Here’s my rant about getting into Denpasar Airport, maybe it was a one-off but I’ve heard other people have similar experiences, so prepare for the worst and it might not be so bad.

I’m lucky enough to have an APEC Card, which gets your through Fast Track lines at some of the most notoriously slow immigration checkpoints in Asia. I’d pay 10 times the amount for it than what I actually pay, just to avoid the lines because the last thing you want when getting off any flight with kids, is to wait another hour or two getting through immigration.   If you think Bangkok Airport is bad, it’s got nothing over Denpasar Airport. We arrived on a late afternoon flight from Hong Kong and saw, and this is no exaggeration, the longest immigration line in the history of mankind. And still to this day, I’ve never come across any immigration line at any airport in the world, worse than this.

As an estimate, I’d say all those suckers would have been queuing up for over 2 hours. It was an absolute shambles with kids sleeping on the floor, parents looking like they were about to explode and not a single happy face in the entire queue (who can blame them). Thank god (if there was one) for the APEC Card, we headed straight to the front of the line, much to the dismay of the people in line, and whipped through. So just prepare yourself for what could be quite possibly the longest ever wait you will ever encounter.  Maybe Denpasar Airport has sharpened up it’s act but I don’t really want to go back to find that out.

Leaving Denpasar Airport

Now of course, it could have just been some flights got in at the same time or the lovely immigration officers at Denpasar Airport decided to take a late afternoon nap, and it is possible you could fly in and have no queue, but my motto is expect the worse, and you can only be pleasantly surprised.  A few of my mates (which is all my mates as I only have 2) have said the same thing, they’ve encountered absolutely diabolical immigration queues.  Take that for what you want, but you should know that before going.

There are better beach resorts much nearer to Hong Kong.  If you live in Australia, I suppose the fact Bali is closer to Thailand, Vietnam and most other asian beach resort places is an attraction in itself.  Every now and again you hear about the Aussie who drank too much and got themselves either put in the slammer, croaked, or ended up down shit creek with no toilet paper in sight. People forget Bali is Indonesia, and whilst Bali is a lot more forgiving than perhaps the rest of Indonesia, it’s not a place you want to get yourself into trouble.

Don’t have too much expectations about Bali, it’s way overrated in my opinion, and unless you’re a teenager or twenty-something looking to get in the mix amongst thousands of Aussie’s and Kiwi’s getting shit-faced, I can think of loads of other places that offer better value for money, better beaches, better service, better hotels, and a better all-around holiday.

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