In general, I hate, like many others, the inconsistencies between what is promised online and what is offered in reality. From this perspective, the hotel had its first negative points on arrival. When I have checked on the website, it was saying that they accept American Express credit card. However, they were not really accepting. Actually the attitude was like as if they have never accepted AmEx since the beginning. Of course you see that when you get to the place. So now what if you don't have any other card and you get to the place according to the information on the website. Very good start! Anyway more will come related to the attitudes of the staff later.
After this very warm welcome, I was saluted once more by the room. I guess for 56USD per night (incl. tax) I was offered the standard room. After seeing the room, I can say it was not really that similar to the ones pictured on the web page. I don't know you but I normally don't expect too much luxury but just simple and ergonomic attributes from a hotel room. Well, unfortunately, my room was lacking both! Where should I start? First of all, the bathroom/restroom was open air. Great idea! So it was not only prevented to be cooled down by the room air conditioning but also you shared it with the local giant bugs. Of course, you cannot complain about it as you are a visitor and they are the locals. On top of it, because the bathroom faces the corridor where the doors of the other rooms are, you don't have much privacy. Anyway, this was not the only design failure of the room to be honest. There were so many and so trivial that you can notice them in the first night. It was really late when I arrive to the hotel and I was really tired that I wanted to settle in the room, set my wake up call and finally sleep. So what you would do in this case? You call the reception and ask for it. Very good idea if you have a phone in the room. If you DON'T have it, you hold your tired butt and go to the reception to make it happen. To be frank, that was the greatest idea not to have phone in the room. Not only for the first night but also for anything and everything. By the way, the wake up call, as you may imagine, was the bellboy knocking on your door! Ok, you lost your appetite to sleep and you want to get sleepy again. What would you do? I would watch TV a bit and sleep in few minutes. Don't be afraid, there is a TV but the great news is there is no channel broadcasting in English. Everything was either Indonesian or Russian. Well actually, there was no good reception either. But it really drives you mad. Please put a satellite dish or cable TV but DO something. Finally I gave up and just laid down on my bed to sleep. I tried to switch off the light to darken the room. Voila voila, it was not quite possible because the buttons were so away from the bad that you have to stand up to do it. That might sound like over exaggeration due to dissatisfaction. At the end of a tiring day on the beach or in the sea, you don't want to stand up to switch off the damn lamp, you really don't! Nevertheless, I am not gonna lie, the room was improportionately large. It was quite roomy for two people. But everything was so apart that you might be annoyed sometime. Finally, just to give you a heads up, if you are said "features a balcony/patio with ocean view" in your reservation, either it is a lie or you have to claim it because there is not such a view and it is not possible to have it if your room is on ground floor. All the patios are looking toward the common area and the swimming pool completely encircled by the buildings as depicted on the picture below. So don't expect much about the view!
As I went to Bali mainly for diving, I didn't stay in the hotel for the majority of the time I was there. Nonetheless, I will only mention about the basic services I used. For the remaining activities and the services, I will leave the word to other people. Since I had to take a long journey to the Tulamben beach to dive, I had to wake up around 5:30AM. As it was one and a half hour before the time when breakfast was served, I asked them to prepare something for me on the previous night. The guys in the restaurant were kind enough to prepare me a sandwich. Anyway, from the wake up knock on the door till the late evening arrival to the hotel, that was the only interaction I had with the hotel. Then evening came and I wanted to fulfill my hunger. Hence, I tried the dinner menu of the hotel's restaurant. Not recommended! Why? The prices were unnecessarily high, the quantities were not adequate and more importantly most of the food were quasi-western but not local. I don't know about other people but when I go somewhere I look for local tastes first and if the local food sucks then I go for something else. As far as I remember, there were only two types of sattis, meat on skewer, in the menu for local food. And that was not that good even. So if you ever decide to go to this hotel, I advise you to dine out! On the contrary, the breakfast was quite okay. I could pick 5 food or beverage from the breakfast menu and whatever I asked more I had to pay for it, even for bread. Overall that was something quite annoying in the hotel. After a certain point you feel that whatever you want to eat, drink or do, you have to pay extra for it and its tax and service charges. By the way, everything you buy in Bali EXCLUDES tax and services charges! You have to put 21% more on every price tag. BE AWARE!!!! Last thing about the catering service is that they were not really paying attention to any other common space other than the restaurant. For instance, you might not be served for hours, just because you are out of sight of the waiters, if you are lying by the pool. That was also quite annoying!
I would like to say a couple of word about the Echo Beach area before I conclude. As I have said at the beginning, I visit Bali with a primer motive of diving. Nonetheless, a couple of days of swimming or doing something else would be really good as you shouldn't dive and fly within 24 hours to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, Echo Beach or Canggu area is not the best place to stay if you don't surf. They have a great kilometers long beach but it is impossible to swim, at least in October. There were very strong rip currents and they were pulling me in the sea even when I was walking parallel on the shore. Moreover, along the beach, sand stones were covering all of the coast under the sea. They were not visible when there was high tide but I was lucky to see the low tides in the afternoon. You can easily realize when you see how strong currents can smash you on them. Actually, one of the visitors of the hotel was killed on the beach a couple of days prior to my arrival. So my advise is "be careful and don't swim".
Some words about the front desk personnel: I can say that they were particularly not kind to me. Especially the female responsible of the reception was not quite helpful. On the last morning, I had to have a taxi to go to the airport and she had to call them. When the taxi was late and I felt a bit anxious, she behaved like if it was my mistake. Furthermore, she didn't want to call the taxi stop. To make a long story short, she was not helpful and kind as it is a must for the front desk personnel.
As you may understand all of my experiences I tried to summarize above, I don't recommend you to stay in Ecosfera hotel to have a pleasant, best value stay. It doesn't satisfy your expectations not only as a relatively expensive hotel in the island but also as a four star accommodation. It doesn't have neither a good architecture to comfort you and nor nice staff to give good service.
No comments:
Post a Comment