Monday Morning Consultant – Bali Edition II – W Hotel Bali Review

 2011, Indonesia  4 Responses »
Aug 042011
 

I like the W concept … it’s funky, stylish and edgy. I’ve stayed at a couple W hotels and to me, this is now the shining beacon of the Starwood chain. St. Regis is obviously the high end of luxury, but I think they cater to the older, monied crowd, while the W brand caters to the hipper traveller, who doesn’t want to be stuck with a set of “old farts”.

From Nusa Dua, we were told that the W Bali “was just as nice” as the Lagoon Nusa Dua. This I can confirm is absolute rubbish – the W Bali is a significantly SUPERIOR experience in every way possible.

Your first experience of entering into the W Bali compound along a thin nondescript alley, creates a surprise of the visual treat coming into the hotel, whether in the day or night. Checking into the lobby has the feel of a posh nightclub, complete with lighting, DJ and welcome bar. Typical Platinum upgrade success having booked the room using “Free nights” and we were moved to one of the “Spectacular Ocean Facing Retreats“, we didn’t get a suite upgrade and I put off forcing the issue until I saw the room.

The room they showed us was simply grand … I can only imagine what the suite actually look like in this hotel. Coming into the room, you pass through the bathroom on the side into the bedroom/living room that opens into the balcony.

While the bedroom is great, the highlight of the room is definitely the bathroom.

  • A huge granite tub
  • Rainfall shower
  • Recessed lighting with a skylight
  • His & Her bathroom sinks
  • Powder mirrors and toilet makes this one of the best bathrooms I’ve ever seen in a hotel.
  • Amenities are the typical Canadian Bliss products offered in the rooms at all W hotels. They’re some of my favorite amenities to take home : )

As for the view from the room, simply spectacular!!

During the day …

5+1 tips to enhance your W Bali stay even further

To set expectations correctly, one has to understand the concepts, so a couple tips to get the best out of your W experience

  1. The food is definitely good at the hotel, but far too overpriced in comparison to what is easily available on the main road outside the hotel. Do yourself a favour (and your wallet) and take a walk along the main road and try a local restaurant.E.g. – Food outside the hotel … Nasi Goreng with well done egg  … $1.20USD … in the hotel 15USD
  2. Alcohol is prohibitively expensive in the resort and finding hard liquor is tough … so in Bali … so bring your own.
  3. Don’t expect to swim anywhere on the resort or on the beach. The waves on this side of the island are rough and rocky, as for the pools, they’re basically cosmetic (no laps, no deep end), and mostly unusable because there is no adults-only area.

  4. Hit the pools and day beds early and drop your towel to prevent any disappointments. Get the tented day beds, early as these are the first to go ..
  5. Don’t bother walking anywhere outside the hotel. They have a golf cart shuttle from the front of the hotel. Once you’re at the front of the hotel, taxis are ridiculously cheap – use them!
  6. Again, forget the massages at the hotel, use the tons of massage places outside Seminyak … save your money for other experiences

Overall :

A phenomenal hotel – the W Bali is a completely immersive experience – with the attention to the tiniest details. I will admit that this hotel is not for everyone, since there tends to be music from the club booming at 4am, and the club type feel to the hotel might not appeal to the more conservative guest. That shouldn’t be an issue as there are a million alternatives in the Cancun of Asia, however if you’re on your honeymoon, then this is an excellent choice of hotel.

From a service perspective, as Platinum SPG guest, you definitely get great treatment – but personally I felt that the service level didn’t match the attention to the other details. This is a training/teething issue and I am confident that this will be worked out over the next couple months.

W’s do not have business lounges, and there is little Wi-Fi connectivity – again my signature pet peeve with all the Starwood hotels in this side of the world.

So overall, this is another home run for the the “SPG Free Nights” promotion … and I’ll definitely want to stay here again, if I come to Bali.

Borobudur is a wonder … even thought the sunrise tour is overrated …

 2011, Indonesia, Yogyakarta  2 Responses »
Jul 272011
 

In my first post about Borobudur, I mentioned my lack of enthusiasm for the whole “sunrise” experience. This being said, one of the main reasons for me coming to Yogyakarta, was to photograph and see Borobudur.

After the morning debacle with our guide Daniel (who you can email directly here … he is awesome, friendly and well known at Borobudur – since he works there - danielwaluyo@rocketmail.com :P ), he felt really bad about the poor sunrise, so he took us through the employee entrance (i.e. “We didn’t pay again to get in“) … VIP style. It was awesome not getting hassled or anything.

If you’ve been to a couple old temples or ruins in the world … Angkor Wat, Teotihuacan, Pompeii; one could argue that they all look alike in some way. This is remarkable when you think about places/structures that are 1000′s of years old, geographically and culturally independent and yet supposedly people never travelled around before Columbus discovered the “New World”. Think about it!

Anyway Borobudur, is pretty phenomenal in the overall context of sacred places. The structure is remarkably well maintained through grants from the Dutch government.

The bas reliefs are stunning in their detail and complexity. The reliefs show the stories based on the manuscripts of Lalitavistara, Jataka-Avadana and Gandavyuha. The Lalitavistara reliefs, consisting of 120 panels, tell us about the life of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha. It starts with the descent of Buddha from the Tushita heaven. Born as Prince Siddhartha, Buddha’s childhood was isolated from the outside world’s misery. Accidentally witnessing the misery of sickness, decrepitude and death, young Prince Siddharta decided to escape from the worldly life and commencing his search of freedom from suffering. Siddhartha’s long and painful search finally led him to the highest level of enlightenment and made him Buddha, the Enlightened One. This story ends with Buddha’s sermon in the Deer Park near Benares.

Even the floor is a jigsaw puzzle all put together without cement/mortar/plaster – each section with its own keystone that unlocks the floor for cleaning. Daniel was also clear to mention that under the floors, there are a lot of snakes.

At the top, there are, 72 stupas circle the huge main stupa that crowns the top of the temple. The circular form represents the eternity without beginning and without end, a superlative, tranquil, and pure state of the formless world. There are no reliefs on the three circular terraces.

All but the largest central stupas on the upper levels contain a (more or less) life-sized statue of the Buddha kneeling, although many of these statues are missing or damaged. There are also many alcoves along the lower levels which contain similar statues but many of these are missing or damaged as well.

5 Essential Details for seeing Borobudur and being happy about it

  1. The lighting is best for photography around 2pm – the harsh overhead sunlight at noon make pictures taking tough
  2. Read about the structure, the history and the details of the reliefs. It will put a lot of the structure in perspective.
  3. Find a reliable guide to take you around and explain the history of Borobudur. Getting from Yogyakarta to Borobudur takes an hour by car. Vehicles with a driver can easily arranged for about $30 a day.
  4. Plan to climb some steps. Stop a while, take some pictures and enjoy the daytime view
  5. It should take about 2 hours to walk the grounds and take pictures.

Video

Borobudur

  • rishiray's photo
  • rishiray's photo
  • rishiray's photo
  • rishiray's photo
  • rishiray's photo

View photos at SmugMug

Monday Morning Consultant – Bali Edition – The Lagoon Resort and Spa Nusa Dua Review

 2011, Indonesia  1 Response »
Jul 252011
 

Heading into Bali, I tried to book for 4 free nights at the W Bali Resort in Seminyak, but due to the lack of availability of “standard” rooms, I couldn’t get the first night in – so instead I had to book 1 night at the Lagoon and 3 nights at the W Bali.

As for the room, I would have liked my free room to be a suite, but it can’t happen everywhere, even just for one night. This hotel is a “luxury collection” hotel, but in the end – no upgrade, even for one night is a pisser. There is super extended check out though till 6pm .. we left at 6:30pm for Platinum SPG guests – which was actually pretty nice.

The room was a standard resort room with enhanced bathroom.

The bathroom was a standard bathroom with a jacuzzi tub.

There are no truly special platinum upgrades that the hotel offers outside of the free internet – which is standard in any SPG hotel across the world (forget that it is 20$ USD a day). The hotel doesn’t also have available Wi-Fi, which is really becoming a pain in my ass – each hotel so far, has had great wired connections but little or no Wi-Fi presence throughout the hotel.

The hotel is pretty spectacular from the lobby at night.

Where this hotel does excel, is the actual lagoon swimming pools, grounds and waterfalls. At night, you get the sense of what is available in the day time.

As for the daytime

The daybed at the  beach are amazing .. just out of the movies

Overall :

Great hotel, just no upgrade because of Hilary Clinton – so I can’t fault the hotel for this one (The staff at the hotel were profusely apologetic about the lack of the upgrade). Great resort ground and pools, definitely a honeymoon type resort.

Platinum upgrades and lounges are generally not available here. No Wi-Fi connectivity – I found a signal but the staff has no idea on how to allow access to it (Two front desk people I spoke to on this)

I’m not a resort person and we’re moving on to the W Resort in Seminyak. We’ve been told that it “was just as nice” as the Lagoon Nusa Dua.

Hiking to Candi Selogriyo / Selogriyo Temple with some more rice terraces

 2011, Indonesia, Yogyakarta  No Responses »
Jul 242011
 
Hiking to Candi Selogriyo / Selogriyo Temple with some more rice terraces

2011 will be my year of Rice Terraces. The last couple months have been rice terraces in Philippines and Indonesia. After going to Borobudur, we head up to an “obscure” temple in the mountains. Candi Selogriyo is a small Hindu temple, built earlier before Borobudur temple. It is located at the head of a small [... Click here to keep on reading this article]

5 Misconceptions I had of Yogyakarta and Prambanan …

 2011, Indonesia, Yogyakarta  No Responses »
Jul 232011
 
5 Misconceptions I had of Yogyakarta and Prambanan ...

A couple misconceptions I had before I got to Yogyakarta … since I think every preconceived idea of Indonesia has been shattered with my arrival into Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is some dusty temple town that will be easy to get around. FALSE : “Yogya” is pretty god damn big and you will need a driver to [... Click here to keep on reading this article]

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