worldtraveller73

May I ask costs for car & driver for Borobodur Temple ?

Also- is it suitable for kids (10yrs old)?

I'd love to do this on way to bali.

UASPG

Rps 660,000 (billed $66.43 on my c/c) through the travel desk at the hotel. We went to Bali first, left some luggage there (went back to Bali afterward - we had BC award tickets from the U.S.), as we flew to JOG with Lion Air, a low cost airline with baggage weight restrictions.

Since there were issues to book tickets on Lion Air or Garuda with a U.S. c/c, LM Bali had booked our air tickets.

Both Jogya and Borobudur are very suitable for kids.

rdlmitedu

I paid IDR 600 000 as quoted for the car/driver (and tipped him IDR 150 000 because it is ...$15), paid about IDR 50 000 in parking fees and other random things, and ~IDR 300 000 for access to 4 sites (to the ID government). Probably a bit on the high side, but it was booked late the previous night for a 0330 departure, and the car was new, well maintained, and the driver was professional and safe.

There is a lot of climbing if you do things correctly, and I had 20 pounds of camera gear on my back, so it's probably more suitable for kids than for older people!

PeterHK1981

My girlfriend, her sister and I stayed at this hotel during the Christmas holiday in 2013.

We picked the Sheraton because it's such a well known chain and both my girlfriend and I have stayed at Sheraton's in Asia and the States. As most know- their hotel's are generally pretty clean and comfortable. The Sheraton in Yogi was anything but!!

The biggest problem with this hotel is that the condition of the facility itself is absolutely horrid. Below is a list of what we noticed during our stay:

1. The room had an odd smell to it which seemed to come and go. It was most likely sewage.
2. There were holes drilled in one of the night stands...presumably where an alarm clock once was.
3. Mold in multiple areas of the room.
4. Electrical sockets which were severely damaged.
5. Garbage pales in the room not changed by housekeeping. No new bag...nothing.
6. Room service wait is over 1 hour without notice or warning that it could take a little extra time.
7. Spa is a joke. We went for a 60 minute couples massage. It was basically just having oiled smeared over your skin. Not much more to it.
8. The hotel dining facilities were disgusting! Food all over the floor, hair in food that was out on the buffet. The host acutally tried to seat us at a table that had no crumbs and food all over the table and a half eaten donut on the floor under the table. Somehowe he thought this was ok??
9. We are both Starwood Gold members. As far as I know, we should have recieved an upgade. We didn't and that was fine but...there are preffered guest rooms in the hotel and even though we booked the room in September (for our end of December visit) we were not given a preffered room.
10. My girlfriend had contacted the hotel numerous times (via email, phone) and asked for information regarding transportation as well as information on their spa. We did not receive a response from the hotel and had to contact their corp office for this information. Seriously??? WOW.
11. Tried calling the hotel a number of times before our visit. No one will answer the phone at this place. It's a joke.

Aside from all of this you're probably wondering if we calle any of this out during our stay. We complained 3 times. Nothing was done about any of this.

When we arrived home my gf wrote the hotel and complained. We received a short letter and a refund on our room service the last night that we were at the hotel.

I'm sorry...I was acutally not looking for a refund or anything other than a sincere apology.

As far as I'm concerned, this was enough to ruin Starwood properties for me. I will never again stay at one of their hotels, nor will I spend a dime on anything in one of their locations.

I've stayed at many hotels all over Asia. I've had good experiences and bad ones. This is the first time I'm posting on trip advisor because my experience with this hotel was really that bad.

hirohito888

Ehh, I guess welcome to Flyertalk? And your posts on 3 different threads complaining about this hotel....

To be fair, I also stayed at this hotel over the holidays and I wasn't overwhelmed by this property either. But given that I paid somewhere around USD100/night, I had pretty low expectations as well.

I had my own issues, where the rooms were kinda old and dingy and the staff took forever to check-in and check-out. But overall, for this part of Jogja and for what you're paying, I wouldn't expect anything outstanding.

As for the restaurant, I avoided the buffet which clearly didn't look appealing. The food from the menu was fine, over-priced but tasted fine.

I found the concierge very helpful in arranging things for me as well as for other guests. The lounge, despite being small and limited, also had wonderful staff.

And for being Starwood Gold since 2009, did this one stay at this hotel really dissuade you from staying at all Starwoods in the future I assume from the 5 years of SPG Gold, you must have had some good experiences...

Keyser

so one bad experience at one hotel is enough to put you off all starwood properties????good for you i guess....

virtualaris

Planning to stay at this property using the SPG Free Nights. Since I don't have status on SPG, has anyone know if the SPG Dining discount also apply on breakfast here? thanks.

lcpteck

I guess it depends where the breakfast is held.

According to SPGRestaurantsandbar, there are 2 restaurants which provide dining discount to SPG members.

cln

have booked this hotel for next February, last review was not that awesome. Hope the experience will be better than the one of PeterHK
Also going to the MGallery hotel @ Maliboro.

virtualaris

Ah...many thanks ! I guess the breakfast would be held on Androwino Bistro. 15% is quite good; rather than nothing.

Do you mean MGallery Phoenix ? Actually it's not in Malioboro but close to Malioboro. It is around +-1 km by walk to go to Malioboro from this hotel. I have stayed there; the chances to get room upgrade for Le Club elite members are very low since they always running on high occupancies. I was upgraded to their Sultan Suite since they knew that was my birthday pre-arrival; otherwise they would not upgrade me. However, it is great hotel indeed ^

cln

yeah that one, it is really cheap. I wont have status with Aclub next year so i dont expect an upgrade but at this rate i won't complain

lingua101

Hi all,

I am planning to stay in this hotel for a night - last night in Yogya (I plan to stay at Hotel Phoenix, as it closer to Malioboro and I am LC Gold).

Currently I book at Volcano View room. I sent email to hotel and they told me I can use 1,500 points to upgrade to either Club Room or Lagoon Room. The first, it wkll come with loumge access, but not the later.

I am SPG Gold only, so technically there will be no upgrade and lounge access.

So any suggestion, which room I should upgraded to better use of my points.

I come to surprise reading this threat that the Spa is not so great. By the name and the location of their sales office in Jakarta (at Graha Mustika Ratu), I suspect this hotel should belong or related to Mustika Ratu group which id one of thr leading Jamu (herbs) and traditional Javanese cosmetic. So I do expect the spa should have good Javanese tretment.

camsean

Hi lingua101, I would probably choose the club room. Although the club isn't great, it is ok. You can make dinner out of the happy hour.

The 'lagoon' is nothing special. Just a small you can access from your balcony. It is not really private though.

lingua101

Is there any different between club room and deluxe room (room with volcano view). Reading posts here, I conclude the club is just so so like you said. Hence if the room is about the same practically I am paying 1,500 points for the club access. Or should I just save that points?

cln

We stayed here 5 nights on a mix of points/paid rate.

It's a resort... without a taxi you can't go anywhere. There is an upscale mall about 5 minutes away with taxi from hotel where u find dozens of restaurants. To Malioboro it's around 15 minutes taxi drive if i remember correctly. Hotel has free Shuttle several times a day.

The hotel is about 20 years old and u can see that.
The tennis court is in very poor condition the pool water also didn't look that clear as on the pictures.

The staff is fantastic. The club lounge is nice and the staff is superb. They don't have a lot plat guests so we had a VIP treatment. The spa is nice as well but not cheap for Yogyakarta. The lagoon rooms / hallways getting new paint maybe beeing refurbished so they were not available during our stay ( although available on SPG.com ) The lagoon pool had nice colour and i would have preferred a lagoon room instead of a Junior Suite.

Hotel food was great especially the indian restaurant/food but overall choice on the menu is limited.
Breakfast was amazing, great service & huge spread... small terrace facing to Mt.Merapi.


We really liked the Hotel and Yogykarta... ( cat1 so we didn't have that high expectations )

We also had a stay at the Phoenix MGALLERY hotel which is closer to the heart of the city. The hotel looks very nice, we got upgraded as well but the staff was a horror to deal with...

I can only recommend Yogyakarta for a couple of nights. We did the Vulcano Jeep tour and visited the temples @ Boromdur or whatever it's called
We visited almost everything there is to visit in Yogya and we loved it. Especially the food
It might not be the right thing for everyone but we didn't want to go back to Bali at all....

The worst thing is YOGYAKARTA airport.. it has only one runway with way too many flights scheduled. We had to circle for one hour over Yogya until we had permission to land from Bali. Our 7am scheduled Garuda flight to Denpasar was delayed until 12^^ All flights were delayed on arrival date and departure date. You should not book a connecting flight onwards :P