Was my first trip to Bali and got home 2 weeks ago. Absolutely loved Bali and hanging out to get back there. Am hoping to go back in September.
My friend and I shared a Poolside Cottage at Ramayana Resort and Spa, cottage 239 (I think it was).
The poolside cottages location is fantastic and even the small things that we were frustrated with still didn't stop us from having so much fun.
When we first arrived at about 12, we were told we had to wait until 2pm to book in. This was fair enough so we sat at bar til 2pm having some veeeeery nice cocktails.
Went back at 2 pm to book in and was told our room was not available and we couldnt get in until 7pm. (turns out the people in our room had decided to pay extra and have the late checkout at 6pm) so they got their extra money and we were without a room. I was not happy as we had been up since 4am in the morning, were hot and tired and wanted to have a shower and cool off. Anyway after lengthy discussions, the hotel let us go into another room until 7pm which was where we stayed for a few hours and we then got put into the original room we had booked.
We were 2 singles travelling together, a male and female (not a couple). We booked twin beds and our room had a king size bed.
We had electrical wiring hanging out of the walls, my travel companion ended up getting an electric shock, We had an awful smell in the bathroom which was there for our full week's stay, the tv in front room didnt work (was just actually a decoration as didnt have any connections), the lights would sometime work and sometimes not (electrical stuff was buggered).
The real dampener was when we left and checked out of our hotel, they tried to charge us for 2 bottles of water which we had from the first hotel room when our room wasn't ready. After us not getting into our room until 5 hours later than expected time, checking out at midnight and having to pay for that nights accomodation and then wanting to charge us for 2 bottles of water, Bloody unreal! We refused to pay for the water and as manager was not there we could not speak with him so told counter staff to get Manager to email us if he wanted his money for his water. As yet, we haven't heard anything.
Even with all this, we still had an absoulte fantastic time.
The staff were so accomodating and soooo friendly. We (not we but Tom, my travel companion), had put the remote to the tv somewhere and couldn't find it. He 'assumed' the cleaners must have put it somewhere. Tom phoned room service and he had 2 staff come to the room to help him look for the remote.
When we complained about smell in bathroom toilet (funniest thing ever), They didn't seem to think there was a smell in bathroom. They flushed the toilet about 6 times and seemed to think that the problem was fixed. Obviously they thought we had just done our thing in the toilet and stunk the bathroom out. Soooo funny, we put up with the smell and just sprayed lots of smellies around.
We met soooo many lovely people at the hotel and many travellers who had been to Bali several times before had stayed at different hotels which were plusher and more expensive but the general consensus was that 'They would always for furture stays come back to Ramayana, It was the friendliest and most sociable hotel that they have ever been at'
We have tried to book our poolside cottage again for Aug/Sep but they are all booked out.
During our stay there, we came friendly with all the staff but 3 in particular which is where I'M WANTING HELP FROM SOMEONE WHO IS THERE OR GOING THERE IN FUTURE'.
We had hoped to stay in touch with our favourite staff who generally worked behind the pool bar. One of the staff is Marli (dont know how to spell it) and he didnt have an email address so we said we would see him in on our next visit.
The other staff (couldn't spell or pronounce his name) but sounds like Sulio (or something similar). He is 19 years old, finishing up in about 2 weeks cos he only had a 6 month contract and it is up.
He gave us his email address and on trying to send an email, we must have got address wrong (cant read it properly) and emails come back advising not sent. If anyone comes accross Sulio can they please pass on my email address to him, It would be soooo much appreciated. mandurahgal@hotmail.com or tom11r@hotmail.com
Enjoy Bali and have a ball at Ramayana.