3
Matt Pereira -
a month ago
The facilities are fantastic. The environment is spotless and it is hard to beat the charming staff for service. One experience left a bad aftertaste though - their insincere hard-sell of a BBQ seafood buffet dinner on Aug 21. Lobster with a one-hour free-flow of wine was promised to our group of 8 who stayed there five days, four nights. On dinner night, there wasn't the range of seafood they had alluded to when they sold us the seafood buffet the night before. The lobster (and this is no exaggeration) were smaller than the available prawns. And before all of us in the group even had a chance to taste the lobster, we were told they had run out. The six of us who had opted for the BBQ paid 1,000,000 rupiahs (100 Singapore dollars) per head for it. Because there was some confusion about the free-flow wine, our first glass only landed on our table at about 7.15pm, and topping up the glass took ages. On top of that, we were told that the free flow of wine was limited to the locally-made Two Islands wine. We chose the sparkling Two Islands wine and that too was not an option in the package, we were told. Even the starters, the salad and the dessert choice were minimal. I am not sure we would have had our dinner at the resort had we known this was the deal. It was not what we had paid that bothered us. Our group had not been on a holiday for a while and travelled prepared to do our bit for Bali as the island had been starved of tourists. It was how disingenuous they were that upset us. Stay at Hanging Gardens of Bali - the place is fantastic but eat outside the resort as we did for the rest of the stay.