Welcome to the Checking In series on Orlagh Claire where I review hotel, hostel and AirBnB stays around the world. As you most likely know, I have been travelling quite a lot recently which you can see over on my YouTube channel.
Next in this series of reviews is the Papillon Umalas Villas where we stayed during our first stint in Canggu, Bali, Indonesia.
If you’d like to see a video tour of the villa, you can see this in my first Bali vlog over on my YouTube channel which I’ll also add in below.
I also put together a separate YouTube vlog showing the three villas I stayed in during my time in Bali which you can find here.
Location
For the first part of our trip to Bali, we were staying in the area of Canggu, a popular spot for tourists to spend their first time in Bali and get adjusted to island life.
Papillon Villas is situated just off a main road in Canggu with some nearby bakeries, restaurants and other villas in the area.
Distance-wise, it’s a fifteen minute drive to the busy area of Seminyak, a fifteen minute drive to Finns Beach Club and a fifteen minute drive to Milk & Madu (one of the popular brunch spots). All of these are in opposite directions, so Papillon is a great base to have in the middle.
To get around this part of the island we did rent a scooter, although this was an experience in itself as the driving in Bali is a little crazy. When we got to Ubud and came back to Canggu, we opted to order taxis everywhere instead.
The cost
If you check the villa out on booking.com you’ll see that it’s a four-star accommodation. For our two-bedroom, two-storey villa we paid £201 for three nights.
Between the two of us, that would be £100.50 each for the three nights, or £33.50 per night each.
Now imagine the two bedrooms were occupied by two couples/four people. You would be paying £16.75 each night for three nights, for a two bedroom villa in Bali. Crazy.
The villa
Words wouldn’t even be able to do justice to describe how beautiful the villa was. The site hosts a number of villas just off the main road and comes with a front desk/reception area to check in and a small carpark for motorbikes and mopeds.
We rented a two storey, two-bedroom villa with a large open-plan living, kitchen and dining area that opened up to a private pool.
Upstairs we had two bedrooms, both with large ensuite bathrooms that were bigger than our own bedroom at home.
The front door even had its own little porch with a fish pond and stepping stones to get to the main entrance.
It was incredibly private, safe and quiet and we could have stayed here for much longer than the three days that we were there.
Our stay
As we mostly used the villa as a base to explore the area of Canggu, I would say that we didn’t get as much use out of it as we would have liked.
We didn’t use the kitchen area of the villa at all, but it was huge and would be great if you were to host a large number of people.
We did go in and out of the pool on a few occasions, but a lot of the time it was covered and in the shade so the water was freezing most of the time.
The bedrooms were behind closed doors upstairs, so there was no need for mosquito nets and we had a pleasant night sleep each night.
We also had a rooftop that we could go up to in the villa, and you could see for miles across the island of Bali which was very cool.
Overall review
Even though this villa was incredible and a great way to begin our holiday in Bali, it wasn’t actually our favourite villa that we stayed in during our time on the island.
Don’t get me wrong though, we had an amazing stay here with no complaints at all. In fact, the only complaint I may have is that it was too big for the two of us and could be a little creepy because it was so large. But I think that’s a nice complaint to have.
The villa was in a great location and made it easy to get around the area of Canggu during our stay. Those that worked at the villas were also incredibly friendly and couldn’t have been more helpful.
I would hugely recommend if you’re going to be in Bali with a group of friends/family.
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