So what is it about the Mulia Jakarta? First place I look for inspiration, their own website. Of course this puts a wonderful spin on the description. However, to break it down into bullet points
40 stories tall
994 rooms
25 minute drive from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport
Newly remodelled gym
Having surveyed some of the reviews of the hotel I was looking forward to staying at the Mulia Jakarta. I also always do a breeze through TripAdvisor reviews before making a final decision. The Mulia Jakarta at the time of booking was ranked 9th out of 410 hotels in Jakarta so I thought it would be a decent bet that the stay would be reasonably good. And of course a recurring theme through the reviews was traffic, traffic, traffic.
Well back to my stay.
I was in the taxi from the airport and remembered some reviews that said it takes almost 3 hours to get from the airport to the hotel. In fact the range was broad I really had no idea what to take as the most reliable estimated. From 15mins to 3 hours … really?! Of course this is part of the joy of traffic in Jakarta.
So as I sat in the taxi, I wondered which fate would befall me this time.
Finally after what seemed like an age we finally pulled into the Mulia Hotel Jakarta, but looking at my watch it was only about 30mins. Being nighttime, there wasn’t really an opportunity to take photos of the outside. I promised myself I would do that later. However, I should give everyone a warning. They will stop you taking photos of the hotel. As long as you are in the photo yourself, they don’t mind, but not if you want to take photos of areas of the lobby. There are also signs asking not to take photos at the chocolate shops.
The actual driveway into the hotel is quite something in itself. The vehicle you have travelling in has to go through security – they use mirrors to check under the cars and also open the boot and the glove compartment.
Once you are through that, you drive up into the drop off point, where usually someone will open the door for you. Here you then have to go through an individual security screening. I didn’t take any photos so I apologise, but basically you put your luggage through an xray machine and you go through a metal detector — like airport security.
Check in was actually very very quick with no hassles. Of course you need to hand over your passport and credit card, but within 5 minutes I was on my way to the room. They did tell me that all the double beds had been already taken so all that was left was a twin, which didn’t bother me. No need to make a fuss.
I’ll get to the room in a minute but I think I need to raise the whole SIM card debacle.
After I checked in and dumped my stuff in the room, I went to the concierge and they said I could buy one at the shop; or I could go the shopping mall to get it. So I went up to the gift shop and they said that there was no SIM card. I trotted back down to the concierge and by this time, it was getting close to 10pm and the concierge said, the mall might be closed so it’s better to go to the mini mart. They got me a taxi and I went to two mini marts and there were no SIM cards. Now what wasn’t clear until I went to the second mini mart was that you can top up at the mini mart, but you cannot get a SIM card. Frustration!!! So what this meant was that I had spent money on a taxi for no good reason.
Having got back to the hotel, I relayed this story to the concierge who then phoned the shop and he was told there were SIM cards — what?! I had just been up there no more than 10 minutes previously and some how they suddenly had SIM cards? Surely not. What had turned out was they sell SIM cards but not top ups…. WHAT?! So you sell the SIM card with a minimum balance, but no top ups? WOW. This was astonishing.
Anyway, I bought the SIM card (which had a decent enough balance), and the next day topped up, but wow what a frustrating introduction to a 5 star hotel!
You can also find the Mulia review on my blog here