Hard Rock Hotel Bali

Ever since my last visit to Festive Hotel at Sentosa, my family and me were intrigued by the artificial beach at Hard Rock Hotel. So, for the December holidays in 2010, we made arrangements, packed our bags and made our way to Bali’s Hard Rock Hotel at Kuta Beach.

Now, we’ve heard of the infamous Kuta Beach and the rowdy nightlife. Equally infamous was HRH’s smallish rooms and noisy ambience. However, we must say that we were pleasantly surprised by the space and quietness of our room.

Being new to Kuta (we had stayed at Nusa Dua in an earlier trip), we found the hotel within easy walk to a few nice places to shop. Brands such as Surfer Girl, A&W and Polo were replicated in every turn of the street. Food was easy enough to find in Kuta but for really good quality food, you have to make an effort. We found this wonderful Balinese and Western restaurant tucked away in the most unlikely of places – Jalan (Gang) Poppies 2.

http://www.korirestaurant.co.id/

Jalan Poppies is typical of any flea market streets, filled with shops offering imitation watches, cheezy T-shirts, DVDs, luggage bags and phallic shaped bottle-cap openers. Oh, and dispite the No Entry sign for Jalan Poppies 2 to cars, our taxi driver was kind enough to make the short cut through Jalan Poppies 2 anyways.

After Kori, other affordable and good places to eat are the Hard Rock Cafe and Flapjaks. Though less exotic, the food are great and portions are good sized. Expect to pay a bit more in Bali (more in Kuta) than elsewhere in Indonesia. It’s crowded with Auzzies so the locals are taking advantage of the fact to charge more.

Kuta Beach is to Bali what Patong Beach is to Phuket. Crowded with hawkers selling all sorts of services and stuff, noisy and brownish. The excuse was that Bali, being a volcanic island, throws out greyish-brown pumice instead of the silicone white sand that one finds in Phuket. For surfers, it’s pretty decent but the undertow may be less pleasant for weak swimmers and children.

My ratings (10 being world-class):
Location: 8 (Taxi ride from hotel to airprot would have to make a short trip around Jalan Melasti, resulting in wasted time and cab fare).

Ambience: 6.5 – 8.5 depending on your age and priority (the younger your are, the higher the points for ambience)

Room: 7.5 (Rock and Roll themed room but the shower heads seems rusted/caked with calcium. The cheap looking doors somehow spoils the nicely furnished room – time to change to nice solid timbre doors)

Value for money: 8.5 (~S$290 per night, excluding tax and other stuff. Includes breakfast for 4.)

Service: 7.5 (room service may be a bit slow and cooks at Starz restaurant may not understand what a half-boiled or soft boiled egg is)

Value added services/amenities: A Rocking good time! Babysitter, baby pool, largest free form pool in Kuta, bar, spa and business office.  There is even a radio station in the hotel!

Return to stay: Definitely if I’m under 40 or seeking some Rock and Roll good times with the many single ladies who are there for work and leisure.  If travelling with kids, there are other options which is wrth considering.

Hong Kong Disneyland Hollywood Hotel

I guess sooner or later, everyone visits Disneyland. Now with Disneyland being so close to home, there’s really no reason not to visit Mickey.

So, there I was, in Hong Kong with my wife and kids in tow. Technically, we were in Lantau Island. Actually, I hardly saw much of Hong Kong island on this trip, except for the 2 quick trips to Yung Kee (http://www.yungkee.com.hk), Sogo and the Noon Day Gun.

Disneyland is actually quite close to the airport without seeming so. From the airport, it is a 3-4 station ride on the MTR to Disney Station. From there, one can take a feeder bus from the theme park to the hotels. Newbies to Hong Kong should take the MTR (subway) as it is fast, efficient and environmentally friendly.

Check-in at Disneyland Hollywood Hotel was fuss-free. Now, there’s 2 hotels in Disneyland but I stayed at the Disneyland Hollywood Hotel. It’s slightly cheaper and more ‘modern’. Of course, it’s modelled after the Hollywood genre/design back in the early 20th Century.

There’s plenty of restaurants (maybe because the hotels are so far from the nearest village) – there was a total of 4 eating holes in the Hollywood Hotel (but the poolside was closed on my visit) offering various types of cruisine to suit various budgets. Breakfast, sadly, was not included in the package (but 2 days of tickets to Disneyland was).

The buffet was the most expensive – it offers some interestingly designed food, like the green 3-eyed little green men (LGM) dumplings. For some ala carte food, try the Studio Lounge. The kids will love dinner there. Even the tomato ketschup gets in the act and took the shape of Mickey’s profile. The burgers were nice and my kids lapped up their sandwiches and pasta while watching cartoons on the big screen. The pool was so so but Goofy makes an appearance occasionally.

For those of you who forgot to buy something at the theme park, no worries. There’s a gift shop in the hotel that offers everything you’d want! One thing I must say about Hong Kong Disneyland – every single gift shop in the theme park sell 99.9% the same things as the other shops! Unlike Universal Studios where each shop carries somethings different so it was like a treasure hunt.

The rooms are comfortable with a large picture of Mickey and Minnire above the two queen-sized beds. The toilet is a bit small, though. One interesting thing about the room is the telephone. There’s a function where the kids can opt for a bedtime story (but more often than not, they end up starring at the speakerphone and LCD screen at the pictures from the bedtime story).

Other than Disneyland theme park and the hotel, there’s pretty much nothing else for kids on Lantau Island. For the grownups, its worthwhile making the trip to Ngong Ping to climb the bronze Buddha. One of the better known landmarks of Hong Kong (or Lantau Island), it’s short trip by MTR and then a shorter trip by cable car or bus. For the bus, please have exact change or risk paying more than you’d have to. While at Ngong Ping, it is worthwhile to get the tickets up to the statue and the VIP vegetarian lunch package. The food is amazingly good (for vegetables) and the soya bean drink stall next to the temple dinning hall is very nice. However, if you want to use the facilities, be warned it does smell quite a bit.

My ratings (10 being world-class):

Location: 6 (It’s near to nowhere, which is just left to somewhere but right next to ‘where-the-heck’).

Ambience: 7.5

Room: 7 (like all hotels in Hong Kong, rooms are economised and miniturised)

Value for money: 8 (Breakfast wasn’t included, not that the food was that great in the first place) – it scored a 8 for throwing in 4 tickets to the theme park free.

Service: 8 (pretty decent for Hong Kong standard)

Value added services/amenities: Gift shop and 3 restaurants, 1 pool and a playground. Ho hum.

Return to stay: Only if its on a promotion package.