Our best beach vacation yet! Having spent wonderful holidays at many locations around the world, the Villa Shanti is the best beach location by far. From the friendly greeting on arrival by the staff, to the beautifully designed and constructed villa, and the perfect location on a quiet beach in Northern Bali, all of it exceeded our expectations (and we had set them high). The quiet location, set back in the rice fields, with its very well cared for grounds including the very short walkway to the beach and the huge pool are just a few of the advantages of Villa Shanti. The staff is great, going about their duties in quiet precision, allowing us to have our family time and privacy. During our stay, Ketut prepared our breakfast and dinner every day, except one, the food supplies cost a meager $250 for the entire 2 weeks! We like our mornings unhurried, so asked Ketut to prepare a late breakfast, and provide fruits and snacks for lunch. Then every evening we looked forward to our fantastic Balinese meals, including prawns and lobster several times. I have several food related allergies and Ketut prepared separate servings, in many cases just for me, and then added all the goodies for the family’s servings. Be sure to have the prawns and mie goreng for dinner and the pancakes with palm sugar syrup for breakfast. The gardens and lawn are well kept including several mango trees, and to our delight we had fresh mango every morning with breakfast. There are also pineapple and star fruit as well. In addition, it was grape season and so the villa’s next door neighbor offered us bags full of grapes several mornings, keeping us in grapes for our entire stay. The friendliness of the neighbor is a tribute to the Balinese people…we found everyone on Bali to be very friendly, trustworthy and accommodating. The villa’s design complements its surroundings and all of the amenities are great. The pool is very large; we were in and out of it several times per day. All of the furnishings in the villa are very nice; the rooms are comfortable and provide everything you could ever want. We spent most of every day outside, in the outdoor furniture, on the beach, and in the pool….what a great way to spend a day. Don’t miss a chance to go snorkeling or diving at Menjangan Island with arrows Dive Centre in Lovina. We were very happy with this company and Buda, our dive master, was great! Buda was very professional and very safety oriented and great with our teenage son during his introductory dives and us during our snorkeling. We were so happy with Buda and his staff that we went to the island twice! Don’t miss it! We also went on a dolphin trip that Nyomang had arranged. The boats came right to the beach in front of the villa. In addition to the dolphins, the Balinese sunrise is not to be missed, take your cameras. All of the staff is very kind, courteous and professional.Ketut with her continual smile and great attitude kept us fed with her great cooking, Ita kept our rooms and the entire villa spotless and assisted Ketut with food preparation, Nyomang was always available to take care of any issue and provided us transport to several places during our stay. The gardeners worked tirelessly to keep every plant and tree in perfect order, and Kadek our security guard with his calm presence kept everything in order, but was never intrusive. In addition to all of this, the owners are very friendly and helpful. This is a place that we intend on returning to. If you want a quiet, relaxing, worry free and beautiful place to vacation, this is it!