Seminyak with kids

Start with the water, because everything else is easy

Villa Aniri has an 8 × 3 metre pool with wide stone steps that walk you in, and a fish pond in the garden. Both are open. There is no fence, no gate and no alarm between a small child and either of them, and the house itself is an open-air Joglo — the living pavilion has no walls to speak of, which is the whole point of it and also the thing to plan around.

So we say this plainly on the villa page and we will say it again here: the house is not suited to unaccompanied children under four. With eyes-on supervision it is wonderful for small children — the shallow end of those steps is where toddlers spend entire mornings. Without it, it is a garden with two bodies of water in it.

Why a villa beats a hotel room at six in the morning

Children arrive from a different time zone and wake when they wake. In a hotel room that means whispering in the dark until an acceptable hour. Here it means someone opens the pavilion, the kettle goes on in a kitchen that is entirely yours, and the early risers get the garden while the rest of the family sleeps behind a closed door.

Four bedrooms and four bathrooms is the other quiet advantage. Nobody queues, nobody shares with the grandparents, and the parents of a baby can shut a door without exiling themselves from the holiday.

Feeding people who are tired and particular

There is a full kitchen, so plain rice, plain noodles, fruit and cereal are always possible without negotiating a restaurant at six in the evening with a child who has run out of patience. The villa attendant will shop, or a private chef can come and cook in the villa — a day ahead is the notice they need, and they will build the menu with you, allergies and fussiness included.

The restaurants on the strip are a short walk away and worth the walk. But the honest advantage of a villa with children is the evenings you do not go anywhere.

Prams, footpaths and the beach

Footpaths in Bali are an adventure in their own right — they start, stop, change height and occasionally become a scooter park. A carrier or a sling will get more use than a pram, and the pram you do bring should be the folding kind that survives a kerb.

The coast here faces west, which is why the sunsets draw an audience and also why the surf can be serious. Swim where the flags and the lifeguards are, keep small children in the shallows, and treat the sea as an event rather than a babysitter. The pool is the babysitter — supervised, as above.

When it is the whole family, not just your half of it

The house sleeps eight in four bedrooms. For the trips where the grandparents come, Villa Sukacita next door takes the party to sixteen with one garden wall between the two houses — which in practice means the children can be loud in one and the adults can be quiet in the other. Ask about both houses in the same message and we will quote them together.

What to bring, and what to leave at home

Bring the sunscreen your children’s skin already agrees with, insect repellent for dusk, swim nappies, and a rash vest — more useful than a second swimsuit, in this sun. Bring any specific medicine in its box with the prescription.

Leave the towels, the hairdryer and the cot. A cot and a high chair come on request; ask when you book so they are in the room before you arrive rather than after. And a small habit worth starting on day one: the tap water is not for drinking, and that includes cleaning teeth. Bottled or filtered water is what everyone here drinks — ask the attendant on the first morning where the villa keeps its.