This is a beach break at a luxury resort of a very high order.

I have been exploring Bali on a bit of a whirlwind 6 day tour, starting in Seminyak and finishing in Ubud. I spent only 1 night here at the Westin Nusa Dua to indluge in beach side luxury, and I made a wonderful choice.

The views from the beach are truly spectacular. Nusa Dua is all pristine white sand, gorgeous swaying trees and white gauzy beach loungers. Close your eyes, imagine paradise on a beach with endless azure waters, pristine white sands and a coconut in your hand.. you have the Westin Nusa Dua.

The Westin defines beach luxury, with lovely staff, gorgeous decor, blue pools, amazing buffet breakfast and a fresh, healthy hotel menu. The staff are very friendly and can't do enough for you, as is typical with the Balinese. Wifi in the lounge is free (paid for in the room).

The rooms are well decorated and very clean, with a very gorgeous bath to relax in. Baths and beds definitely make the Westin! The rooms could be quite narrow in the layout, but still seemed quite spacious with quality furnishings and unique Westin touches, like the natural colour scheme, soap in the shape of a leaf etc.

The only reason the resort doesn't get a 5/5 from me is the size of the rooms. In almost all the hotels in Bali that I have stayed in the rooms have been far more spacious. Then again, I guess that's the price you pay for building a resort on prime beach-front land like Nusa Dua, doesn't give you too much space to play with.

I loved the Westin Nusa Dua and recommend it for a 3 day break to unwind and relax.

We stayed here twice during our trip to Bali - once at the beginning of our trip and the second time was at the very end of our week-long trip. Here's what we thought about our stay:

1. Rooms: As Starwood Preferred Guest Gold member, we were upgrade first to a pool-facing room on the 4th floor and then to a garden-view room on the first floor. We were given a complimentary fruit plate for both check-ins. The layout of the bathroom in both rooms was spacious and I appreciated the vanity table with the plugged-in hairdryer. But the bathroom in our 4th floor room had a moldy smell akin to a rotting dish rag. The smell was from the shower curtain in the bathroom. A small pet peeve of mine but I don't think luxury hotels should use shower curtains. I mean, it gets moldy and dirty and who likes showering over the bath tub anyway? Better to separate the shower from the bath tub and ditch the shower curtains. Our second room on the 1st floor was much nicer with a nice tub and a separate shower.

2. Pool & Beach: Spacious and not over-crowded. However, this is a family-friendly resort so there were a lot of children running around both on the beach and near the pool. There are plenty of beach chairs on the beach and a handful of fancier type of beach chairs (the ones shaped like a little dome) that you can rent for the day. The beach itself could be a bit cleaner. There was a lot of debris that got washed up on the shore. The beach chairs are a bit worn and tired looking. The beach itself is not entirely private for the guests at the Westin because the shoreline is shared by few other hotels including Club Med. You can go for a nice stroll from one end of the beach to another, visiting one resort to the next.

3. Location: Perfect for a beach resort holiday but not convenient if you want to experience the nightlife that Bali has to offer. We hired a driver for the entire trip in order to get around Bali. It took about 30 minutes to get to Kuta and another 15 minutes or so to get to Seminyak. There is a lot of traffic in and around Kuta and Seminyak but we definitely recommend hiring a driver or getting a cab to take you to these places either for lunch or for dinner. We had lunch at Kudeta without having to deal with all the night crowds and then went to the W Hotel for pre-dinner drinks. We also had our driver take us to the famous Bulgari Hotel for brunch as we were eager to check out the facilities at Bulgari and the spectacular view from the cliff where it is located.

4. Transportation: Our driver for our trip to Bali is named Kadek, and my husband and his friends have all hired him on their trips to Bali. He is reliable, honest and trustworthy. We cannot praise him enough. He picked us up promptly from the airport in his air-conditioned van and took us straight to our hotel to wash-up and unpack. He was with us on our trip to Ubud and drove us to countless destinations all over Bali. He specializes in tours with overnight trips to various locations in Bali. He is extremely knowledgeable about where to go and what to see and do in Bali. His contact info is: [--] and mobile: [--]. We highly recommend him for your trip to Bali, especially if staying at the Westin Nusa Dua as you'll definitely need a car to get you outside of the resort area.

5. Starwood Preferred Guest Privileges: No club lounge available at this hotel. However, they offer afternoon tea from 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm in the lobby. They offer a variety of scones and a limited selection of finger sandwiches. I wished they had a larger selection of snacks or a varied selection because both times we tried their afternoon tea, we had the same selection of scones. Get there early if you want to snack.

6. Check-in and Customer Service: Outstanding although at times it felt a bit rehearsed. Once you go through security at the front, you'll be greeted by a traditionally dressed Balinese woman who welcomes you with a flower for you to put behind your ear. The check-in staff are very friendly and welcoming. A cold welcome drink made out of tea was served along with cold hand towels. We had one staff in particular named Tika who accompanied us to our room and was super helpful and friendly during our stay.

Overall, our experience at the Westin Nusa Dua was pleasant. We will likely return one day when we have children but for our immediate travels in Bali, we'll likely try out the W Hotel as it is more centrally located near shops and restaurants.

I could feel their hospitality once I entered the hotel. Nice staff everywhere!!!

Room is clean, toilet is huge, room is pretty small but I have no problem with that. Lots of choices during breakfast. Location is good, we walked to Discovery mall in 15 mins, and 25 mins by taxi from airport. The hotel is good overall.

Staff at the recreation counter is wonderful, willing to give us advice and share his experience. Finally he booked us a private fishing tour. The whole trip went smoothly, we came back with two baby tunas. Hotel staff helped us to wrap them and put them in their fridge! As we wanted to keep them and bring them to restaurant for dinner. They are really helpful and don't mind doing extra miles to help their guests, really appreciated that.

We stayed here the week before Christmas -- the hotel itself was top notch. The rooms are clean, and although the actual room space can be a little small, the bathroom was really nice to relax in. Pool could get a little tight but nowhere close to being packed/crowded. Food was good, typical hotel buffet fanfare. Complementary afternoon snacks & tea was nice. The Japanese restaurant had amazing dinner sets, the manager said that they brought in one of the chefs from their chain in Japan to design & cook for a month. Best meal of the trip. Beach was the best, although you had to pay a fee to use the special beach beds and mini Balinese huts.

Overall a great holiday.