In Reply to: Thankyou and pls keep me posted! posted by Dreaming_Of_Bali on Friday, 14. August 2009 at 16:06 Bali Time:
Just stayed at both and loved Kuta Lagoon Resort and hated Besakih. KLR is on a fairly busy one-way street but set right back from road so when you sit on your balcony you cant hear any traffic noise even early in the morning before they put the pool fountains on, just hear and see the birds and watch the squirrel-like topis run up and jump on the trees.
I first stayed there 4 weeks ago with my sis in law who has trouble with stairs and she found it ok. Stairs; a few down from reception, a few up and down either side of bridge acoss pool (pool runs the lenght of the hotel. We were in pool access rooms which are on the bottom floor, if you arent in these you go upstairs to other rooms. They also have villas with or without pools, these are on reception side of pool so only a few stairs down from reception to them. The one sis in law got while waiting for her room didnt have a pool, no room out side to smoke, and was smallish - wouldnt stay there. The one they gave us to wait until our room was ready had a pool, private courtyard and was quite spacious and sis in law would of liked to stay there for whole trip (we all ended up staying there until rooms ready).
The restruant at KLR is upstairs and downstairs. Brekkie is smogasboard upstairs. But if you have problems getting up and down Im sure staff wouldnt mind if you all sat downstairs and your daughters went up and got yours and their brekkie and ate it downstairs.
My 16yr daughter and 20yr neice loved shopping and going out around the hotel. We had a great time at Bali Rock Hotel, Bali Aussie hotel and quite a few others within a few minutes walking distance from KLR.
Large room safe
The only problem we had at KLR were the showers. First night there I had a beautiful hot shower. After that the water pressure was very low and had to adjust shower head to jet to get enough water to wash with, also had quite a few lukewarm showers, and to get a hot one had to run the water 10mins to get any heat at times. Although I stayed there again last week in a different room (still pool access) and the water pressure was great and water always hot so maybe they were just having water problems before.
Loved KLR staff were very friendly, hotel and rooms kept very clean, security man at gate, its central to shops, restruants, just about everything. Working pool bar, girls loved sitting on pool bar chairs.
Besakih or as my sister christianed it Besyakky was a different story. When we arrived there, there was nobody on the security gate so we just drove in, nobody to help get the bags out of the car. No safe in room - given small safe at desk, the only hotel I stayed at out of last 6 hotels whose safe was too small to put my little netbook in.
Our room was quite nice, bottom floor, nice place to sit with fairly high plants out front so nice and private. But we had big problems with the toilet. It would not flush properly. We got staff back repeatly to try to fix it and in the end the manager admitted that they had problems with the toilet in that room as the septic tank (?) hadnt been emptied properly so there was nowhere for everything leaving our toilet to go so hence it stayed with us!
The next day they moved us to another room. We found this hotel had dirty rooms with mildew around sinks and tiles in bathroom, dirty glasses, a hot water kettle that we wouldnt use as it was really dirty inside.
At brekkie sis wanted a jug of hot water for her coffee satchet. Stainless steel jug they brought out had black lumpy scum where you pour out water which she pushed with her finger and it dropped into the water. Asked for a clean jug. This happened every morning, not sure if they never cleaned that first jug and just always brought it out or what.
There were a couple of waitresses serving brekkie we got the one that never smiled and was very abrupt. Brekkie there is choice of - fruit platter or juice (both nice), Toast with butter and jam or dainish or croisant (I think some other pastry as well) 2 of these we liked 1 peice toast and 1 danish, then 2 eggs anyway with ham or sausage or bacon (quite nice).
We found the staff not friendly, everything was an effort and they hardly ever smiled. Hardly any pool chairs (I think about 11 between the 2 pools). Suppose to be a pool bar there - it was there but even though hotel full, pool bar was empty.
The best part of staying there were the other guests. All were friendly mostly Aussies.
Stairs - a few up to reception a few down to rooms. A few over bridge across and down pool to restruant and beach. Rooms are ground and first floor same as Kuta Laggoon Resort.
Summary - love KLR will always try to stay there when I go to Bali. Hated Besyakkie and the only hotel I have ever stayed at that I wont stay at ever again even if it was the only hotel with a vacancy in Bali so it meant not goin!!!