In Reply to: Novotel Benoa posted by Chief Pirate on Sunday, 10. April 2011 at 09:44 Bali Time:
the Novotel Benoa in a Tropical Terrace beachside room in August last year.
The hotel and rooms are very nice (especially beachside) and the breakfasts are very good.
I wouldn't stay there again for a number of reasons.
1 - I found it a bit too isolated.
2 - I don't like the 'large hotel' feel any more, preferring smaller boutique hotels. But that's a personal choice.
3 - I'm a bit of a foodie, and the restaurant quality near the hotel is very ordinary/bordering awful to say the least. They all seem to have the same boring food accompanied by a rather unspectacular 'cultural' dance performance (some poor girl in the corner dancing to tinny music).
Touts stand out the front offering discounts of 25-30% off the bill in an effort to stop you from taking an expensive cab ride into the Kuta/Legian/Seminyak strip, which is of course precisely what you should do if you like interesting tasty food.
4 - Unless you're an Accor member (50% off the food bill for 2), it's a quite expensive hotel to eat at (for rather ordinary food), but that's typical of all large hotels really.
Like I said, a lovely, clean, well presented 4* hotel......but in a rather sterile, impersonal environment for my liking.