First and foremost, I want to say how overwhelmingly pleased I am with my time at the resort. My expectations were met and exceeded, except for a handful of experiences, which I will describe later. I found the staff, whether that be a server in the restaurant, someone working the front desk at reception, an individual providing transportation to me, or any of the array of healers and teachers I encountered, to not only be knowledgeable and professional, but incredibly kind individuals who love their job and what they do. The feedback I have to offer is minor, as I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed my stay and the care and attention to detail I was provided.||||In my experiences in the restaurant, I was consistently met with the utmost professionalism, kindness, and timeliness. Out of the nearly sixty meals I was served at your resort, I cannot think of one that did not represent a stellar culinary experience. Every meal's quality, flavor, and creativity blew me away. Although my time with the culinary staff was cut short due to the heat rash I experienced in the kitchen, with no air conditioning (something I think should be considered given that the staff members have to work in these heat conditions daily, creating an unfavorable and arguably dangerous work environment) the short time I spent with the sous chef was quite remarkable. His knowledge of food and how certain flavors and concepts play off one another was quite evident. ||||Regarding my experiences in the wellness center, I was consistently met with openness, kindness, and professionalism by all the front desk staff. Given the length of my stay, I found it odd that I never had the opportunity to meet the woman in charge of the wellness center or that she never took the time to introduce herself to me, but this is neither here nor there. The massage therapists were knowledgeable and provided a consistently positive experience. I cannot say enough about how impressed I was with every healer I met with, whether that was the gentleman conducting the reflexology, Yasmin, who conducted the clonic hydrotherapy, her daughter, Yana, the tarot card reader, or any of the other healers that I worked with surrounding my energy, clearing my chakras, or meeting with Miranda to discuss some of the challenges in my life during the past year.||||Dada (meditation) and Surya (Qigong) were the highlights of my experience, and I cannot thank them enough for their time and knowledge. These two men have changed my life for the better, and I can only hope that future guests will continue to see the value mediation and qigong each provide. ||||Bagus was my primary driver and an absolute delight. He was knowledgeable about the village and the island and a complete joy to spend time with. I felt safe in his presence and found him to be a skillful driver. ||||Reception was always helpful in meeting my needs, and Nova went above and beyond to ensure that my credit was returned to me after the ATM retained my card. ||||In addition, the doctor who works with Ketut was gentle, kind, and warm each time I met with her. She was invaluable to me after my culinary class when my heart rash peaked and I was in much pain. She brought ice and sat with me for an hour until the pain lessened. She was always accommodating when I requested changes to my schedule, often coming to my room to discuss my preferences. Unfortunately, I cannot recall her first name, but she was tall and skinny with gray hair and glasses. She and Nova understood the need to adjust my schedule due to my skin issues. They did not charge me extra for needing transport to and from the homeopathic doctor in Ubud, as they had already factored the cost into an excursion I missed (again, to avoid additional heat). They worked with me and were respectful of the fact that I had already paid a significant amount of money for my three weeks at Five Elements and were thus more than willing to work with me. ||||I did encounter two issues, however. During my first few days at the resort, I met with the priest for the water blessing and was quite shocked when, halfway through the ritual, he pulled out a small Ziploc Bag of necklaces, informing me that each was only USD 50. When I explained that I had no cash, he provided potential alternate solutions for how I might get some money to pay him. Not only did I find this encounter incredibly unprofessional and awkward, but I felt the priest’s actions, in this case, were wildly inappropriate. The priest’s attempts to earn extra money on the side compromised the entire spiritual experience and sanctity of this ritual. I went to the resort for a spiritual experience, not to be exploited for money. Although I brought this concern up to Ketut immediately, and she assured me the same behavior would not happen again when I attended the fire blessing ceremony with a much larger crowd, I was disappointed to see that the priest engaged in the same behavior again this time offering the necklaces to a group of almost thirty people. At this point, I had had enough and decided to get up, collect my personal belongings, and walk away.||||While I understand that it must be a difficult balance to run a spiritual retreat, which is also a business that needs to make money, as a guest who (unlike many of the other guests I observed) was visiting the resort for actual healing as opposed to coming for one massage or one day so that I could check off my “spiritual task” for the year, I was there for actual transformational growth and given this, I found the priest’s behavior to devalue the entire ritual and contribute to the loss of the Balinese culture seen throughout the island primarily due to tourists but also people like him.||||And this leads me to my most significant concern, Ketut. Not only did she fail to address my concerns regarding the priest and his behavior, but I also consistently found my interactions with her to be inappropriate, unprofessional, awkward, and incredibly frustrating. Unlike all the other staff mentioned above, who went above and beyond to accommodate my needs, the primary topic Ketut discussed with me was “additional costs.” She repeatedly caused me undue stress and anxiety as she discussed how certain things were going to cost additional money, only for me to later find out from other staff that it was not an issue at all. As a psychologist with more than 18 years of experience, I consider myself an expert at reading other people and their intentions. I found Ketut to be manipulative, two-faced, unprofessional, and money-minded in a way that made her appear cheap and petty. When working with high-end guests of my caliber, I expect that when visiting a resort like yours, I won’t have to discuss money and extra costs consistently. I was pleased to see that this only happened with one member of your staff, Ketut. In addition, during my acupuncture sessions with her, she spent the entire time on her cell phone. While she might argue that she was working on organizing my schedule during that time, I never saw any other wellness staff member with their cell phones during my treatment sessions, except for her. Even when the ATM had taken my credit card, rather than trying to work with me and understanding the stress that I was under in a foreign country with a limited means of access to money, she still brought up how it was going to cost such and such price to arrange for the travel back-and-forth to Ubud.||||Yet again, I found what she said untrue, as Nova later told me and the doctor (whose name I have forgotten) not to worry; they could understand the situation, and there would be no additional cost. Having to have these repeated conversations about money with Ketut not only made it evident that she lacks the professional decorum to work in a five-star resort, but also caused me to go out of my way to avoid her and any healing sessions with her, as it is evident that she is focused only on making money. She is not working for the company to advance the guests’ spiritual development, but only to make money. She had a disingenuous, fake presentation, so much so that I would go out of my way to stay away from her as I found her energy to be so incredibly crude, materialistic, business-minded, tacky, and dismissive that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her and certainly did not want her negative energy to be anywhere near me as I was focused on my personal growth during my time at the resort. At one point, I shared with her how, after one meal in particular, I had started to feel nauseated. Rather than asking questions as other staff members did about the food I ate, she suggested that perhaps my “negative energy “ may have impacted my experience with the food. While some could disregard this behavior as being nonchalant, as a psychologist, I found it to be somewhat amusing how she again attempted to manipulate me. Even though I was aware that I was dealing with a highly toxic and manipulative person throughout my stay, that does not mean that I did not tire of her relentless, unprofessional actions. ||||While the situation with the priest and Ketut made it clear that some staff members at the resort are only there to take advantage of the guests and make extra money, if I were to rate my experience, I would give the resort 4.5 stars. I would gladly return to the resort in the future, but the only thing preventing my return from occurring would be Ketut’s continual employment. She made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome, and her disingenuous presentation showed that she cared nothing for me but more so for my pocketbook.||||This information and feedback will be helpful for future guests, and you will take caution when visiting this retreat, as several members of the staff appear motivated to exploit the guests...
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