Element Bali Ubud — Hotel in Pulau Bali

My son and I have just returned from a 2 week stay here and I am sad to have to write a partially negative review.|Positives|Hotel is beautiful and spotlessly clean. Pool area is lovely and so is resteraunt. We thoroughly enjoyed the food served here which is very diverse due to all the different nationalities staying here. We are English and did not struggle for options.|We were initially given a pool view room but we asked to move to a garden view which for us was much better. |Very nice modern large room with huge shower and large balcony. The beds were very large and very comfortable. We did not have a musty smell in our room and the air con worked fine. There is a powerful hairdryer and large complimentary body wash and shampoo and toothbrushes supplied which was great. Our cleaners did a brilliant job of cleaning our room and if I ever needed anything I would just ask one and it was no trouble whatsoever. |The hotel is set on a main road about 10 mins out of town but you cannot hear the road as its set back. |The staff in the hotel are excellent and are eager to please.special shout out to windi and chika on the front desk and maha in the resteraunt who were all really lovely.|The hotel can arrange for personal drivers for you if you want to hire a car for the day to explore .this costs around £40 which was excellent value and we did this for 3 days so we saw lots of different places in bali. |Now sadly onto the negatives..|The traffic is diabolical as the roads aren't built for large volumes of cars and the millions of scooters. What should be a 5 minute journey takes around 30-40 minutes every time. When crossing a road you just have to walk out and the cars will stop for you so be brave ! A lot of the pavements are broken so always look where your walking or you could end up down a hole.|Although ubud is very busy we loved it and there's huge amounts of really lovely and quite posh places to eat so just do your homework. The prices are very low compared to England even in the posh places.|I was expecting a nice quiet relaxed hotel but sadly this was not the case and I hardly slept in 2 weeks. Some of this is the fault of the hotel and a lot of it is due to the rude guests who stay here.|I asked for a quiet room but unfortunately what I got was people above me stomping around and dragging furniture which was like listening to a herd of elephants until the early hours. Some of the room doors are soft closing and some aren't which bang very loudly and most people don't think to close them quietly. The noise in the corridors is awful with people shouting to each other and running up and down without a thought for other guests again until the early hours. We had people on their balconies at 4am talking loudly on their phones. You can hear everything through the walls. On one side we had very quiet neighbours and on the other we had people who didn't care who were in a group so other people were constantly coming and ringing their room doorbell and banging on their door.|The hotel is not responsible for the rude inconsiderate guests ..which is most of them.. but I have suggested to them that they soundproof the rooms and put up signs in the corridors for people to be quiet and respectful of other guests so hopefully this will change.|I would not stay here again due to the noise levels as we like quiet holidays and that is a shame as the hotel is beautiful and the staff are excellent .|Hopefully the hotel will help alleviate these issues so people can have a more...

Brand new resort of only 2 months. We ultimately chose this hotel as we wanted a resort with everything we needed, (good food, good massages, great room). The vibe of the resort is beautiful it is a eco conscious resort, no smoking allowed on the premises and the dining menu strives to use local ingredients and produce. Breakfast buffet is alright. Nice swimming pool area and very reasonable prices for dining/pool bar. Rooms are very spacious, modern and well equipped. Location wise down the street are your local warungs/arts and crafts stores, nothing amazing (the paths need much maintenance and can be a little unsafe), they provide a free shuttle into town/monkey forest - we never took it as all we wanted to do was stay in the resort. From the front desk to the Pool the staff are friendly, polite and really on top of their game, So why the negative rating? Where this resort lost out on us big time was their wellness centre PANCAMAYA. The facility itself is quite inviting, modern, clean and open air. However the staff have not been trained well and are quite unprofessional. Usually when you enter a professional spa establishment you are requested to fill a form with your name any health concerns and requests- this was not the case here, we were only known as room 315. They did not even ask our names. We had ordered reflexology for two people, one of the therapists was quite pregnant and looked extremely tired, she was a bit rude to my wife, until she said she was “Australian” her toned changed. Both the therapists mostly just rubbed our legs, I had to repeat many times that I would like it stronger (would not have been a issue if a information sheet was provided). We both agreed they had not been trained in reflexology well. I was not in a relaxed state of mind. On top of that the whole time we could hear staff members outside (the reception) chatting loudly (openair) and also one was cleaning the floors with a mechanical tile cleaner/buffer. What on earth was he thinking!? I think he just wanted a excuse to speak to the receptionist. So we made a complaint to a staff member at front office, the message relayed to front office manager at the time. She came to me as I was walking back to my room, apologised, asked if I would like more complimentary spa treatments – She was not thinking straight, why would we want more spa treatment, when we have just had such a bad experience at the spa. She did then ask may we treat you for dinner, I said no thank you – our aim is not to get things for free, we only want our issues dealt with. So the next day when we checked out I asked for a follow up of the situation, there was no follow up, she said she did not see me so she could not offer me a complimentary dinner – once again I do not know what she was thinking, we are quite happy to pay for our dinner ourselves. What she should have said is I have spoken to both therapists, these actions will not be repeated. Staff will not clean the floors when guests are getting massages, and will remain quiet as not to disturb them. This is a great resort with a terrible Spa and I do not think they have had a proper complaint yet or know how to deal with them correctly. If any management staff would like to get in contact with me....

It was pretty underwhelming to be honest. I had really high hopes for this as it's from The Westin, but it did disappoint.

Firstly, when we arrived there was no one there. Like no one. We arrived at 1.30pm in the middle of the day, so we were pretty shocked. We don't need help with our luggage or for someone to open the door, but being 5 star accommodation you'd definitely expect someone to at least greet you... When we walked to the check in counter (which is a little weird as you had to use a ramp on the side when carrying suitcases) we were finally greeted by a single lady who was on the desk. She was lovely and kind and very helpful.

But then things didn't really improve. We were put in room 201, which is the absolute longest walk from everything. Like you need to factor 5 minutes extra in to get to breakfast or to reception. It was also the closest room to the damn chicken farm next door. Why is that bad? Because the soundproofing is non-existent and the roosters crow from 5am onwards and all throughout the day. Seriously, they don't stop and they are LOUD. They put earplugs in the room, which should have been a telling sign... but who wants to sleep with earplugs in the whole night?? But just on the soundproofing, it's seriously bad. They only advantage to room 201 was we only shared a room with one neighbour instead of being in the middle of two. You could hear a pin drop next door. Like talking with audible, using the bathroom, taps, coughing, everything. You could even hear people above you as they walk across the room. It was even worse as we must have had a child above us who kept running around the room - I felt like I wanted to be one of the old grumpy neighbours you see in the movies and use a broom to knock on the ceiling 😂 obviously I didn't, but it was just so noisy.

The pools are rubbish. Not worthy of being in Bali. It was not up to Bali standards at all... and this is supposed to be a 5 star.

The hotel was non-smoking though, which was great! I loved we could finally breathe without coughing when eating breakfast or lunch at the hotel.

On that, food was the highlight for here. It made up for a lot of the other stuff. We loved all the meals we ordered (lunch and dinner). Breakfast was fairly standard breakfast buffet stuff, but just that little bit better. I would be more than happy to return here just for the food, but not to stay lol.

We also rented the ebike here as it was more convenient than organising a proper scooter. Word of advice, DON'T. They are harder to balance than a scooter (even though they've got 3 wheels???), they look daggy as hell (we got laughed at by locals multiple times), and they have no power (struggled to get up small slopes with 2 people on the bike and our combined weight is only 130kg). Max speed is also 25km/h and you cause traffic problems with cars and other scooters trying to overtake you - which they will as the town centre is a bit of a drive from the hotel. Go either ask the front desk for a scooter rental (they will give you the WhatsApp numbers of a couple of vendors) or try and find your own in the town centre, otherwise just book a...