I finally had a completed stay at the property this month. My wife had gotten Covid while attending a concert in Yogyakarta this summer, so we had to cancel our previous award booking.

We booked a 5 night award stay during my kid's first school break. Rates were initially 84k total for the 5 nights, and then fell to 80k a week or two before the stay. I ended up booking the new lower rate, and canceling the original. This brought on another, “Are you really booking this” email from the hotel.

Arrival was pretty easy. We waited a few minutes before being checked in. Lots of new staff. Had a juice drink that was nice. Staff had obviously been briefed, as we got welcomed by name by most staff. In the room, we had a welcome letter, with my name misspelled. And a picture of our family from my Facebook page printed on it from 3-4 years ago. On the mirror in our room, a welcome was written, with a diamond graphic, and the 25% dining discount at restaurants.

My wife had her birthday a few days after our stay was ending, and wanted to have a birthday dinner here. They currently only have a special Saturday night buffet every 2 weeks. We decided to just book 2 weekend nights on her gold Hilton account, as to not mess up points between the 2 bookings.

The Executive lounge is still closed here. They were somewhat vague on the hours of evening cocktails. 5:00pm to 7:30 or 8:00pm. One other staff member mentioned 7pm. The cocktail lounge is up a large staircase, which my electric wheelchair won’t pass. They said we could also go to the Fresco poolside restaurant.

We got a double queen family room on the 10th floor. Had a nice welcome food tray. Room was in good shape, except for one chair which had a ripped trim piece. We had a view of the pool. Pretty quiet room.

Went to the Fresco restaurant at 5:30pm or so on Sunday. Staffing was a bit low. Some drinks were super slow, or never came. Took 45 minutes for my wife’s wine to come. Beer and soft drinks came in 10-15 minutes. They offered any drinks from their menu, including milkshakes and smoothies. They were out of some varieties. I ordered a chocolate milkshake, which took 30 minutes the arrive. Don’t expect a US style milkshake, rather more like a thick chocolate milk.


Fresco drink menu

Fresco food menu


The evening snacks took a very long time, I believe over 30 minutes to arrive. We also ordered some paid items from their menu, mushroom pasta, which was really nice, and a pepperoni pizza. I asked for some parmesan cheese which never came. They also never brought over a bread basket, which other tables had gotten.

My daughter came a little later, and wanted to try a vanilla milkshake. It never came. Finally, after reminding them again, it came in a togo cup as she was returning to the room.

Breakfast was pretty expansive. Fairly crowded for a Monday morning. The food was fine, but not as tasty at the Doubletree in Jakarta. No custom-made juices for elites like our last visit in 2020.

We went to the Fresco restaurant for happy hour a little after 5 on our second day, just my daughter and myself. She wanted to swim, but it was sprinkling, with intermittent lightning. While we waited for drinks, I ordered some tomato soup for her, and a pepperoni pizza with onions and peppers. Again with some parmesan in the side, and some chili flakes. At least the parmesan came, after some prodding.

The pizza came with capers instead of peppers. I’m never been a fan of capers. They offered to remake the pizza, but I elected to just remove the capers. I really hate to waste a whole pizza. I ate a few slices, and my wife two. We took the rest of the pizza to our room, where my daughter ate it later.



The happy hour food came quicker, but a couple of the items on it seemed like they had been sitting around for awhile. My wife arrived a bit after the pizza came. She ate some of the happy hour food, and the aforementioned slices of pizza. The lightning died down a little, and my daughter managed to swim for 10 minutes.


Happy hour food

Later that night, while trying to sleep, I started to have some serious abdominal pain. In the next hour, it worsened substantially. After midnight, I got pretty violently ill, with a lot of vomiting, diarrhea and not being able to sleep at all. Quite unpleasant.

I was finally able to sleep a bit after 7 or 8am, but didn’t feel like going to breakfast. My wife also had diarrhea in the morning, She mentioned to the F & B manager about the problem. They offered to call a doctor, but I was sleeping then, and decided that it was hopefully over. They also stated that they had sent food “to the lab” to be tested, but I was never informed of any results.

I took some OTC diarrhea medicine for a few days, before it was finally over. I was a bit concerned about eating the happy hour food, so I skipped it for the rest of our stay. I did have breakfast on another day, which seemed ok. Also had a simple omelette and some dim sum brought to the room.

I was rethinking about the weekend stay. Half the reason I like going to hotels is for the delicious food. I rechecked my wife’s 2 night reservation for the weekend, and saw that it was now listed at twice the price we booked it at. Our first 5 nights was booked as a double queen room, upgraded to the family room. Our weekend was a king room. I’m sure I could have inquired about the substantial price increase, but decided to just check out on Friday, from our award stay.

We did have a birthday dinner for my wife at the Purnawarman restaurant on Thursday. We invited family friends and their kids, so had 13 or 14 people there. The food was decent, but the Australian steaks were pretty tough. Unlike breakfast, where they bring glass jugs of water to drink, they charged us 25k each for a total of 100k IDR. They did bring a small birthday cake, which was nice.


Aussie Ribeye steak

Menu pricing does vary between room service, and each restaurant. Purnawarman was the least expensive.

They did offer us a free Saturday buffet for our illness. Since it’s quite difficult to transport my electric wheelchair back and forth, I couldn’t go. My wife went, and enjoyed it with her brother and a friend.

The staff was friendly, although I think the english proficiency of the newer staff is lower than before.