In Reply to: do I have to book room in advance? posted by guslye on Monday, 30. December 2002 at 16:10 Bali Time:
We've had success booking on the spot. My advice is search this forum for recommended places that fit your budget (and there are plenty of them in Ubud) and make a list. Then when you get there have your taxi driver take you around and negotiate with them on the spot. When they see you have a driver and are able and willing to leave and look elsewhere, it gets you to a fair price more quickly than if you're standing there with all your luggage looking tired and stranded.
This is especially true now that tourists are so scarce. A fair price shouldn't be difficult to come up with. Couple more thoughts: it's also fine to look in guidebooks (Lonely Planet, etc) for names of hotels, but hotels and restaurants in Bali go out of business fairly quickly in relation to the publishing timelines for books, so some of the ones in the book may not exist, or may have changed ownership (and also prices) since the book was published. Also, the time of your arrival at the airport may affect your ability to search and negotiate like I've described. It's about 1 1/4 hour drive from the airport to Ubud (perhaps a bit longer if traffic is bad), so if your plane doesn't land until late in the day it may be after dark when you actually arrive in Ubud. Not that you can't still search around, it's just harder to tell what a place looks like when it's dark, and it gets dark quickly after 6 p.m., year-round.
Have a great trip!