I recently stayed at the Empire Hotel & Country Club in Brunei. As there’s not much information on this hotel (and Brunei in general), I thought I’d try to give a detailed report.

I was picked-up by the hotel limousine as I had arranged during my booking. This went very smoothly. A nice English-speaking driver. The Mercedes was, however, ageing and there were no cold towels, water bottles nor newspapers/magazines.

The hotel is not located in downtown Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei Town), but rather in the most upscale suburb. It takes about 20 minutes to get from the hotel to downtown. The airport is about 15 minutes away from the hotel - albeit in a different direction from downtown.

Entering the hotel grounds you certainly realize the Country Club part of its name. Its set on huge grounds which are manicured perfectly.

The hotel consists of several wings in the same building (“complex”). The lobby has a huge atrium and the hotel has huge public spaces throughout. They’re all marble and gilded wherever possible – and I’m told its real gold. It looks tacky in my opinion – but that’s a matter of style (or lack thereof!)

I was staying in an E-Club executive floor room which was quite sizeable (60+ square meters). It had a balcony and overlooked the South China Sea. I believe the hotel is 10-years old and it was clear that the room had not been renovated since. The carpets were worn, the TV was not flat screen. There was however complimentary Internet in the room – the wired one worked but the wi-fi did not. The bathroom had a separate shower and bath, double sinks, and the WC was separated. However, it did not look good. There were hardly any toiletries aside from soap – which reminded me of an airplane soap from Pan Am - circa 1978 ! There were few towels in the room and I had to request extra ones.

The bed was a large King size one but very uncomfortable in that it was totally sagging. The bed linens were however wonderful.

The TV had all the normal offerings – Star World, Star Movies, HBO, CNN, BBC, etc.

There was not a proper desk in the room but rather one attached to the TV console. There were two easy chairs in the room around a small coffee table. There were however no pillows in them so to get a comfortanle position, I had to use one of the spare bed pillows for support.

The room service menu was impressive. Upon ordering, I was told to expect it in 30-45 minutes. I proceeded to take a shower then only to have it arrive in about 15 minutes. The food reminded me of something you would typically get in the poolside bar at a high-end US country club. Simple, tasty but uninspiring. On a subsequent order I had the penne pasta and requested mozzarella cheese – they seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.

The E-Lounge (Executive Lounge) was huge. They had free wi-fi and one single wired computer (at least 10 years old !). The quality of the food was as I described above for room service. When I was there, there was no other guest there – and this was several occasions. I came to realize the hotel was almost empty.

The hotel has several restaurants – one by the sea which offers a buffet which I found to be excellent. More quality than in the lounge/room service. They have an Italian restaurant as well which certainly did know what mozzarella was – but nothing more. I did not visit the Atrium restaurant which is the principal dining venue there. Neither did I visit the hotel’s Chinese restauarant.

Brunei is a dry country so there’s no wine available at all. This certainly dampened my overall experience of the hotel.

The hotel offers a huge number of activities for its guests in keeping with it country club status – golf, tennis, swimming, boating and a huge array of children’s activities. I did not however personally experience any of them. I was told that President Clinton on previous visits was fond of playing golf way after dinner as the Jack Nicklaus course is all flood-lit.

You have the option of walking between the various parts of the site (for example, your room to the sea-side restaurant or to the golf club) or using their buggy service. The grounds are filled with speed bumps and the drivers do not slow down for them. If you didn't have back pains before the ride, you certainly will afterwards.

The staff at the hotel seem almost totally disinterested in their jobs. Yes, they do their jobs but it’s more like it’s being performed by a robot than a human being.

It is however by far the best hotel in Brunei and with proper management could be truly great - alcohol aisde ;-)