In Reply to: Pelangi/Barong/Puri Raja posted by jpd on Monday, 17. January 2005 at 12:57 Bali Time:
Hi just thoght I would put my bit in re the 3 hotels. About 3 years ago I stayed at the Barong and to be honest NEVER again. We found the hotel noisey, cramped,very basic rooms,cigarette burns everywhere in the toilet,bathroom and dirty stained sheets. Not my idea of a great hotel. Basically a busy crowded cramped atmoshere. Perhaps suited to younger age that purely want a party type atmoshere.
Also stayed at Puri Raja a few weeks ago.The Puri Raja is in a great location to shops,restaurants,beach,etc. To sum it up it is a good value for money budget style hotel. Has to pools one directly near the restaurant and beach end and the other at the reception end of hotel. The one has the swim up bar so I guess it is a more social pool area the other just amongst the garden.Both pool areas a reasonably small and probably not what what you would class as top of the range as some hotels. Keep in mind Puri is budget value for money type. Next door is the Nikoma Hotel which is pretty flash.The staff at Puri are all very friendly,breakfast is not buffet style but order off the continental or American menu. eg eggs any type,toast or croissant,fruit or juice,tea or coffee.Rooms well i would go for upstairs. We had a downstairs first then asked to move as we had very noisey people above us continually scraping chairs etc. When on marble floors early hours of the morning it can give you the .....
We had room 218 which was much bigger than our ground floor and had a good size balcony. Beds are fine and bathrooms nothing out of Home Beautiful but clean..
Have not stayed at Pelangi but did walk past it each morning along the beach. It is about 10mins down the beach from Puri heading into Seminyak. Pool area right up to the sand edge and all looked very nice. Slighty more upmarket than Puri. Cant vouch for rooms etc as have not stayed there. Hope this ramble is of some help. Toni