When I first came across The Apurva Kempinski Bali around the time of Bali’s reopening, I wanted to stay there. The photos I’d seen of the property looked absolutely stunning. I’m also a sucker for rooms with private pools, so I was particularly intrigued by the Cliff Private Pool Junior Suites. This property shot to the top of my “to-stay” list for Bali.
When the girlfriend and I decided to head to Bali for her birthday, I knew we had to stay here. My enthusiasm was dampened when I read about some weird rules the hotel had, namely a ban on outside food delivery and some restrictions on photography. I subsequently confirmed the ban on food delivery with the hotel via Instagram DM. Still, the hotel looked too good to pass up. We finally worked up an itinerary that split our trip between here and the Hotel Indigo Bali, mostly due to our fondness for the Seminyak area,
I stated in my review of the Hotel Indigo Bali, I planned the Kempinski for our last 2 nights because I wanted to end with the better hotel. That was based on brand positioning and the likely room upgrades. As it turned out, the huge upgrade we got at the Hotel Indigo nearly flipped everything on its head. In fact, maybe it did.
We had high expectations for The Apurva Kempinski. Perhaps a little too high. Objectively, the stay was good. The room was everything we expected, there were only a couple of minor issues, and the amenities during our stay were fantastic. Nothing to really complain about. Yet, there were a few oddities here and there that make us feel the stay could, and should have been even more amazing.
There’s no doubt The Apurva Kempinski is a fantastic addition to Bali’s ever-expanding roster of luxury resorts. Despite the slight sense of being underwhelmed by this stay, this is still one very impressive resort, and worth a return visit.
Read on to find out what did, and didn’t, impress us about The Apurva Kempinski!
Planning and Booking
I have already talked about in an earlier post on monitoring hotel rates, and how I managed to reduce the rate while simultaneously scoring a higher room category for this stay
For this stay, I initially booked a Grand Deluxe Ocean Court Room on a “125 Anniversary Special” rate. This rate included breakfast, complimentary cake and 125 anniversary cocktail. It also allowed changes and cancellations up to 2 weeks in advance. The Grand Deluxe Ocean Court Room is one category above the lead-in Grand Deluxe Room, but more crucially is 2 categories below the entry-level suite, the Cliff Private Pool Junior Suite. The 2-category difference was important, as my GHA Titanium status should ensure we received the desired upgrade to the Cliff Private Pool Junior Suite.
A couple of days before the 2-week change deadline was due, I was checking the rates and found it had gone done a fair bit. The “125 Anniversary Special” rate was no more, but a similar “Travel Treats” package had the same inclusions. I found I could book the Grand Deluxe Lagoon Room, which is one category up from the Ocean Court, for less than my current rate. By doing so, the expected upgrade would be to the Cliff Private Pool Ocean Junior Suite. Same room layout and size, but higher floor and unobstructed ocean views. It sounded like a smart change, so I grabbed it. The hotel accordingly upgraded the booking once the change deadline passed to a Cliff Private Pool Ocean Junior Suite.
The final rate was slightly under IDR9.3million (~SGD815) for 2 nights. A little pricey for a standard room, but not bad once the upgrade was factored in. GHA Discovery being a rebate programme, there’s no redeeming free nights here, unless one has loads of Discovery D$ to offset.
Hotel Background and Location
The Apurva Kempinski Bali opened in February 2019, so it’s one of the newer properties in Bali. The hotel boasts that 60% of the 475 rooms feature private plunge pools. That’s a figure I still haven’t been able to reconcile based on room type breakdowns I’ve seen, unless they counted lagoon access rooms. Regardless, I’d recommend booking at least a Cliff Private Pool Junior Suite, or get upgraded to one with GHA status.
The hotel presents itself as a “majestic open-air theatre”. Building rooms shaped by the topography of the area, with the stunning central grand staircase gives the look of a theatre. It’s perhaps a little too big to feel truly exclusively luxurious, but it’s architecturally impressive and visually stunning. After exploring the grounds, I recommend viewing the Cliff Suite wings/lobby building at dusk, when the lights around the building have been turned on. In my opinion, it’s really quite majestic.
The reason for this design is the cliffs in this part of Nusa Dua. The hotel is located in a somewhat quieter part of Nusa Dua, facing roughly southeast. The only things around are other resorts, with the Hilton Bali and Ritz-Carlton Bali flanking the Kempinski. This makes it a little isolated in terms of amenities, but perfect if you’re looking for a relatively quiet area for a little retreat. With 475 rooms though, it may be hard to find serenity in the resort. That said, the resort is oddly quiet at night, once 9pm or so rolls around. The Sanskrit word “Apurva” means one of a kind, and it’s hard to argue that the resort looks one of a kind.
Arrival and Check-in
We arrived at the hotel around 5pm. We had checked out of the Indigo around lunchtime, before heading out for lunch and a couple of other stops. When alighting at the driveway, guests are greeted by a large pond, which separates the driveway from the Pendopo Lobby. Getting to the lobby requires walking around the pond. Depending on the staff’s mood, there’s a perfunctory airport-style bag and magnetometer security check to pass through first.
The view across the pond to the Pendopo Lobby is quite a sight.
We were escorted to the reception desks, and invited to take a seat. When we checked in, the lobby was rather crowded and felt disorganised. It was only on subsequent walks through the lobby that I got to appreciate the airiness and majesty of the space. It felt modern traditional and elegant, if there can be such a thing. I wouldn’t describe as giving a luxe exclusive feel, given the volume of guests in the hotel, but it was honestly the most magnificent I had seen in Bali.
The centrepiece of the Pendopo Lobby is undoubtedly the “Flying High” art piece. It’s a popular photo spot in the hotel, and there’s even a staff stationed there during the day to take photos for guests. It isn’t really my thing, but it does add grandeur to the lobby.
Behind “Flying High”, a flight stairs leads to the 15th floor below, which is the top of the grand staircase. This looked pretty nice too when viewed at dusk.
Down to the business of check-in. While one staff member handled the formalities, a Lady in Red came over to run through the various services and amenities offered, and also the Cliff Lounge benefits that came with staying in a Cliff Suite. She mentioned we could WhatsApp the Lady in Red team anytime during their working hours 9am to 10pm, for any requests including restaurant reservations. At some point, a staff member came with cold towels and a welcome drink, which I believe was jamu, an Indonesian juice of tumeric and ginger. Not to our liking.
We were also handed several vouchers: a pair of drinks vouchers for booking directly; a voucher for the 125 Anniversary cake; and lastly a voucher good for a pair of 125 Anniversary cocktails or mocktails. There was also a welcome letter outlining the Cliff Lounge benefits and various F&B options within the resort. That was quite a lot of papers, which was good preparation for what awaited us in the room.
One of the reasons we were initially hesitant to stay here was their rules on food delivery and photography. As it turned out, things had changed by the time of our stay. Food delivery was now allowed, although guests were required to collect it at the front gate of the resort themselves. There was no mention of photography restrictions as well, in fact the staff remarked that “Flying High” was a popular photo spot, but “of course you can take photos anywhere”. I certainly didn’t encounter resistance when taking photos throughout the resort.
With the check-in formalities completed, we were introduced to another Lady in Red who would escort us to our room, together with another staff member who quietly followed along. Along the way, the Lady in Red pointed out the F&B venues located on the lobby level.
Our room was located in the North Cliff Suites wing. To get to our room, we had to walk all the way to the tip of the north ‘arm’ of main building, then take the lifts down. The view of the resort from the walkway is pretty nice, and if you’re (un)lucky, you might see fellow guests frolicking in their private pools, but more on that later.
The Room
Our room 5116, was located on the 11th floor, close to the middle of the building. The room numbers are made up of which zone the room is in, which level it’s on, and then the room number. In our case, we were in zone 5, floor 11 and our room was the 6th room in that zone and floor. Being close to the middle of the building, our room was one of the furthest from the main lifts, but close to the Cliff Lounge. The Cliff Private Pool Ocean Junior Suites and the low floor “non-Ocean” Junior Suites are all 100sqm. However, there are some differences in layout.
Upon entering the room, we were immediately greeted by a statue. It wasn’t really what I like to see in my hotel room, but I guess some guests will appreciate the traditional touch.
To the right of the entryway was the walk-in wardrobe. Our bags had already been delivered when we got to our room. I’m going to be blunt and say the positioning of the walk-in wardrobe made no sense to me. It wasn’t directly connected to the bathroom, so it meant passing through the bed/living room to get between the two spaces. It’s not a big deal, but just about every suite I’ve seen with a walk-in wardrobe has the wardrobe attached or directly adjacent to the bathroom.
The safe is in the walk-in wardrobe. The hotel also provides a beach bag and hats for outdoor use. The switch for the pool lights was also located here. Unfortunately the pool lights in our room weren’t functioning. That was the first minor problem we encountered.
I’ll admit, coming from a villa at the Hotel Indigo Bali, the room here didn’t impress as much as I thought it would. The décor was more to my taste (except the statue at the entrance), being a more contemporary style. We were perhaps lucky the room configuration we got had the bed facing the windows, and thus a great ocean view from the bed, albeit with the living area in the way.
This is a bit of first world problem, but I wish the hotel had opted for electrically-controlled curtains and blinds (in the bathroom). It would have been awesome to just lie in down and open the curtains at the touch of button, to expose the lovely morning sun. I felt this was a missed opportunity to give guests a more breathtaking experience.
The other issue with not having electrically-controlled curtains was that it was difficult to close the curtains. The curtains had to pass through a gap behind the sofa (see second photo below). Since this was a manual process, I had to either stretch over the sofa, or climb onto the sofa to close the curtains. This was rather daft and annoying positioning of the furniture.
Prior to the stay, one of the pre-arrival questionnaire was whether we had any specific pillow requests from the list available. I can’t remember the full list, but I chose the special goose down pillow and a spelt pillow. These were duly placed in our room prior to our arrival. I used the spelt pillow, which was nice but not as good as a buckwheat pillow. The bed itself was lovely, with a nice firmness.
One thing the hotel really put a lot of effort in was the welcome amenities. These were accompanied several welcome cards, signed by various staff members. Because I had highlighted in the pre-arrival survey that it was my girlfriend’s birthday, the room attendants had also prepared a lovely flower basket and of course signed an attached card. They had also put together a female towel figure. I’ve seen many towel animals before, but not a towel human. There was a birthday cake too of course. This turned out to be the same type of cake as the 125 Anniversary cake, just bigger.
The welcome amenities included a huge fruit basket, consisting of dragon fruit, salak (snake fruit) and some more usual fruits. There were also macarons and some Indonesian sweets on the coffee table.
On the desk where the birthday cake was placed, the hotel also gave a GHA Titanium welcome amenity of local Balinese sparkling wine. Naturally, this was accompanied by yet another card.
The Balinese sparkling wine was honestly not great, just about drinkable. Unfortunately the hotel didn’t provide a stopper, so we either had to drink it all in one go or let half of it go to waste. We chose the latter option.
Speaking of the desk, I noticed that with the way the chair was positioned, opening the desk drawer carelessly would result in the drawer slamming into the chair armrests. The result was quite a bit of damage to the armrest. I think I may have contributed to it too. The char itself didn’t seem to get cleaned at all, with quite a bit dirt marks. If you’re going to use light coloured fabric furniture, at least make sure they get cleaned regularly.
The minibar was also located beneath the desk. This was unstocked. With access to the Cliff Lounge, we could pop in there for drinks anytime anyway. There was also a coffee machine and kettle.
The desk had universal power outlets fitted, as well as a couple of USB-A ports, one of which was labelled “High Power”.
The bedside had universal power outlets, together with the lights switches. These were somewhat hidden under a huge bulk mirror however. This made it hard to see which light switch was for what, and also made it impossible for larger adapters to be plugged in directly. My girlfriend couldn’t get her Apple charger to fit, and had to resort to ‘extending’ it with an adapter, even though this was a universal plug.
The hotel had chosen to use cylindrical bedside and standing lamps around the room. These look nice, but what we found was that the clear outer casing were not cleaned on the inside at all. Looking at them up close was pretty disgusting. The exterior surface seemed clean, but definitely not the inner side. It wouldn’t be an easy to job to clean these between every guest, so ultimately it came down to an impractical choice of lighting fixture.
That wasn’t our only issue with the lights. On our last night, all the lights in the room suddenly went on while we were sleeping. Naturally, the sudden brightness woke us up, or at least it woke me. It was as if someone had hit the master switch. I reported this to the front desk during checkout, but I doubt they would ever be able to get to the root of the issue. This combined with the non-functioning pool lights, gave the impression the electrical system wasn’t in great shape.
With the room configuration we had, the bathroom felt rather spacious. It was well-equipped too. There were his-and-hers vanities, a large free-standing tub, separate shower, and my personal favourite, a heated, electrically-controlled toilet seat and cover with washlet. It was perhaps lacking sufficient clothes hooks.
The bathroom overlooked our pool, and there was a great ocean view from the tub. I did notice that with the blinds up, it was possible to see part of the tub from the lift corridors. After discovering that, we made it a point to keep the toilet blinds down. Some room configurations have the shower close to the windows overlooking the pool. An ocean view from the shower would have been nice, but we had was nice too.
The bathroom amenities were all hotel-branded. They were alright, nothing special. The hotel still uses single-use bottles, rather than reusable pump bottles that many hotels have switched to in the name of sustainability.
The main draw of the Cliff Junior Suites however, is the private plunge pool. The pool is a good size, I’d say around 10m long, and 2m wide or so. That’s a good size considering this was ultimately still just a room in a hotel building, not a villa. If you’re looking for an even larger pool, the Apurva Prestige Suites would be the way to go. Depending on room position, the pools are arranged in what I’d term “portrait” or “landscape”. Our room had the “landscape” arrangement, with the length open to the ocean view. The small deck also had a couple of deck chairs and drying rack.
At this point I should issue a warning to anyone planning to stay in a Cliff or Prestige suite, particularly the Ocean suites (higher floors). Depending on the position of your room and the floor it’s on, anyone walking along the corridors could see your pool. So for everyone’s sake, do not skinny dip in the private pool. Suites closer to the centre of the building, on odd-numbered floors, and those on low floors i.e. not ocean suites, are likely to be less exposed. Even if your room meets all those conditions, I wouldn’t recommend skinny dipping. No one wants to see other guests skinny dipping. Unfortunately, we, and several other guests, were “treated” to a view of one such couple while walking to the lifts one morning.
We spent most of our time floating on the pool or just chilling in and around it. With swimsuits of course.
On our second day, we were left a gift of small wallet/cardholder. It wasn’t particularly high quality leather, if it was even genuine leather, but it was nice and unique gift.
Overall thoughts on the room
It’s no villa, but this was a objectively a very nice hotel room. There’s clearly some issues to be sorted out, mainly the room upkeeping. In the room configuration we got, the positioning of some things didn’t make sense, the most obvious being the sofa vis-Ã -vis the curtains. Perhaps one option the hotel could consider is to swap the positions of the sofa and coffee table. That might be be good for giving guests the ocean view from the sofa. The walk-in wardrobe could be better located, but that’s something that can’t be changed. The bedside light switches were also awkwardly placed. It all gave the impression that some things were not properly thought through during the design phase, which results in these odd problems.
Ultimately, these are minor gripes. They did detract from the overall experience, but no hotel room is perfect. (or at least I’ve yet to find one). The bathroom was great, spacious with all the features I like to have. The bed was fantastic, just the right hardness for me (some people might find it too hard). Having a pillow menu, and asking preferences prior to arrival was nice.
There’s few things better than chilling in and around a private pool, while admiring the fantastic ocean view. For me, that makes this room a winner. It’s a room I’d be very happy to return to.
Cliff Lounge
Guests staying in suites, including guests upgraded by virtue of GHA Discovery status like myself, get access to the Cliff Lounge. Guests in villas have a separate Villa Lounge. It’s great that the hotel grants lounge access even to upgraded guests, unlike many hotels and chains. Even with GHA member properties, not all properties are as generous, such as the PARKROYAL on Beach Road I stayed at recently.
The Cliff Lounge is located on the 9th and 10th levels in the middle of the main building, between the two Cliff Suite wings. At the time of our stay, it’s open from 6.30am to 9pm, with the following meal presentations: breakfast 6.30am to 12pm, afternoon tea 3-5pm, evening cocktails 5-7pm. Yes, breakfast is served till 12pm. That’s great news for people like me, who prefer to sleep in amidst a lazy beach holiday. During the rest of the opening hours, light refreshments and non-alcoholic beverages are available.
The lounge is quite an elegant place. The décor is a contrast of very dark brown wood and white marble. A spiral staircase connects the two levels of the lounge.
The lounge has its own infinity pool, and a hydro jet pool. These were occasionally crowded. It’s always nice when a lounge has an exclusive pool. We didn’t use these though, as we preferred the private pool in the suite, and the weather was rather uncooperative.
The 10th floor has a pair of open terraces overlooking the infinity pool and the hydro jet pools. These were quite popular, particular the table that faces out towards the ocean.
Breakfast
The Kempinski breakfast is a signature feature of the brand, indeed the Capitol Kempinski Singapore’s breakfast is one of the best I’ve had. For this stay, we had breakfast at the lounge both mornings during our stay. Breakfast is served on the 10th floor. There’s a full buffet, plus a selection of ala carte dishes. The ala carte portions aren’t big, so it’s possible to sample a number of dishes. I can’t speak for the main Pala Restaurant, but breakfast at the Cliff Lounge was a bit of a mixed bag. Coffee and tea can be ordered from, and was served by the staff.
Across our two mornings, we mostly ordered from the Chef’s Specialties, and the French Toast. Unfortunately most of the dishes were misses. The egg langoustine was particularly disappointing, bland and a weird texture. The Taiwanese Foie Gras Congee and French Toast were decent, but the standout was the Japanese Egg Cocotte. This was tasty, silky and the onsen egg on top of chawanmushi added an extra eggy, creamy feel. This was so enjoyable we had it both mornings. Certainly was way better than the weird concoction at the Hotel Indigo Bali. The rest of the ala carte dishes were just average.
The buffet was also a bit hit-and-miss sadly. Typical of Kempinski, there was wide selection of breads and spreads. The hotel also prides itself on showcasing Indonesian food and culture, so there was a huge variety of kueh/kuih/kue (chose your preferred spelling depending on heritage) on offer, including one of my favourites, kueh dadar. Many of these would reappear at afternoon tea, but that’s not a complaint.
Of course, there were the usual breakfast staples, including staff on hand to assemble noodles and congee. These were rather awkwardly prepared at the buffet line, rather than counters. There was the standard salad bar, cold cuts, cheese, yoghurts and cereals. The cold cuts had interesting types of smoked fish, such as smoked gindara. The hot items were also an unusual mix, consisting of dim sum, roast chicken, Cantonese style beef, Indonesian fish curry and other local food. There were sushi rolls of course. I’ll admit I can’t understand why every breakfast buffet in Bali seem to have these.
A strange incident occurred on our first morning. A couple of a certain nationality came in after us and took the table beside us. They went straight to the buffet and after they sat down, a staff member approached to tell them they weren’t actually entitled to breakfast in the lounge. The staff did let them continue, but warned them for subsequent days they’ll have to go to the restaurant. If they weren’t eligible for Cliff Lounge access, how did they even know of the place? Honestly, it’s bewildering – and ridiculous – how this nationality of travellers behave sometimes. Not all are bad, but many are.
Breakfast was a little mixed, and perhaps not quite we what expected of a Kempinski. But we did have very high expectations after our experience with the Capitol Kempinski in Singapore. That said, I would rank this as one of the better hotel breakfasts I’ve had in Bali. There’s definitely some dishes we’d avoid (egg langoustine), but also some we’d love to have again on a future visit (Japanese egg cocotte). With breakfast running till 12pm, it’s possible to sleep in, grab a late breakfast and skip lunch, as we did. Perhaps on a future stay, we’ll try breakfast at Pala, though that doesn’t run as late. Overall, breakfast was good, but not great.
Afternoon Tea
We only managed to have afternoon tea once, on our only full day staying here. This was buffet-style. The kue reappeared of course, but besides that there were a couple of sandwiches, two types of scones, some hot snacks and desserts. Not overly generous, but perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Most of the food items that day weren’t really my cup of tea, but the quality was decent, and most importantly the scones were passable. What was not acceptable was whipped cream in place of clotted cream. Oh the horror.
Evening Cocktails
Evening cocktails at The Apurva Kempinski Bali is a rather simple affair. A plate of 3 canapes, that’s it. It’s quite a weak offering compared to many hotels of similar standing. They were not too bad taste wise I suppose.
Alcohol is complimentary during evening cocktails, but as with many hotel lounges, I found the mixed drinks too weak. No champagne is on offer, just local sparkling wine. The wines were all local wines. The only beer was Bintang. I get that the hotel wants to showcase local brands, but the alcohol selection was limited and screamed cheap.
Service
I have a separate section later in this review to talk about overall service in the hotel, but I want to specifically talk about service in the Cliff Lounge here. The staff varied between extremely attentive, to oblivious. I found this depended on whether it was meal time or not. At non-meal times when we entered the lounge to sit and relax, no one really greeted us, offered a seat or drinks. I had to go to the bar myself to order drinks. At least the staff did bring it to our table rather than making me self serve. I won’t say it’s really an issue, just a minor frustration which should not be occurring at a hotel of this standard.
At meal times however, I have to say the service was outstanding. The staff were extremely attentive, clearing empty plates very promptly. Once during afternoon tea, I had a taken a jar of panna cotta, only to find my spoon wouldn’t fit. I was comically poking at the jar with the large spoon to make a point. A staff member noticed immediately however, and brought a teaspoon over. It wasn’t particularly crowded anyway, but it showed attentiveness and initiative. There was always at least one staff member nearby, usually more than one, even when we dined alfresco on the terrace. It could be said that the service in the Cliff Lounge was a microcosm of the hotel, outstanding in parts, but odd, even occasionally frustrating, in other parts. Thankfully the positives shaded the negatives.
Food & Beverage
The Apurva Kempinski Bali has quite a number of F&B venues. Perhaps the most famous is Koral Restaurant, a fine dining underground restaurant with a section situated under the hotel’s aquarium. The hotel has a Japanese restaurant, Izakaya by Oku, an offshoot of Oku at the Hotel Indonesia Kempinski in Jakarta; a Chinese restaurant Bai Yun, the main Pala Restaurant & Rooftop Bar which serves mostly Indonesian and Indian cuisine. At the beach, there’s the Reef Beach Club serving international cuisine. Besides these proper restaurants, there’s smaller, more drinks-focused venues with light bites. Namely the Selasar Deli in the lobby, L’Atelier by Cyril Kongo which is more a cigar and shisha lounge, and the Kubu Pool Bar. Of course, in-room dining is available as well. More info on the various F&B venues and the menus can be found here.
During this stay, we only ate at Izakaya by Oku. I had dined at Oku in Kempinski Jakarta a few years back on a work trip, and found the food quite good. Thus I was keen to check out this Bali outpost of the brand. We both opted for the OKU omakase set. The restaurant calls it omakase, but it’s really a misuse of the term since the menu doesn’t change. This 5-course set menu cost IDR750,000 (SGD66) plus 10% service charge and 11% tax. A little pricey, but to be expected of a luxury resort. Having consumed our fill of alcohol in the Cliff Lounge prior to dinner, we stuck to hot green tea, which was IDR60,000 free-flow. This was expensive in my opinion.
The portions individually seemed small, but we were full by the end of the meal. The meal started with an amuse bouche of truffle salt edamame. This was nicely presented and had distinct but not overpowering truffle taste.
The first course was cold Karasumi pasta, with a truffle kombu sauce. This was quite delicious and we happily finished it all, down to the last piece of ikura.
The next course was an Oku signature, Oku karaage. The chicken pieces were coated in a charcoal black crust. I felt the dish could have done with more shichi-mi powder.
The 3rd course was Oku Aburi sushi roll. The spicy togarashi mayo was surprisingly spicy.
The main dish was another Oku signature item, truffle gyu don. I had an ala carte version of this dish – and the black karrage – in Jakarta, and was particularly looking forward to this course. It was not quite as good as my memory remembered it to be, but still tasty. The menu didn’t specify what beef cut was used, and I would have liked a cut with more marbling.
Last up was dessert. This was some black sesame concoction. I don’t particularly like black sesame, so not quite to my taste. The ginger crumble was rock solid and hard to eat though. The kalamansi sorbet was a nice palate cleanser.
Overall a reasonably satisfying meal. I still felt it was a tad overpriced for the portions, but at least the taste was good. Service was fine, though unremarkable. At least we didn’t suffer any mishaps unlike one of the ladies at the next table who had a waitress spill water on her by accident.
Besides Izakaya by Oku, we only stopped by the Reef Beach Club and Pala Rooftop for a couple of quick drinks, to use up our vouchers. We also claimed our cake from Selasar Deli, which as aforementioned turned out to be the same cake as the complimentary birthday cake. It was hard to judge these other outlets since we basically just had a drink each and left rather quickly. If we had a longer stay and better weather, I could definitely see myself spending a few hours at Reef Beach Club lazing around.
Facilities and Amenities
The hotel has a 60m main pool, plus a kids pool with waterslides for the young ones and young at heart. The pool was quite popular during the day. When it wasn’t raining that is. Pala Restaurant (and Koral beneath it) separates the kids pool from the main pool.
The spa and gym are located in the main building on the 15th floor, one level down from the lobby. The Apurva Spa is located closer to the north Cliff Suites wing (where we were staying), while the gym is opposite at the south Cliff Suites wings. We didn’t the spa as the prices were a little too much for us. More info on the spa and its menu can be found here.
I did use the gym though. The gym was well-equipped and everything still looked new. The cardio machines faced towards the ocean and main pool, so I a great view while on the treadmill. In the changing rooms, there was a sauna room, and an outdoor soaking pool. There always seemed to be guests in the gym, no matter the time of day.
Small outdoor pool in the gym changing rooms
For those with young ones and want to be temporarily rid of them, the hotel has a kids club near the base of the south Cliff Suites wing. I had to visit this area once, when I wanted to get our pool float inflated (more on this later).
To get around the resort, buggies were available. There were buggy stations at the lift lobbies of the base of both Cliff Suites wing. These are the only lift lobbies between the lobby level and beach level. Guests staying in Grand Deluxe rooms had to take these lifts down and either walk or call a buggy to get to their buildings.
Service
I don’t normally carve out a separate section in my hotel reviews to talk about service, but felt it’s warranted here given what Kempinski is known for. Kempinski is famous for their “Lady in Red”. As Kempinski’s website states, “the Lady in Red will help create the most memorable trip for you and your loved ones”. Now, I tend to believe this sort of thing is mostly a gimmick and marketing spiel. During our stay at the Capitol Kempinski back in 2021, I don’t recall seeing a single Lady in Red.
Since the Lady in Red who interacted with us at check-in said we could WhatsApp the team for any requests, I decided to try it out. The first was to get a dinner reservation at Izakaya by Oku. This simple request took 1.5h to be settled. In fact, between me providing my room number and the reservation being done, it took over an hour. In my opinion, that’s far too long. I get there’s 475 rooms to look after, but there’s a team of them right? A simple request shouldn’t take so long.
My next interaction with the Lady in Red team was regarding the pool float. I first enquired if pool floats were allowed, since some resorts don’t. (e.g. the Conrad Koh Samui villa pool rules disallow floats, but the hotel had no issues inflating one). They responded – after 25min – that floats were allowed in private pools only. Great. Not so great, I asked if was possible to get it inflated, only to be told it could be done at the kids club area. Seriously? In no other resort have I had to personally bring it to get inflated, and lug the inflated thing back to my room. To be clear, I didn’t expect a Lady in Red to do it, but find another staff who could? Call it a first world problem, but at a resort of this standard, I don’t expect to have to carry my inflated float back to my room. It didn’t help that the kids club was near the south wing, while we were at the north wing.
Turndown service was another weak point. The room attendant merely asked if we needed additional water or towels. At most 5* hotels, they might close the curtains – also helping mitigate the annoyance I had with the curtains, lay out slippers etc. There was none of this.
Other than these poorer interactions, the rest of the service was good. The Cliff Lounge staff, as mentioned, when they’re on it, were really good. On the whole though, I found the staff here were more professional and a tad cold, compared to other resorts where the staff were friendly and warm. Still, definitely better than the low bar of the Conrad Bali.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that objectively, the Apurva Kempinski Bali is a great, almost breathtaking resort. It certainly is architecturally. I came in with high expectations, and can’t help but feel it underwhelmed in certain respects. The room was on the whole, gorgeous, and having a private pool is always brilliant. The effort put into and sheer volume of in-room amenities was amazing, and showcased everything that’s positive of the resort and the Kempinski brand. Yet the small maintenance issues and the odd positioning of certain items took some gloss off. Service too, had great highs but also a bewildering low with the pool float.
The end result is a resort I wanted to love, but after checking out the feeling was warm affection at best. It didn’t blow me away as I expected and hoped it would. There were just a few too many oddities in the hard and soft product, However, the great room, lovely lounge and decent loyalty benefits were just about sufficient to cover up these flaws. Given that, I can still see myself returning to The Apurva Kempinski Bali.
Anyone stayed at The Apurva Kempinski Bali? How was your experience there?