Travel diary · Bali
10 Nights at AYANA Bali: The Most Luxurious Escape
Ten nights at AYANA Resort in Jimbaran, and we genuinely did not want to leave. The restaurants, the pool, the sunsets and a level of service that spoils you for anywhere else.
Travel diary · Bali
Ten nights at AYANA Resort in Jimbaran, and we genuinely did not want to leave. The restaurants, the pool, the sunsets and a level of service that spoils you for anywhere else.
We booked ten nights at AYANA in Jimbaran thinking we would use it as a base and explore the island. Instead we barely left. AYANA is not really a hotel, it is its own little world on the clifftops above the ocean, with more restaurants than you could get through in a fortnight, pools you plan your whole day around, and a sunset ritual that never once got old. This is everything we loved about it, and why I think it is the one stay worth splurging on in Bali.
In this guide
The first thing that gets you is the sheer scale of it. AYANA sits on a huge stretch of clifftop above Jimbaran Bay, with gardens, pools and restaurants spread across the whole estate and a shuttle to get you between them. Ten nights sounded like a lot when we booked. By day three we were quietly working out how to extend.
What makes it feel genuinely luxurious is not just the setting, it is the people. Every single person who looked after us was warm, unhurried and somehow remembered exactly what we ordered the day before. That is the part you cannot fake, and it is the reason this stay felt so special.
This is the view that made us cancel half our plans. Looking out over the pool to the ocean with the islands sitting on the horizon, it genuinely does not feel real. We would claim a daybed in the morning, swim, read, order something cold and look up to realise the whole afternoon had gone.
The spa is the other thing you should not skip. A slow afternoon in the thermal pools and a massage after is the most relaxed I have been in years, and it made the whole stay feel like a proper reset rather than just a holiday.
The food is where AYANA really shows off. There are something like a dozen restaurants and bars on the property, so you can eat somewhere completely different every night without ever leaving. We did exactly that for ten nights and still did not get through them all.
We ate raw and fresh by the water at lunch, then dressed up for long tasting menus at night. The seafood is exceptional, the plating is beautiful and the wine list is genuinely good. Honestly, some of the best meals we have had anywhere, let alone inside one resort.
Every evening we would head to the clifftop for drinks and watch the sky go completely pink over the water. It became our favourite ritual of the whole trip, and it is the kind of view that makes everyone go quiet for a second.
Then dinner, and usually a dessert far too pretty to eat. It is theatrical in the best way, and after ten nights it still felt like a treat every time.
If you want a taste of real luxury in Bali, AYANA cannot be missed. The restaurants alone would justify the trip, but it is the whole feeling of the place that stays with you: the romance of long dinners and sunset drinks, the awe every time you walk out to that clifftop view, and being looked after so beautifully that you stop thinking about anything at all.
And here is the part I keep telling everyone. This exact experience in Australia would have cost us three times more. Ten nights, the restaurants, the spa, the service, all of it. When we sat down and worked out what a stay like this would have set us back at home, the value was something we simply could not go past.
It is the rare place that feels indulgent and worth it at the same time. If you are choosing one splurge for your Bali trip, make it this one.
Planning your own trip? Save this guide, and tell me which stop you'd add.
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