The St. Regis Bali Resort — Hotel in Kuta Selatan

My Titanium Elite upgraded me from St. Regis Suite garden view to Gardenia Villa with private pool. Check-in at 12 noon, immediately given welcome drink, and cold towel. room is ready. The concept of St. Regis is that each guest can get 24-hour butler service, where the butler can help packing and unpacking, make tea coffee and even iced chocolate (unlimited, can be refilled anytime). Titanium Elite Welcome Gift Benefits other than free upgrade to Gardenia Villa are welcome gift 1000 points (can choose 1000 points, 30-minute foot spa or breakfast for 1 person but already get breakfast for 2 people initial rate), free late check-out until 16.00 and 2 scoops of ice cream for children. There is no lounge here. If you can't check in, you can wait in the library while drinking tea and chilling, there are various books for children and regular reading . Before going to the room, you will be invited to ride a buggy around the facilities at St. Regis. The buggy also provides drinking water.|The Gardenia villa where I stayed is located in the middle between the hotel building and the beach, if you want to go to the lagoon pool, it's close, but if you want to go to the main pool, kids club, gym and spa, it's a bit far, it's better to use a buggy. The 411 m2 Gardenia Villa is equipped with a living room with a dining table, a sofa for 6 people and a TV when you enter. The color is a bit unique, a combination of brown and green. The impression is comfortable, cool and well maintained. To the right of the living room is a pantry and powder room. The pantry has a minibar, zinc, electric stove, coffee machine, microwave, refrigerator. The tea uses TWG, the coffee uses coffee capsules. Behind the pantry there is a maid's bed and behind it is a clothesline. To the left of the living room there is a room equipped with a work chair, television, and a 200x200 mattress. The mattress faces the private pool. Outside the villa there is a private pool, 2 chairs and a table for relaxing, 2 sunloungers, a garden, a shower, and a cabana for relaxing. It was explained that 2 hats and 2 bags in the room can be taken home for free. For welcome amenities on the table there is a St. Regis doll, a thread containing a drawing book and colored pencils, a St. Regis hat and shirt, 3 boxes of snacks (peanuts and 2 cookies), a fruit platter, and a babymoon chocolate cake. ||The bathroom has a walk-in closet with a cupboard, luggage rack, and hanger, closet, bathtub, shower, and 2 washbasins and there is a TV above the washbasin. Because we are talking about bringing a baby, a ladle, a baby bath, and a set of Johnson and Johnson shampoo soap have been prepared to be taken home. Unfortunately, the closet is not heated yet. Complete amenities are neatly arranged, towels are provided 3 body towels, 3 hand towels and 3 face towels.||Facilities include a kids club, some are outdoor and some are indoor, in November there were quite a lot of mosquitoes and they formed the kids club per room so it was a bit cramped, and honestly it smelled a bit damp. Lagoon pool, well maintained, there is a whirlpool. The main pool is not too big. There is also a kids pool but it is small. Beach bar and access to the beach, Every afternoon there is a St. Regis champagne sabering ritual served with snacks (peanuts, olives, peyek), each guest can get a glass of champagne, followed by a fire dance with canapes. For the Spa there is an Aqua vitale pool with 12 refreshing, Sauna, Steam Room, and cold plunge. Take ice cream at the cafe, there are vanilla, coco crunch, caramel, oreo, pandan, strawberry, Sakura, rum raisin, chocolate, mint chocolate chip, coconut, mango, lollipop, dulce, coffee, yogurt flavors. Take caramel and chocolate. It tastes like premium gelato, soft and very delicious. If you swim, you are given 4 bottles of mineral water, facial mist, sun screen, and cold towels, as well as grapes.|That night after returning from dinner, our room had been turned down, given 2 boxes of macaroons, and a body scrub and greentea soap, and rosella tea.|For breakfast at Boneka Restaurant with a semi-buffet concept with an a-la carte menu can be seen in the photo, the specialty is that they have signature egg nouvelle (lobster ragout filled egg with salmon roe), Foie gras egg, river lobster egg omelette, and steak and eggs. I tried it and it was really delicious. The buffet menu is|1. Dimsum, noodle station, sushi, bread, pastry, cereal, dried fruit, nuts|2. Casserole, hashbrown, meatball, pineapple bacon, beef bacon, beef sausage, chicken sausage|3. pork sausage, pork bacon, cold cut, olive, salad, kimchi, cheese, salmon (really refreshing)|4. ice cream (vanilla, dragon fruit,...

Our time here was an incredibly mixed experience - it could have ended a lot worse if my partner hadn’t been as careful as she was with her gluten allergy. A fundamental level of confusion and lack of knowledge about what did and didn’t have gluten meant that we could never fully relax and unwind during our stay. More on that below.

The best part of our stay was the wonderful suite. The rooms are beautifully decorated, spacious and lavish. Thank you to all of the housekeeping staff and Tin, Ngurah and the other butlers who made our stay comfortable and surprised us with thoughtful gifts throughout. Another highlight was the St. Regis Bar, which served some wonderful cocktails. The live music each evening was a real treat.

The beach loungers are very comfortable, and the service at the beach is top notch. The beach itself though leaves a lot to be desired too – privacy comes at the trade-off of accessibility. The salt water pool is excellent, though. We found the water in the other pool to be quite dirty. The grounds are thoughtfully designed with lush plants, but really starting to show their age. Almost the entire hotel felt quite dated and in need of a refurbishment.

Onto the gluten. Our first meal upon arriving was at the Gourmand Deli. My partner ordered the guacamole which is marked as gluten free on the menu. It turns out that the tortilla chips it is normally served with aren’t gluten free, so they offered us the dish with potato chips instead. Why list something as gluten free on the menu if it isn’t?

The real disaster came at dinner, when we went to Kayuputi. My partner ordered the tofu sate dish, which we were assured was gluten free. The beautifully presented dish arrives only for her to see that the plate has been garnished with soy sauce, which contains gluten. Thankfully she immediately noticed – had she eaten it this would be a very different review. An apology from the assistant manager followed, and again the following day at breakfast, but the whole experience meant that every meal from this point forward was an ordeal as we had to painstakingly check what was truly gluten free. This really isn’t how you want to spend your holiday.

The next morning, at breakfast, we noticed that items at the buffet were incorrectly labeled. One yogurt dish section wasn’t labelled as containing dairy and a muesli dish wasn’t labelled as containing gluten. When we asked the staff, they couldn’t guarantee that the muesli was gluten free. We kindly offered some feedback to Didik the manager, who to his credit was very receptive and incredibly apologetic for the rest of our stay. By the next morning the labels had been updated, so kudos to Didik and his staff. Didik also offered my partner some complimentary gluten free pasta for dinner, which was appreciated.

At lunch that day we had another similar experience - we ordered the taco spiced vegetable wrap to our beach loungers. Turns out that although the item is marked as gluten free on the menu, the wrap they use contains gluten. They ended up offering us the dish with gluten free bread instead. The bread was horrible. Again, why list an item as gluten free if it isn’t? Even the member of staff who took our order didn’t quite understand why it was marked as GF on the menu.

The most frustrating part about this whole experience is that this entire gluten odyssey isn’t the fault of one person in particular, but rather a general hotel-wide lack of up-to-date information. Why was soy used to garnish a gluten free meal, and why are non gluten-free items listed as gluten free? Mistakes happen, but this just shouldn’t happen at a place like the St. Regis.To their credit, they tried to make things right as best as they could. They offered us a 4pm late checkout and a free transfer to our next hotel, The Laguna (their sister hotel, up the road). Thank you Trishna for driving us.

On an island with dozens of truly incredible resorts, we feel no need to return to the St. Regis and hope they take this feedback on board to conduct a full allergen review of...

Made a last minute reservation ( the night before ) to this Hotel after a long consideration given the price.

As we reached the property, unloaded the luggage and walked to the lobby, handed over the passports and Asep was quick to tell us that they have been expecting us. Check in took about 10 mins as Asep was explaining to us on our perks as Bonvoy Platinum members. Had a choice to choose 1000 points or a quick 30 min foot massage for two at the spa. Breakfast came complimentary. Putra, our butler, took over the checkin progress and walked us to our Suite which was on the third floor. The rooms were huge and clean. Initial thought through pictures were that the room would be old and musky but all worries were unfounded as there was no such ambience upon entering the room. The pillows and bed were lush. Room came with a fruit bowl and a box of Truffle Chocolate. Rest assured, I had one of the best sleep in months if not years for the night

Morning came and this was one of the biggest anticipation for the trip. Boneka serves breakfast till 11am. Boneka has a buffet and alacarte choice for breakfast. The menu for the alacarte was more than just simple scramble eggs and sausages, they are well thought out and also something that will be made to order. Overall, our 5 mornings of breakfast there were magnificent, if there's a better adjective, it's that. Sopan was our server for most days and he was very attentive and aware of our needs and quirks ( custom made to drink orders ). Hats off to the whole team; I would call them all out personally but I could only take down these many names; Winho, Arry, Gilik ( sp? ), Andrea and many others.

Managed to spend sometime in the St Regis bar as well where they perform the Champagne sabering ritual on a daily basis followed by the fire dance at the centre of the property. Need to give them a shout out for remembering our preferences in drinks as we primarily ordered beer for myself and knowing it was my birthday, they gave us a complimentary cocktail and mocktail to end the night.

Room service is provided twice a day I suspect. They ensure that everything is in proper order including folding your clothes which you left within sight. Towels are replaced daily with fresh ones. Toiletries are checked and they took to attention that we were using the cotton pad more than usual that they provided more ahead of time. The butler service was another area that they did very well. Agus was attending to us on our daily needs and he took notice to our liking of the fruits that were in the room and went ahead to provide us extras and also ensure that the pot of chamomile is always ready every night. If one were to order food from Grab, the butler will receive the food on one's behalf and then bring them to the room with cutleries. Again, the soft product was immaculate.

The walk to the beachside was about 5 mins though it looked alot further on gmaps. Beachchairs are available on a first come first serve basis and we manage to score seat for every day that we went there though it did get a little crowded over the weekend. Water is served with cold towels. The water was clear and clean while there can be stones and corals in the shallow end of the sea. The waves do not come all the way to shore as there is a coral reef about 400-500meters out that break the larger waves. While the weekend had higher occupancy, we have always felt that the beach was very quiet.

As the days go by, the staffs around the property were getting very acquainted with our presence. For those we had interact and for those whom we did not interact with, almost everybody knew our names. The warmth and attention to details that they showed truly made our stay to be the best so far. The sense of home is what the St Regis Bali embodies. During departure, they had waved us off from the lobby which I find it very personal. Overall, I wouldn't have it any other way and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is by far the best property I have stayed which is...