Bali // Day 1 - BEST waterpark I've ever been to!!

Curious to know where the #1 and #3 waterpark in Asia and in the World, respectively, is? Well, read on my friends!

Le & I caught a 5AM flight to Bali this morning and braved through the snooze bug by immersing in some crazy fun at probably The Best Waterpark I’ve ever been to – WATERBOM!

A little side-track first, upon arrival in Bali, I easily identified the driver my family & I booked for the day. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT buy your data SIM Card from the airport if you have the choice. Thank God I did my research beforehand because the booth at the airport more than doubled the price! I reconfirmed it with my extremely nice driver – more details about the driver below! – and got him to drive me somewhere else to get one instead. I ended up purchasing a 7GB data SIM Card without call credit for IDR135k. A huge contrast to the airport’s IDR350k.

Also, if you were wondering why I rented a driver for the entire day on my first day of the trip, well, it’s because a trip to Ubud from the airport costs about IDR200-300 and my parents and grandparents were arriving only in the evening so booking a driver for 10 hours (IDR500k) actually costs even lesser! Plus we could put our luggage in the car.

We got some breakfast to gear ourselves for the tiring day ahead at a random Babi Guling Warung our driver drove past while on the way to getting our SIM Card. It was our first time eating Babi Guling so all we could say was that everything was really unique.

Back to Waterbom! I got my tickets from my driver for 460k ea and topped up 500k into my cashless payment hand strap (you can probably see it on my wrist in my video below). Fret not, you can top it up again when you’re inside and retrieve the balance before leaving. 

The rides were all great with most of them hitting the fun mark and a few that would even attract adrenaline junkies like me to revisit. Some rides allowed the use of my GoPro while some didn’t. Thankfully, the system they had in place made it very safe to leave your belonging with the staff at the bottom of the ride. All you had to do was exchange your item with a numbered hand strap and return it to them when you want to retrieve your item after the ride. Easy!

Lunch was also comfortably devoured in Waterbom, together with a Strawberry Smoothie and a Passion Fruit Mocktail. We got ourselves a plate of Mee Goreng to share because we didn’t want to head back to playing with a full stomach. Everything was pretty decently priced and although not extremely tasty, still pretty good. There are many food options available in Waterbom along with Restaurants ranging from Italian to Thai, snacks like Churros, hair braiding and spa services.

When we finally got enough of adrenaline and climbing the stairs (just thinking about all the stairs we climbed today makes me pant), we concluded our day at the park with a banana passionfruit ice popsicle and a cup of cinnamon churros to enjoy while we had Fish Spa for the first time ever hehehe. It was so ticklish I have NO idea how the Caucasians did it with a straight face. Despite that, we still carried on and eventually got used to it.

Now that we're done with all the wordy details of Waterbom, here's a video I sloppily put together on Windows Movie Maker (forgive me, I'm a blogger for a reason & this was my first time using the GoPro).

As I left Waterbom, my mind flooded with reasons why I now entirely agree with its world ranking.

1. Super convenient cashless payment system 
2. Safe – lockers (I had the family sized one for IDR3.5k) and hand strap system mentioned above
3.  Allowed the use of GoPro for enough rides such that your day was still Instagram-worthy
4.  More than just water fun!

Discovery Shopping Mall was our next stop while waiting for our driver to arrive to pick us up and head towards the airport to get the rest of my family. 

It was a long drive to Ubud and when we finally arrived, we headed to Dirty Duck despite all the bad reviews because it was right opposite our hotel and everyone was tired.

We got 2 servings of Crispy Duck, a plate of Pork Ribs, a bowl of Carbonara, 2 plates of Nasi Campur Bali, a serving of 6 pcs of Escargot, a plate of Crispy Mushroom and 4 bottles ice water for IDR 943k.

Crispy Duck

Carbonara

Nasi Campur Bali

Escargot

Crispy Mushrooms

Just like most the reviews, the duck was crispy to the end of meatless and the service was horrible. Everything else tasted pretty decent, but not for that price. The restaurant was huge though! Like a big garden with huts everywhere.

I apologize for the horrible photos because the lighting was really bad. Anyway, tomorrow will be another long day touring around Ubud with my family and I’m honestly pretty excited! Ttfn.

Driver:
Bali Sun Tours
http://balisuntours.com/
TripAdvisor
+6281 936 109 809

Funny Story: 
The night before our trip, our confirmed driver that initially agreed to 450k/day suddenly decided to play us out and increase the price to 500k/day. We felt super cheated and disgusted by how sly they can be and obviously didn't want to go around every day with someone we can't trust so my mum decided to ring up a number she saw in an email she received a few weeks back from a driver in Bali. 
In the email, the company stated was not Bali Sun Tours so we felt really skeptical when they kept claiming to be BST over the phone. BST is quite a well-known tour company in Bali thus made me think that other companies might pretend to be them just to get customers - yes, they are that sly. Think: Blue Bird Taxi Frauds.
Eventually, even though the price was still 500k/day, we settled for this because we had no other choice and the person over the phone was very friendly and seemed to know what he was doing. 

When I arrived in Bali, my driver was waiting for me in a black polo-tee with a BST logo on it and further convinced me of its authenticity by leading me to a car with a BST logo on it. *phew* I honestly have no idea what I'd do if it were a fraud. 

- update -

Everything there on out with them went by very smoothly and even though our drivers changed once or twice (maybe because it was a last minute booking), the drivers were all nice, friendly and informative. All of the other activities we planned like White Water Rafting and Nusa Dua Watersports were all booked through them too. They give decent rates, but never forget to bargain! 

xx.