My family (myself, husband, two teenage girls 14 and 16) stayed here in a 2 bedroom villa for a week in late September this year. PradHa villas are indeed very well located being walking distance to almost everything that matters in Seminyak. They are set back in a laneway so that they are well away from the hustle and bustle of the main streets. They are about 5 minutes' walk to Seminyak Square and to Seminyak beach, a minute or so's walk from Grocer and Grind (a good cafe for breakfast and lunch - they do serve dinners but I didn't think much of them for dinner), about 10 minutes' walk to' Eat Street' (Oberoi) and 10 minutes' walk to the main part of the street called Pettingret where there are also some good eateries - Potatoe Head (very upbeat: teenagers will love it) being probably the most well known on that street, although our teenagers also liked The Deck. Gourmet Cafe further up Pettingret is about 15 minutes' walk from the villas but the walk is worth it as it is a really good cafe. The villa is within 5-10 mins' walk from La Lucciola restaurant (very good), and about 15-20 mins' walk to Ku Te Da (lovely) - both of which, like Potatoe Head, have excellent beach aspects. There is a very good hairdresser/treatment place just 2 minutes' walk from the villas walking towards Grocer and Grind, and 'Cool Spa' (also just near Grocer and Grind walking towards Seminyak Square) too is also very good indeed and reasonably priced.
Anyway, I digress a little. So, Back to the villas - first the plusses:
The villas were pretty comfortable and the pool, which both bedrooms immediately look onto was warm, larger than I expected and a lovely treat after the heat of the Bali day.
The lounge/dining area was spacious with a large overhead fan and there was a quite modern kitchen with a fridge and hob, and filtered (but not chilled) water, but no microwave.
The bedrooms were airconditioned and this worked well, and the beds were comfortable and the two ensuite bathrooms were large both with showers and baths and the main bedroom had an outdoor shower which was nice. Both bedrooms had TVs and DVDs and there was a TV in the dining room area too.
Many people have complained on this site about the breakfasts (which for us were included in the price), but I thought they were overall pretty good especially the Nasi Goreng and Mi Goreng and the banana pancakes were delicious - although it is true that after a few days, the lack of variety did start to become very noticeable. I had assumed the breakfasts were cooked in your villa, but this did not occur, and the breakfasts were brought to you on platters at the time you requested the day before from a menu. You could even have breakfast at different times according to the needs of your family - so one day, my husband and kids ate very early, but I had my breakfast two hours' later - this flexibility was most appreciated. However, I could not understand why they never left us a menu to select breakfast for the next day in our villa or even when they brought the breakfast - we always had to ask reception for the menu to select from.
The staff at the villas were pleasant, helpful and courteous almost all the time and helped us book tours. We were also able to book a driver for a couple of days when we wanted to explore the surrounding areas (we went to Sanur one day, and to the Bali Safari and Marine Park (excellent) another day - our driver was Noman, the uncle of Butu who works at the villas, and he was exceptionally friendly and efficient and reasonably priced and I recommend you ask for him.
The in-room dining option was also very good - we had some friends over for dinner one night and had the villas cater a three course meal for us from a wide menu, and it was well priced and the good was mostly good.
I used the in-house treatment service the villas can arrange for you offer and had manicure in my villa which was reasonably priced at about $10 for 45 minutes and the lady who came was pleasant and did a good manicure.
The main reason I am not giving the villas a "very good" rating (I don't care for the "average" tag Tripadvisor uses, preferring to rate this villa as "good") is because of the minusses for the villas overall, which meant that I feel the villas are overpriced compared to other villas available for the same price in Seminyak which are more modern and upmarket and offer more in the way of inclusions (for example no massages were included in the price we paid, although other similar quality villas in similar areas in Seminyak did include these).
The minusses are as follows:
The villa we stayed in was definitely showing signs of age all around.
The drawers in the main bathroom smelt really musty and moldy upon opening them and this smell never went away the time we were there.
The furniture in the bathroom and around the villa generally was starting to look chipped and worn in many places.
The floor in the lounge/dining area seemed to me to have a lot of stains/dirty marks on it. There was ash on the floor when we arrived that was never cleaned away.
I felt the decor of the villas generally was rather dark and rather dated, and the lighting arrangements
were mostly pretty poor so that at night there did not seem to be enough good light to read by. This was particularly true in the bathrooms in the evening where one could hardly see enough to put on makeup the lighting was so inadequate.
The housekeeping was not particularly efficient or practical: I originally, and repeatedly, asked for extra bath towels as they only provided one bath towel per person, and each day, the housekeepers would take away all the bath towels and only give us one each again. We originally were given one hand towel and one facewasher each, but after day one, the housekeepers gave us only one hand and facewasher between two of us. There was never a handtowel provided for the third toilet and I had to ask them twice to put toilet paper in that toilet when it ran out as they did not seem to check this. There was no handtowel provided for the kitchen area either, and so I had to use the one from the bathroom.
The toilet in the main bathroom was rather inefficient, requiring several flushes, and on two days, the toilet and bath in the main bathroom did not seem as if they had been cleaned properly by the housekeeping.
One of the lights in the main bathroom broke, and I reported it, but it was never fixed.
The shower in the main bathroom often dripped constantly.
The wooden planks under the shower in the main bathroom where the water drained away were a little uneven and wobbled a bit.
The option of providing filtered water through a machine in the kitchen and which was not chilled and was in fact often quite warm, rather than supplying bottled water each day, wasn't very practical. We regularly had to ensure we had empty bottles of water available to fill up with the filtered water and chill in the fridge overnight. Not particularly helpful if you wanted a cold drink quickly.
The mosquito protection provided in the bedrooms/lounge area did not work well at night and we were all bitten. There were no mosquito nets on the beds and given that the main ensuite bathroom was partly open air, this meant that mozzies came into the adjoining bedroom at night a lot.
We were annoyed that the transport we paid for which the villas has arranged to pick us up from Nusa Dua to bring us to Pradha Villas ended up being a very small car indeed and three of us were cramped in the back seat most uncomfortably on a long 1.5 hour trip in terrible traffic. Since we found out during our stay that the villas have some much more comfortable and bigger vehicles available, we are unsure why this very small car was provided to pick us up as it was not a pleasant journey.
Overall I do not think the 2 bedroom villa we stayed in was value for money because of the shortcomings mentioned above. They may seem relatively minor, but these villas are not cheap and I think there is better quality around for the price.
I think that there are more modern/newer 1bedroom villas available at PradHa villas, but I think the 2 bedroom villa we stayed in (villa 8) was quite dated and older than the 1 bedroom ones ( I poked my head quickly into a 1 bed villa while I was there when it was being cleaned and it did seem smarter and newer than ours). The two bedroom villa we were in was clearly in need of maintenance and an overall update. Once this is done I think these villas will represent much better value for money. They are comfortable and pleasant villas to stay in, but we felt they are somewhat overpriced.
By way of a side tip - avoid flying Virgin to Bali. We flew from Melbourne to Bali and back with Virgin and thought they were terrible, extremely disorganised and clearly trying to save money on quality service for the passengers. They use very small planes so you felt cramped the whole flight. There were only two toilets being available for over 160 people. so the queues were ridiculous (there was another toilet at the front of the plane but it was reserved for business class passengers). There were long waits to check in both at Melbourne and in Denpasur airports and the check in staff seemed to be inexperienced. In addition I would ask WHY Virgin asks passengers to check in at least 3 hours' before the flight but does not have check in staff available at Denpasur until 2 hours and 50 minutes before the flight leaves????. There were no snacks available for purchase on the flights: "sorry Ma'am, it's a fully catered flight" was the reply when I asked - so if you didn't like either of the meal options, bad luck - you went hungry (and they ran out of the vegetarian meal option early on so if you do go Virgin you might want to consider bringing your own food!!). The inflight wireless entertainment did not work on the flight to Bali and there was no apology and no entertainment tablets to purchase so it was a long, boring flight. Worse, we sat on the tarmac in Melbourne for an hour while they took some people's luggage off whose passports were not in order (begs the question: who checked these people in for the flight in the first place Virgin?) and there were no drinks offered while we waited. Not impressed at all.
