Segara Village

I have stayed at the resort 4 times, also once during Covid and renovations. First of all the checkin staff did not see in their system that I stayed here a bunch of times (they asked me to fill in a new form; when I told them I stayed there before, they found my name and details). I booked a studio (room 441) which is in the back of the resort, up a lot of steps (with walls where the paint is peeling off). The studio itself is fine inside, comfy beds, pillows, clean. BUT until around midnight there is a lot of live music noise from a bar behind the resort. This should be better tackled by the resort with higher walls and trees or something; or better managed (with the Banjar perhaps). The Byrd house, pool and kids area have had quite a major renovation and the lunch and dinner food is nice. Breakfast options are aplenty but the guy manning the egg station makes super oily and carelessly prepared eggs and omelettes; when I asked him to put more care into his work he made a nice proper omelette for me but continued his shoddy work for the other omelettes. My wife, who does not eat beef, specicially asked for an omelette with no beef; what did she get; you guessed it right: an omelette with beef. So the egg station guy does not care at all about dietary requirements. Multiple times the coffee are ran out of cups, saucers, milk; staff don’t pay attention nor seem to care. Only the old lady does, who was the only face I remembered (it looks like besides a renovation, most staff are new to the resort; the care and attention for details and their work that used to be there is not there anymore. I was offered machine coffee a couple of times instead of the hotel coffee but when I ordered it on the beach during breakfast hours, I was charged for the coffee! I had to argue upon checkout to get it removed from the bill; initially the restaurant staff refused to remove it, saying it was from different beans. Which is not correct because the day prior I had gotten machine coffee from the same coffee machine from the restaurant as part of the breakfast without being charged. I sat almost next to the coffee machine! In the end it was removed but the whole process took 15 minutes. A nice touch was that after we checked out, the hotel staff weighed my suitcases so we would not get surprised at the airport. I have never seen this service and recommend this to any hotel.

Stayed 1 week in October 2022. Super popular with domestic market, expect lots of day use from locals and Jakartan families during weekend. The place resembles a huge kiddie club and day use beach club rather than the once charming hotel it was in previous years. If you are looking for privacy and uncrowded public spaces then this is not for you. Overpriced as well. Hoards of people during breakfast time. Breakfast food items mediocre at best. Also unappealing presentation cantina style. Kid's events hosted for outside organizations held frequently. Very shallow main pool with luke warm to hot water as a result, instead of refreshing cool. All in all not worth the money.

We have been to Bali more than 20 times over the years, and first started staying at this hotel in 1986 and, having most recently stayed there just prior to covid, we were looking forward to seeing how things had changed after Bali had re-opened. On arrival, we were "upgraded" to a room in Village 2 which veteran patrons of the place will recall as a secluded quiet area around a nice pool. There are about 24 villas in the area, but ten of them, each of the two storey places overlooking the pool, have fallen into sad disrepair with holes in the thatched roofing and collapsed ceilings. Our room, whilst adequate, was in real need of upgrading if management wants to get serious about lifting their star rating. We asked some of the staff about any plans for refurbishment, and they weren't aware of any in the foreseeable future. One of the things which kept on bringing us back to the hotel was the fabulous staff, and management seemed to recognise that in the past by retaining some of the people with whom we had become friendly, employing them as Guest Relations people, which worked really well and probably helped to generate many return bookings. Now there is just Suryati left in charge of the restaurant, and we feel that the place has lost its soul. Whilst the Byrd Cage has been completed and looks great, the hotel has marketed very strongly to the, generally, younger local set, and this seems to have worked for them, at least on the weekends, when the place was quite crowded....and noisy! Weekdays were quiet, and almost without patronage. Those who were there seemed on the most part to have come for the first time from Europe. It has long been my experience that the best people to market to are repeat customers who are familiar with your product. Other than at breakfast, the noise of the music was so bad that we took to eating along the beachfront, mostly Tootsies next door, so that we could have a good, peaceful meal with a wide range of well prepared food at significantly cheaper prices. We found Segara Village to be quite boring and without the soul that we used to enjoy so much. There are many other places along the beach strip which we would be happy to revisit on our next visit to Sanur.