Strange hotel. The architect has tried to wring the maximum out of a long, skinny, awkwardly shaped plot. In design its lovely, the decor delightful, but the necessary compromises make the place very difficult to navigate, and mean that only a very few rooms will get even a sideways glimpse of the sea.
Ineffectual signage makes the navigation even more difficult.
The rooms are delightful: I'm talking Oasis rooms, but I think these offer only a higher floor and better view than more basic rooms. Size is fine, and the layout tremendous, creating space for a small dressing room/walk-in wardrobe. Excellent, effective, near-silent aircon plus a ceiling fan. Bathroom equipped with shower only, but for me that's a massive, space-saving plus.
The only room irritations come from the gimmicky nick-nacks:
- a mechanical juicer: for a glass of juice I'd need to go out to buy a kilo of oranges, find a knife, then create an enormous mess. If you want to give guests an orange juice there really are easier ways to do it.
- cute cups with no handle: yup, cute enough, but not so smart for drinking tea. Tea cups evolved handles for a reason.
- screw top tins to hold tea bags, ditto sugar. Need to shake the things out because you can't get fingers inside to grab the bags
- odd gold-painted bowl taking up shower pace. Equipped with a plastic ladle. Get rid of it: a seat would be a better use of the space.
Staff are robotic. Languages skills sometimes good sometimes poor. Request for a map of the area earned me a brochure about trips to Lombok.
Management needs to take more control
My arrival didn't attract the attention of bell-boys. Half a dozen of them continued in conference around the concierge desk while i walked past with my bags.
Check-in at 3pm. They invited me to sit down while they "prepared my welcome pack" and offered a coloured drink and a cold towel. ...? Give me my room key!
Check-out was a 20 minute wait while they got someone to check my mini-bar. Refused to take my word that there had been no consumption, and wouldn't release my card deposit until they were sure I wasn't lying.
The main pool looks good, but i can see conflicts developing with the limited number of loungers. Music is too loud though: perhaps part of the "hip" image the hotel is desperate to project.
Breakfast is set at a silly price. There is far better value and much better service available at hotels and cafes only minutes' away
All in all verdict: my room was selling for close to $400 (after taxes), and for that sort of money I'd expect a slicker set-up. Standard room prices are in the $300 ball-park. Not sure who would pay that sort of money for a cute but amateurish operation. But on points it was fine. A lot of guests seemed to be on group packages, at what I guess are much reduced rates.