Vila Rumah Manis

It was a couple of years ago since I stayed here, and to be fair, I moved here after being at Hotel Maya in Ubud (stunning), which meant this was always a disappointment. Here's my experience.... I checked in, was taken to my room. It smelt of must and mold, the sunchairs had puddles of water over them and weren't usable upon checkin and the bathroom outside had used toilet paper in the plants there, so I asked for another room. It was a little better. I booked this in order to have my own plunge pool - this was the best feature of the hotel. In pure fairness though, half the time it was difficult to want to be out near the pool due to the mossies (a drawback of thatched rooves). The bit that annoyed me most......I got a call to the room at around 9am one morning, the reception desk told me it was an important call from my home. I had been sleeping, otherwise I would have recalled that I'd told NO ONE from my home that I was staying at this hotel. It turns out that it was a telemarketer trying to sell timeshare accomodation. So obviously, the front desk had sold my personal details. If the phone rang after that, I didn't bother to answer it again. The main pool was nice, although the bar never opened. I ended up with an ear infection on my way home (not uncommon for bali pools). The worst part - this was the only place that I gave an imprint of one particular credit card. 6 months after I holidayed here, I had illegal use of my card, wiping out my savings. My bank investigated it and found the illegal use was from this country. So not only were my personal details sold, my credit card number was stolen too. NOT IMPRESSED. Yep, I should have posted this at the time, but to be honest, until I started looking at maybe another holiday to Bali (and read other posts here), I'd forgotten as much as I could. It's budget - I don't like high rise hotels, preferring villas, but in the end, I think I probably could have done better. Doesn't appear to have changed much....

Someone who stayed here 7 years ago recommended this hotel. I could not have been more disappointed. Its dark rooms smell of mosquito poison. It has lousy food and overpriced drinks and an over-chlorinated pool that stings your eyes. Old TV sets with poor selection. A know nothing staff that takes an hour for room service and because of their poor English gets your order all wrong. I heard the owners are major con artists who wine and dine foreigners seeking investment capital and then rip them off. They're also into night clubs and prostitution and even once ran an airline called Paradise Air that went bankrupt and stranded thousands of travelers. AVOID! AVOID! AVOID! and spread the warning!

What a shame. I had stayed at this resort back in 2000 - it was busy, clean & a great little find. My girlfriend & I returned in Nov '07 and it was a shadow of it's former self - virtually deserted, run down rooms and facilities, and if it weren't for the upgrade (to keep us happy) we would have demanded a refund and gone elsewhere. The hotel website boasted of how tranquil & relaxing the hotel was, but it was far from that - although one could argue that we almost had the whole place to ourselves, so it was nice and quiet at least. The website photos must have been 10 years old, and advertised a normal rate of $250USD/night for a standard villa. We got them down to $80USD, and still felt short changed when we got there - no mini bar, the pool bar was closed, no staff, broken & shabby room furniture, no hot water, no phones etc etc. It was only for the upgrade to a huge suite that we decided to stay - and at $80 night ($40 per person) that wasn;t too bad - but we will never go back. DON'T DO IT! FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE! TBH :)