Possibly Seminyak's Best (but not Bali's)

100   Recommended
One Bedroom Club Pool Vil...
March 11, 2022 by

 Map | 2 Reviews | 100% Recommended
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The Legian
 Map | 2 Reviews | 100% Recommended

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One Bedroom Club Pool Vil...

Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
Stats
Room
One Bedroom Club Pool Villa

The Legian is perhaps among Seminyak's most iconic hotels; opened in 1991, the hotel's statue is only rivaled by the neighbouring Oberoi hotel, which itself opened in 1972 as the Kayu Aya (in fact, the street on which The Legian lies was until recently called 'Oberoi Street', until it was renamed 'Jalan Kayu Aya'.). 

The Legian was until 2016, a part of GHM's once impressive portfolio of hotels, which has since sadly faded into oblivion. The hotel's interior design is a masterpiece of the late Jaya Ibrahim, who also designed several other GHM hotels and Amans, including The Setai, The Nam Hai (now Four Seasons Hoi An), The Datai, Amandayan, Amanfayun, Aman Summer Palace, as well as Muscat's Chedi hotel. The hotel's exteriors were designed by the late Hendra Hadiprana, who owned Tanah Gajah (The Chedi Club Ubud).

Like many GHM hotels, The Legian has since been operated independently: in The Legian's case, by a dedicated management company that's rather unfortunately called LHM. 

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The Legian's imposing porte-cochère 

Check In

We arrived at the main hotel lobby by our own means but were quickly ushered to The Club across the street when we told the staff that we were checking in. I reckon that we must have been the only guests to be arriving that day.

Upon arrival at The Club, we were immediately greeted by our assigned butler. Our luggage was quickly taken, and we were brought to the club reception for the check-in formalities. We were offered drinks and some sanitising products. We were also personally greeted by the resort's manager, Alain who wished us a pleasant stay. 

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The Club at The Legian's reception

We were then taken to our villa, where our butler explained to us the club benefits we can receive, which included:

Complimentary breakfast, mini bar, afternoon tea, evening cocktails, unlimited laundry (excluding pressing), complimentary car services within Seminyak, and complimentary airport transfers.

Room

We were promptly escorted to our villa (across from the reception) by our butler. He quickly acquainted us with the features of the villa and ensured that we had all we needed. 

At 450 sqm, our villa compound was very much immense. I found that there was a lot of wasted space towards the back of the building, but I imagine that only added to the feeling of sheer spaciousness of the place. The entire compound was very beautifully designed, and the interior in particular felt very elegant and intimate thanks to the lighting.

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Villa bedroom

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Villa bedroom

Furthermore, our room was stocked with complimentary mini bars (I say bars, since there are two mini bars in our compound), and serviced with a complimentary laundry service as a club perk. I did especially enjoy the many bottles of Kombucha available in our room, along with the fruit crisps that came with it. 

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Villa livingroom

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Villa livingroom 

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Villa pavillion 

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Outside sitting area

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Pool

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Pool

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Fountain

The villa's bathroom is equally large and beautiful. There were double vanities, along with an indoor shower, and an oversized outdoor bathtub. The hotel's toiletries were branded 'Wellness by The Legian' and were in large reusable bottles. In fact, there didn't seem like much single-use amenities, since their water bottles are also Legian-branded and were glass. All of that I reckon contributed to the sense of luxury of the villa.

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Wash basins

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Outdoor bathtub

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Toilet

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Shower

Whilst the design was stunning, I did have some gripes with the functionality of the space. I thought that the bedside table was too small and cluttered to meaningfully sustain any purpose. Furthermore, I disliked the oversized outdoor tub, which took a very long time to fill up (by which time, the water had already become cold). The shower also had a drainage issue that meant that the drain overwhelmed very easily, making long showers not ideal. Finally, I found issue with the room's glass water bottles, all of which had dysfunctional seals that don't break when twisting the cap (either releasing the cap with the seal still on, or preventing the bottle from being open).

Apart from that, the villa was very comfortable and relaxing.

 

Dining

All accommodation at The Club included both breakfast and afternoon tea, which we partook in during our stay. That said, food was probably the more disappointing aspect of our stay. There was just something about some of their food that I found to be rather 'meh'. 

To start on a positive note, the Eggs Royale and Nasi Goreng we tried was quite good although unfortunately arrived lukewarm once it got to our villa. The smoked salmon part of the Eggs Royale was very nice though and was similar in quality to that in Europe. The juices were likewise very fresh and nice. The fruits were likewise excellent and were served with some sort of yogurt on the side. So these were excellent.

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In villa breakfast, Eggs Benedict, Bubur Ayam Congee, and Nasi Goreng fried rice

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Soto soup

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Omelette

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Mie Goreng fried noodles

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Tapioca dish

Their bread and pastries were fine but not anything special. Unfortunately, they weren't very fragrant but were otherwise edible. Their omelette was also fine, but likewise nothing special.

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Bread basket

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Pastries

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Cold cuts plate

What was disappointing though were the other options which simply didn't taste very good. The tapioca porridge (I think that is what it was called?) had an overwhelming coconut milk taste and was slightly salty and not at all sweet (the fruit pairing made the dish taste odd in my opinion). The cheese in the cold cuts plate was nice but I couldn't say the same about the meats (granted I've been spoilt by how good many deli meats are in the UK). The Bubur Ayam congee was bland and lukewarm, likewise was the Soto soup. The Mie Goreng fried noodles were bland and tasted crude.

Their afternoon tea was much much nicer though, and most of the finger foods they offered tasted high quality.

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Afternoon tea

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Afternoon tea

Service

Service was overall very good. There was much attention to detail and service was mostly proactive, whether from our butler or the pool attendants at the main hotel. Our butler knew how to find us wherever we went in the hotel, and whenever we arrived back to our villa. I also found that the service at the pool was especially impressive with how proactive it was. Cold towels and water are instantaneously offered, and whenever I worked on my laptop by the pool, our pool attendant quickly came up to me to offer a laptop stand. Very impressive service at the pool.

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Water service at the pool

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Hotel main pool

That said, the service culture did feel like it was rather inflexible, where things were more to the book more than a 'can-do' type of service. For instance, car services had to be requested far in advance as opposed to last minute, which made it inconvenient as a result. 

I would have to note that our driver on a couple of occasions was very courteous and thoughtful, and was able to calculate precisely when he needed to pick us up, without us asking. Absolutely excellent service from him.

Location

The hotel's location is right in the centre of Seminyak, near several spots that had been "happening" in past years. However, Seminyak, like most of Bali (bar Canggu) is very very quiet due to the still small number of travellers on the island. 

There were many dining spots around the hotel, and particularly popular ones too. However, we found that many of the restaurants in the area were more trendy than qualitatively good, and food tasted average and inauthentic for what they were charging.

Seminyak's stretch of beach was also nothing special, the sand was an unattractive shade of grey, and there was a litter problem along the coastline (although The Legian does an excellent job of keeping their beachfront area pristine).

Whilst I imagine the liveliness of the area might slowly pick up back to how it was in the past, I don't reckon that Seminyak would be my go-to area of choice. However, if circumstances require me to be in the area, The Legian would definitely be my first choice of accommodation, followed by the Oberoi or perhaps the Alila.

Overall

Overall, The Legian is undeniably a very nice hotel with an equally impressive design; although the place didn't quite impress me as much as I would hope it would. The service and location were mostly rather good although the food was, in particular, the less nice aspect of our stay. 

Having said that, nothing of that makes The Legian a bad choice—not at all. The hotel remains a very decadent choice. In fact, it is still my belief that The Legian is the area's best hotel (and likewise, they charge the highest rates in the area between other hotels), and it is likely where I would stay had I the need to be in Seminyak. Although, perhaps it is Seminyak (the area), after all, that made the stay seem less wonderful than I hoped it would, rather than the hotel itself. 

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