The villas in Novus Bali Villa are really comforatble, stylishly appointed in Balinese culture, clean, spacious and totally secluded. It was lucky that we were assigned a 'kubu' (1-bedroom villa) which is next to the pool. It's as good as having breakfast by the poolside every morning. The candlelit dinner was accompanied by traditional music played by musicians in the neighbourhood. That dinner is very well presented and the portions were really huge. Similarly, the breakfast was wonderful with your choice of american, Continental or Balinese, which were all well prepared and delicoius! Although you need a drive-out to get to the beach, there are many shops and markets just outside on the main road of Kerobookan. And the ever-popular Kafe Warisan is just a 5-min drive away! The price of the villa was very reasonable too, and you book directly with them.

We booked ourselves a one bedroom villa for our honeymoon for three nights at the Novus Bali Villa.

Our experience started off all wrong, as the hotel didn't pick us up from the airport at the appointed time. It turned out that another guest with the same family name had cancelled their booking earlier in the day, and they had assumed it was us. We ended up waiting more than an hour for the management to rearrange for a vehicle to pick us and we were quite upset by all that wasting of precious time.

After reaching the villa, we tried to get ourselves an upgrade to a villa with a private pool, but to no avail. Only the two bedroom and three bedroom villas came with private pools. And there were only two of us...so the answer was no.

The next day, we spoke to the assistant manager, Nelli, who was extremely apologetic. She promised to make amends... and we were very touched by her sincerity and initiative.

Nelli arranged for a candle-lit dinner that night, and we ate at the dining area right outside our villa. We even had live Balinese music while we ate. We had spent the day in Kuta, and upon our return to our room, we were pleasantly surprised by the rose petel arrangement on our bed, aromatherapy, and a rose bath had been running for us too.

That was all very sweet. Only that when we checked out, we realized we had been charged for a 'honeymoon package', which we hadn't requested for. After a 20% discount, the add-on package, which was somewhat forced upon us, set us back about 440,000 rupiah. That included dinner. No biggie - but we had assumed the villa was doing it out of goodwill, to make up for wasting our time on the day we arrived in Bali.
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The villa itself is nice and spacious, though there were a couple of things that bugged me:

1) The outdoor toilet was ridden with ants!
The toilet was outdoors, but still very private. The toilet bowl was a little dirty on day 1, but that problem eased in the following days.
Perhaps it's part and parcel of having an au naturel style bath tub. Since there are so many plants around, creepy crawlies are inevitable...

2) Lizards/geckos and mozzies
I'm not a fan of those creatures. The former were noisy, the latter were rather rampant and fed on us quite a bit. I must add that the mosquito net helped, and so did the mosquito coils that were lit every evening.

3) Creaky air-con
The unit let off this high frequency screeching noise constantly. It drove me crazy. I told Novus repeatedly about it, each time they would send someone around, but the problem never went away. I decided to just deal with it, and treat it as though it was part of the ongoing insect cacophony.

The good bits:
1) Great food at reasonable prices!
A maincourse would be usually less than 10 USD. The complimentary American breakfast was hearty and always freshly fried. They have a nice range of juices: papaya, honeydew, pineapple.

2) Nice obliging service and lotsa smiling!

Overall, it was still a pretty good experience. We would go back. Although the villa is a little far out, it brings one close to nature. And being away from the hustle and bustle of city madness is a good thing! Nelli also did a great job at suggesting places for us to explore.
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A general comment about Bali, we experienced this quite a bit. The locals tend to give less change than what is due. It's usually really small amounts involved, but do count your change!

This is really to say thanks top the staff of the Novus Villas Bali for the care and attention offered me during my stay.

I am a television journalist and travelled to Bali to cover the unfortunate incidents of Oct 1, 2005.

I chose the Novus on the web at 0400 Sydney time the morning after the blast and quite "by accident" found a wonderful haven.

Staff, service, food and accommodation could be rated as 5 star in any Australian hotel.

The location is quiet, secluded, away from the bustle of Kuta and Denpasar, but each are easily reached by a taxi fare costing no more th $A5.00.

Four people greeted my very late night arrival, including Made armed with a cold drink and a very welcome cold towel.

Throughout my stay everyone made their best effort to ensure my comfort.

I can recommend the Novus Bali Villa to anyone and hope that Bali will not suffer a downturn in tourism resulting from the unfortunate activities of a very few radicals.

Terry Gallaway

We have just returned from an 18 night holiday at the Novus Bali Villa. We were travelling with my eight year old daughter and 18 month old twins!

When arriving in Bali your bags are collected by porters which was fantastic for us as we were tired and had our arms full! You should pay them an average of 3000rp per bag although they will try for more.

We were met by Ipon from Novus at 11pm in the evening at the airport and from that stage on everything was taken care of. We were given welcome drinks and cold towels upon arrival to the Villa and made to feel reall welcome, although after nearly 22hrs traveeling we were shattered and just wanted to get to bed!

The Villas are amazing! We stayed in Puri the 3 bedroom villa with its own pool, however we were part of a larger party that had the one bedroom villas that were just as nice. The communal pool is lovely, a fantastic place to relax after a hard day bargaining at the shops! The general Cleanliness of the villas is first class. Our room was cleaned several times a day (sorry about the mess guys!), and the beds turned down in the evening.

The food cooked for us in the villa by the staff headed by Takut and Made was superb! For breakfast the choice was endless, they would basically make you what you wanted how you wanted! They had a menu that you could buy from for lunch & dinner, all very good prices and very high standard. If you wanted somthing different, infact they could make anything you desired, just give them a days notice and they will get it for you! Made made us the most fantastic marinated king prawns and red snapper with coconut rice and vegetables!

Eating out was alos fantastic, the choice endless. A few local restaurants to look out for are Kafe Warrisan, Ku da Te, The Living Room and La Lucciola. All our fine dining and world class at less than 15 uk pounds per head. You should also visit Warung Kopi Aceh for well presented, tasty food that you would expect to find at a 5* hotel, at amazingly low prices (less than 5 pounds a head including a couple of beers!!).

Local beaches are great, about 10 mins from Novus. They run a private minibus that will run you too and from the beach, shopping and pretty much anywhere locally.

Overall, an amazing holiday with superb attention to detail! Thanks once again Ipon and Indra for making our stay special and we look forward to next July!!