Bali 2015 - Our hotel (The Courtyard by Marriott in Seminyak)

Looks like a postcard right?

Closer view of the pool from our room

The check-in area

Love the open spaces

We had the most amazing stay at Marriott.

This was our first visit to Bali with 2 kids, the last time being in 2009 without kids.

I knew that our kids are too young to do the crazy stuff we did the last time, so we simply had to have a children-friendly hotel. Preferably one with a kid's club. And definitely in Seminyak, so we had easy access to restaurants and massage parlors.

I was so tempted to get a water villa because Bali is the place where one can afford a water villa without having to burn a hole in one's pocket. BUT with 2 toddlers, we couldn't foresee ourselves lounging around in our villa without having to worry that our kid(s) would fall into the pool! (Both of them can't swim yet). And of course with a villa, one would have to contend with the issue of mosquitoes. Hmmm.... eh, no thank you!

So, a hotel it would be!

After spending hours researching online, I was convinced that Courtyard by Marriott was the right one for us. It's a very new hotel, only built in end 2014 and everybody raved about the breakfast on Tripadvisor.

True enough, the breakfast was the best that we've had at a hotel!

HUGE selection of food!

Asian selection

Fresh juice and fruits in the fridge on the left

Where's my food?

All that fish / chicken / rice / noodles. I was stuffed!

Breakfast was one of our daily highlights. We always looked forward to waking up for breakfast which was available until 11am - another plus for us! There was a huge selection of pastries, bread, pancakes and even ice-cream and waffles!!! Winner! It was hard negotiating with Sammy about why he couldn't just have ice-cream for brekky!

Housekeeping came by twice a day. It was so lovely to come back from our day trips / pool visits to a brand-new room! Staff was awesomely friendly! I don't know if it's just the Balinese friendliness, but we were always greeted with very warm smiles and "Hello Madam. Good morning!"

The kid's club was great. BUT it's a bit of a bummer because our kids were 3.5 years and 1.5 years back then. Hotel guests get 2 hours of free babysitting at the kid's club for children 4 years old and above.

I tried to bargain with the staff that my boy turns 4 this year and he's actually pretty tall for his age, but they kept to their guns. If we wanted to use the kid's club, we would have had to stay with our kids.

And of course we'd rather do other things with them than to be stuck indoors playing with toys in Bali right?

We managed to find a great way to circumvent this though! - Will blog about it later.

We stayed in a family suite so the kids had more space to run around the room. We had 2 TVs! One for the bedroom and one for the adjoining room. Our hotel room was located on a higher floor because we read the reviews that it can get pretty loud on the lower floors.

See the adjoining bedroom and dining area

Comfy beds!

Sleepwise, we got a complimentary travel cot from the hotel. Sammy still fits (barely) into the travel cot, so that was his bed, while Gabriel shared the master bed with us. Obviously Sammy loved our bed too much, so very often he would climb into our bed at night and the four of us would be somewhat squashed come morning.

The kids LOVEEEEED the pool! And so did we. The kids' pools were shallow enough for Gabriel to walk around with his floaties and yet deep enough for Sammy to swim around in his goggles.

Water was nice and warm. Sometimes even too warm. But I ain't complaining here, since I'm used to much colder waters in outdoor swimming pools.

Morning swims were enough to tire out the kids (and us) so we often napped together - As I said, it was a very relaxing trip! 

The pool bar had SUPERB cocktails and finger food. There was live music on certain days, so we were also pretty happy we stayed on a higher floor so that it wasn't too loud for us.

Pool bar

 Caesar's salad and one-for-one cocktails at the pool bar!

Gabriel's expression says it all!

Lounging at the pool area

 Lounging in the hotel room / on the balcony

All in all, a SUPERB stay! If it weren't for the fact that by the time we go to Bali again, our boys would probably be too big to stay in one room with us, we would love to go back there again! Highly-recommended for anybody who is looking for a place to stay in Seminyak, Bali!