MARVILLA BALI — Hotel in Depok

DO YOUSELF A FAVOR AND JUST DON’T BOOK IT

We arrived at the premises and the gentleman at reception took a photo of my passport using his personal phone without asking for permission (which I immediately felt uneasy about but I assumed it was part of their policy). Following this he escorted us to our room. We immediately noticed a lot hair and dirt on the floor so we followed our inspection to check the bedsheets - as they looked as they had been slept on - which were filthy, covered in stains, patches of blood and it had been evident that the bed had been slept in the night beforehand and not changed. After we complained - with a lot of communication barriers as this was a security man with no English skills and with no clear indications from the management - he brought us into a new room which again had bed stains of anything you can imagine - and algae in the pool.

Following this, we were not comfortable staying in the building so we informed them that we would not be staying in the premises and requested a refund, once this happened four gentleman appeared which had the intent to intimidate myself and my boyfriend.

After some back and forth with very little results, we decided to to put our Indonesian friends on the phone to serve as translator the people at the Marvilla Bali. They contacted someone who tried to impersonate an employee of Booking.com on the phone with my boyfriend. He claimed several times he worked for Booking and after 2 hours and a half of back and forth we came to the conclusion - after our Indonesian friends spoke to them - that it wasn’t anyone from Booking.com but the owner / property manager of the property who was trying to scam us.

When I booked the property, as I had decided to proceed to the payment only at check-in (thankfully), no payment was made. However, if I cancelled or if I hadnt showed up I would be charged for the first night. During the whole 2h30 we were there trying to solve the situation they said that they would only refund the money and process the cancellation if I paid at that time and then they would process the refund within 24h. I refused to do that and submitted a request via the Booking app to cancel without paying the fees, which had to be approved by the property. When I asked the owner / property manager on the phone to do that, he claimed that they had suddenly lost access to their Booking account. After more people started to arrive - because they were calling them - we started feeling unsafe. These people came with motorbikes and were just standing on top of them giving us threatening looks, so we decided to leave and book another accommodation via another platform as we tried to contact Booking several times with no success and we were feeling for our safety at the time. I asked them to delete my passport photo and they said they couldn’t do it before the cancellation was processed. I asked how would that happened if they claimed they had no access to the account and they just said “everything good in future”. We left the property and have 0 intentions of coming anywhere near it.

I am writing this message over 48h after this happening and I still haven’t got my cancellation request approved - if we had stayed there we would have checked out and continue to...

„4 star rated on booking“? No. Dirty room on arrival, lots of hair on the floor and in the bed and towels, ew. No toilet paper. No wifi password or information in the room, we arrived late so we could only get toilet paper, WiFi and info the next day because we took care of it. Horrible communication. No one offered us any information on the restaurant, so we couldn’t get breakfast. We asked for airport pickup, which they say they provide, but they never replied to us so we had to manage this ourselves. No one speaks English at the reception, so you can only try to translate via app and get basically no answers. No outlets near the bed so can’t charge phone close to bed.

We put a stained dirty pillowcase on the floor, indicating to please change it since it’s dirty, and the staff put it back on the pillow and back into our bed (which you could see, because you can recognize the same stains on the pillowcase)!? There was still toothpaste etc stains from the last guests when we arrived and so on. So we asked to have the room cleaned again. They didn’t, same situation continued. The manager eventually apologized via text when we complained to him about the hygiene and asked for more cleaning, and said “more attention will be payed to the cleanliness of every corner”, but we don’t expect every little detail or corner to be perfect. We just expect a normal level of hygiene and if it isn’t provided and we complain once that the room is dirty on arrival, which it shouldnt be in the first place, this should be taken serious then. They didn’t. after two times not cleaning the room sufficiently and more complaining about it, it still didn’t change. Every day after “cleaning” (making the bed, that’s it), we found the same situation. The staff tried to be very nice and polite, but it seems like they are just not trained at all in basic hospitality. After asking for a compensation, and waiting, they offered us 200k back. Not great, considering the high amount we payed for the nights. He said he will “punish his staff” - well, maybe don’t punish them but offer them at least some training, so these mistakes don’t occur? Maybe even before selling overpriced rooms?

Would definitely book something else for this price, since they just try to sell this nice instagtammable picture of their place, but the rooms and pools are not that good and the service...

Overall, this place is a good hideaway and looks like pictures but was not well maintained. The room bedding was dirty, and Full of dust and cutlery dirty. I stayed due to convenience, but the pool moter kept having weird sounds. The shower heads were broken, so water went everywhere except where it was needed. The door was a challenge to lock. The door to pool refused to open fully. Breakfast was only at 7am. Could not organize for later. One day the water turned off and had to go ask reception why. There is no clean-up room while you stay. Only after you leave. So breakfast plates stayed outside till I left. For a Westerner, it was a challenge. Housekeeping and maintenance need to work on...