August 2024 | the crystal press fashion blog

August 2024 archive

Family Friendly Hotel in East Bali – Alila Manggis

We recently stayed at Alila Manggis, part of the Hyatt Hotel family and it was truly lovely.

To be transparent, I am trying to build up our travel portfolio and therefore am getting as many posts up as I can.  One of our major goals is to thoroughly explore Bali and I am hoping to do that with the help of some travel partners! I have covered travel around the US pretty extensively over on instagram, and some here on the blog and am looking to expand this part of my blog business. 

That being said, I just HAD to share these gorgeous photos of our stay at Alila Manggis, which was in no way sponsored.  It is located just an hour and fifteen minutes away from Sanur in East Bali right on the coast. I asked a new friend who lives in Bali with littles for a resort recommendation that would be a relaxing weekend for us and for my mom. Something with a luxury feel, that was affordable, close and toddler friendly. She hit the nail on the head with Alila Manggis (thanks, Libby!)

I can’t believe this hotel is only a Category 1 in the Hyatt family. It felt much nicer, even if it is almost 30 years old! And on top of that, its totally family friendly. Actually, most places in Bali are because the Balinese love children and are so kind.

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Piersols in Bali: Traveling from Virginia to Bali

From Dulles to Doha to Denpasar. We moved from Virginia to Bali and here is how we got here with a toddler! Strap in, folks, its a long one. 

traveling to Bali

We have been living in Bali for a few weeks now, and even though I haven’t yet written a blog post about WHY we moved to Bali, I wanted to write this one first while it is still fresh in my mind. 

SO, here is *logistically* how the four of us traveled from Virginia to Bali. Spoiler alert: it took us 3 days.

We priced out our options with our friend & travel agent, Ally from Lensvue Travel, and decided that it was best to drive up to Dulles and fly to Bali by way of Doha on Qatar Airways.  The flight times worked better this way than flying through Dubai, which was the other option when flying East to Bali. My mom traveled with us in order to help us get settled, and we had my dad drive us up to Dulles to help us with Olive and all of our luggage. We each had an allotted 2 bags plus a carry-on and personal item. So here is the baggage breakdown:

Checked luggage:
3 Large Suitcases – we love our AWAY BIG suitcases.
3 Tyvek Bags (do not recommend, the straps ripped when being handled by airline staff)
2 Black & Yellow Bins
1 Thule Running stroller in a bag stuffed with assorted other items (FREE!)

Carry-on:
2 Roller Bags
1 Backpack
1 Small Duffle (Olive’s “diaper bag”)
1 Small purse (kept passports and tickets in here for easy access)
1 Travel Stroller bag (free!)
1 Car seat (Olive used it in her seat…some)

moving to bali

 

We left Dulles around 9pm, which is the perfect time to leave with a toddler. They do this on purpose, of course, so that you are able to catch some ZZZs on the flight. The flight was 11 and half hours to Doha, and since we took advantage of getting on during pre-boarding that meant we were on the plane for 12 and a half hours. I would say that the flight went about as well as to be expected.

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xx, Reb + Cath