My friend has just returned from KP where she stayed at my recommendation.
I know a lot of people are interested in this hotel so I asked her to list her impressions through the eyes of a newbie. Please be aware that she is not being picky, I asked her to be as in depth as she could.
Location: Nice restaurants on the beach albeit with a road in between but a little far from the areas she liked to shop. She found that taxi fares had increased quite a bit since her last visit, enough to be factored in.
Room: At first impression she liked the look of the room which she found spacious and bright. The bed linen was changed every day and there was a good selection of channels on the TV. The room service menu was very reasonable as were the mini bar prices. She did find several things she didn't like.
The bed was very hard.
The pillows were hard and lumpy.
The aircond was very inefficient.
The lighting was insufficient.
The walls were dirty.
The curtains were thin and let in a lot of light. As the outside area was kept well lit during the night she found her room was never dark enough at night. She clarified that she did like a really dark room.
If neighbours moved furniture (just pushing a chair back to sit on it or taking extra chairs out onto the balcony) or walked in hard soled shoes, either in their room or on their balcony, it was very noisy in her room. She was next to a stairwell and also found she could hear people coming and going and depending on their footwear it could be very loud. She would strongly suggest a top floor room although there is no lift.
Bathroom: She was initially impressed with the size and the separate shower/bath but again found several problems.
Water would not run away in the bath/shower/sink despite several requests to rectify.
The tiles were dirty with mildew/mould.
There was a persistent smell that even air fresheners would not mask.
Towels were thin and small.
Restaurant: Great to sit and have breakfast overlooking the beach. The buffet breakfast was adequate but not as extensive as other, more up market hotels she has stayed at. There was a problem with flies on the fresh fruit/yoghurt and she found the coffee and tea unpalatable. It was quite busy at popular hours and the hotel wasn't full. She felt that it would be a problem in peak season to get a seat outside. She had a few rainy days when the outside was not available and she couldn't find anywhere to sit inside downstairs. As she has a bad hip she found she could not get up the stairs to eat and the staff did not oblige and try and find her anywhere to sit downstairs.
She also wondered how it would be when the hotel had twice the occupancy.
The menu was cheap and nice, especially if you like Italian. She did not like the Indonesian food she tried. The same menu was available for room/pool service. Drinks were reasonable. As with all the other restaurants close by there was no happy hour.
Pool and gardens: She loved the pool area and the gardens. There were plenty of lounges available, although later in the afternoon people seemed to return from shopping/beach and although they were all used at that time it wasn't a problem. She was told horror stories of peak season and said she could imagine how bad it would be if the hotel was full.
She counted 40 lounges and there are around 70 rooms. If the hotel was full with an average of 2 people per room it would be obvious why there were problems. A lot of people seemed to stay around the hotel and frequent the pool compared to other hotels she has stayed at,
There were really no children while she was there and she felt that the hotel was not child orientated. It was generally very quiet around the pool with an older regular clientele who, although friendly, gave her the impression that they were repeat guests due to the quiet nature of the hotel. The gardens were not spacious and there was no lawn area and no swings or play area.
She was told that when the new pool is built there will be a pool bar and a shallow area for children but she said it looks like it will be very close to the new rooms and noise could also be an issue. She also felt that as the extensions were as big as the original hotel she did not know where the pool lounges to accommodate so many rooms would fit around the new pool and there could be an overflow to the already overused original pool area.
The pool was cloudy on a couple of days and she heard from other guests that it has been unusable in the past.
Extensions: She would not have liked to be in the rooms backing on to the works. If you wanted to sleep in or enjoy a nanna nap it would be too noisy. Other than that the hours they kept were reasonable and the noise was not too intrusive around the pool