return some day:
- Big enough for some people watching but small enough that you feel special — and crowding at pool, restaurants was never an issue
- Great service that feels like a family… many of the staff have been there for 10+ years
- Comfortable room with a good layout (kids beds in separate area) and a perfect, breezy ocean-view balcony for school, chilling, people watching
- Great food… everything I’ve eaten has been really excellent
- Immaculate property, I played soccer in bare feet, barely a blade of grass out of place
- You can hear the sound of the ocean at all times
- Perfect pool… huge, large shallow areas, warm enough to keep kids in it for hours (as mentioned on our first day here, it was cloudy and green when we arrived but they fixed a filter pipe and cleaned it up)
- Nice spa with outdoor massages where you can hear the waves crashing (we had two massages, one was the best I’ve ever had and the second was only average)
- Beach bar by the water where we had dinner each night
- Listed last but critical: Amazing weather… temps were perfect at all times
The program today: I swam laps, then breakfast, school, pool, soccer, catch with James while Willa read Harry Potter, massages (the aforementioned average ones, unfortunately), 3pm tea time with dessert treats, more pool and soccer, showers and beach bar.
I gave Margaret an hour or so before her massage to work on her book project. I took an hour after mine to catch up on some reading and create a Google doc titled “2020 Career Notes.” A few high level potential directions but no concrete thoughts as of yet.
While Margaret was taking her personal time I was playing soccer with Willa and James on the grass between the pool and the beach. A gay couple approached us and one guy said, “I just want to tell you that your kids are so incredibly well behaved.” So nice to hear of course — and they have been really good over these last several days.
We started chatting and learned the guys were from northern England, had been to a few places around Bali and love Alila Manggis just as much as we do. We had a good chat about travel and they were loving hearing about our adventure.
(Margaret later said she looked over from the balcony fand saw me deep in conversation with two guests and realized the headline of our year could be: “Talkin’ to Randos.” So funny.)
At one point in my conversation one of the guys said, “Have you seen the celebrity here?” Yes! They also recognized Rachel Hunter and were determined to get a picture with her.
One of the guys (Mark) tracked me down later and it turns out they ran into her as she was checking out. She was super nice, they had a great conversation. For some reason Mark even mentioned us to her — we were the only family with kids so we were hard to miss — saying we were on a year-long trip around the world. She supposedly loved hearing that and said something like, “More families should do that…oh what a shame that we’re meeting as I’m leaving, I wish we could have all had dinner.” Darn it! Apparently we’re not talking to enough randos!
Tonight we got a babysitter and had dinner in the restaurant! Our eighth all year….
MISC:
Margaret and I often refer to Willa and James as “The Nerds.” Today the housekeeper was inside making beds while we did school on porch. Margaret said, “He’s still in there making the kids’ beds,” and Willa looked at me in scrunched up face amusement: “The kids?! Don’t you mean…the nerds?”
James asked Margaret totally out of the blue: “Do *you* decide it’s your ring finger or does the *world* tell you it is?” Huh?? Finally figured out he meant: Can you put a ring on any finger you want?
Astute observation by James while playing catch: “Pop flies are *never* like grounders.”
James asked: “Is there a bad word for every letter in the alphabet?” S-word, f-word, etc.
