Asteger
January 6, 2024
My goodness. We booked this hotel due to its proximity to the airport and because of its (suspiciously) low price. The CTrip price was just over IDR 300,000, when the hotel (optimistically) advertised rates of 600,000+ on its electronic display board outside. I crossed my fingers as I made the booking, remembering that all should basically be okay because we intended only to arrive, have a place to rest for about 8 hours, take showers, and then check out before 11pm to catch a red-eye flight.
At this location, you are literally a few hundred metres away from the airport so should be able to walk there but you still will want to order a taxi (ours was IDR 24k + 10k entrance) to navigate the winding route that takes you to the one airport 'pintu' or entrance gate. You can't get much closer, but you still need a little drive.
The hotel is decently located for other reasons. You can easily walk to the beach, or go right, then left and walk up to the centre of Kuta if you want. There are several touristy restaurants, massage joints, scooter rental operations, and an unimaginable number of convenience stores in the immediate vicinity. There are also several very superior-looking hotels in the area too, which I believe has been revitalised in recent years because the beach has been spruced up.
Anyway, we wound up with Room 317 - a pretty depressing space, indeed. Several cockroaches were visible within a few minutes. Outside we could see rooftops and the unused swimming pool, on one side, and rusting aircon cases on the other. My wife insisted on a new pillow cover, believing that one had not been changed. Sheets and towels were greyish and stained. The white-tiled floor was oily-looking, as though soap or cleaner had not greeted it for some time. Worst was the washroom, which smelled sweetly of urine, still had black (beach) sand in the shower from previous guests, and provided a welcoming home to various species of dark mildew.
I would say: avoid this place even for a short rest for a cheap price, as was our plan. We'd hoped to have a final few relaxing hours in Bali before catching our 1.40 am flight, but smelling other peoples' pee, sharing the room with several insects, and trying to avoid thinking about the many stains on the bedding made this an unpleasant episode.