Introduction Until the opening of the Alila, The Royal Surakarta Heritage was the sole hotel in Solo to have a '5-star' classification. It belongs to the MGallery Collection, making it one of the three Accor hotels in the city—the other two being a Novotel and an Ibis Styles. In fact, Accor has a very impressive footprint in various second tier cities in Indonesia, making it useful to collect nights (neighbouring Yogyakarta has 6 for instance). However, MGallery has always come across to me as a rather confusing brand. The brand has historically been an upmarket branch of Mercure, but it was later revamped to include a 'by Sofitel' tag (I reckon to make it more premium); now, that tag has since been dropped. It is supposedly a luxury-brand, although given its association with Mercure, I struggle to think of it as such. Regardless, we paid a room-only nightly rate of IDR550,000 (~£29), which seemed like a steal compared to the Alila. Location Starting on a very high point, the hotel's location is second to none. It is located right in the middle of downtown Surakarta and is a short 15 walk to any place of interest in the city. The centre of Solo is very much walkable, so I felt that the hotel's location is incredibly practical and convenient. The Royal Surakarta Heritage exterior Check In We went straight to The Royal Heritage after checking out from the Alila. Our check-in was very straightforward and handled very quickly by our friendly agent and it wasn't 5 minutes before we settled into our room. The Royal Surakarta Heritage lobby Room Our initial impression of the room was that it was airy and spacious. Confusingly, the room is advertised at 30 sqm (smaller than the room at the Alila), although it certainly didn't feel that way. I thought that the room (and the entire hotel for that matter) had a significant sense of place, given the decor. However, I for one am not a fan of the orange walls of the room.The Royal Surakarta Heritage Deluxe roomThe Royal Surakarta Heritage Deluxe roomThe Royal Surakarta Heritage mini barHowever, upon closer inspection, the room has a lot of wear and tear and was certainly aging. This is particularly evident in the bathroom which we found to be relatively dim. Water pressure and temperature is poor, and the linens were questionably off-white, making us wish that we brought our own towels. The Royal Surakarta Heritage bathroomFurthermore, both the bathroom and for some reason, the inside of the closets where very damp. In fact whenever we hung any clothes in the closet, it would end up feeling wet to the touch. Apart from that, the room was fine and reasonably clean. Regardless, be sure to request an exterior-facing room as there is a sizeable number of rooms that have interior views. Amenities The hotel has a swimming pool and a gym open for guests. The pool is rather small and narrow and didn't look particularly inviting. The gym was a lot more spacious although it looked a bit old. The Royal Surakarta Heritage poolThe Royal Surakarta Heritage poolThe Royal Surakarta Heritage gym Service I thought that the staff were friendly and respectful, although sadly, our requests the two times we made them were not fulfilled. One day, we requested our room to be serviced at an earlier time (9.00) only to find it not made up when we returned several hours later. The next day, our room was made up without question when we came back at 9.40.Next, we requested a taxi early in the morning to head to the airport the night before. Lo and behold, the hotel never made a request for a cab when we headed down the next morning. Thankfully, a cab arrived within 10 minutes of calling. Overall Overall, the hotel is inherently very mediocre, if not rather unsatisfactory. However, we didn't have much qualms about our stay there given the hotel's excellent location. In fact, it did seem like The Royal Surakarta Heritage is the only decent hotel option in downtown Solo. As a comparison, the room at Alila are much superior, but it's location is terrible compared to The Royal Surakarta Heritage.The Royal Surakarta Heritage atriumAs such, should I return to the city, I would not hesitate to stay here again (assuming that there are no new hotels nearby), although I'd probably bring my own towels.