Villa Markisa Dive Resort Review by pgunderson

My husband and I traveled to Bali and stayed in a Deluxe Bungalow at Villa Markisa. We arranged to be picked up in Denpasar by a driver from the resort. It was nice not have to worry about travel arrangements with all our dive and camera gear. When we arrived the resort itself was small and quiet and I found it was the perfect calm escape from my busy work schedule. The bungalow was beautiful and had a desk perfect to set up my laptop so I could review the photos I took. The furniture was simple and elegant and I was told later by a friend who stayed at the resort that it was all designed specially by Christiane for the resort. There were plenty of outlets in the bungalow, plus a dedicated camera area with plenty of outlets. Voltage was 220VAC, and our entire stay there was no issue with power. The attention to every detail was obvious in our bungalow, in the special area dedicated to photo and video gear, the dining area and all the other areas in the resort. They have 2 boats, one larger and one smaller that both make comfortable dive platforms, although my favorite diving was right on the house reef. The resort seems to really be geared for the underwater photographer or videographer. I believe part of the reason for this is Christiane's passion for nudibranchs and for documenting them with her photography. Her camera was always ready to go and it was a real privilidge to dive with her and have her show me some of the very many exotic creatures that can be found here. There is an extensive reference library to help in the ID of the marine life available in the common area.
We ate mostly Indonesian food so I cannot really say much about the other food, but the Indonesian food was delicious and there was plenty to eat. I can't say that we lacked for any creature comforts, but I believe that if you are interested in doing a lot of partying this might not be the best place to do it. If you want comfort with a definite feel or luxury you will not be disappointed coming to dive here.
Pedro and Christiane are very gracious hosts and were a good source of information about Bali. The resort offers tours of various areas of the island, so if you have no urge to travel further than Villa Markisa, you can use it as a point to see other portions of the island and return to the comfort of Villa Markisa. That is what we did.
The only thing I would urge a visitor here who is an underwater photographer to do, is to make sure you get some chances to see something besides the macro life. The macro photography is great but I think in our visit I neglected the wide angle possibilities as the resort is so keyed to the tiny life. There are definitely good wide angle subjects too.
The dive staff was a pleasure to dive with and they were great critter spotters. My favorite dives were the night dives and the head divemaster Dharma was as eager to dive at night as I was. I truly enjoyed our stay at Villa Markisa and was sorry to have to return home.