Sania's House Bungalow — Hotel in Pulau Bali

We stayed here in April 2023 at the beginning of our 6 month Asian adventure. 2 months have passed and this hotel still gives us reoccurring nightmares.

I’ll start with the very few positives:

Great location in central Ubud, near the markets which are bustling during the day but are dead silent at night. The outside area is very beautiful and authentic. We had hot water and decent shower pressure. Cheap, we paid £14 a night for bed & breakfast (we didn’t try the breakfast as we wanted to vacate our room as early as possible)

Cons:

Toilet doesn’t flush properly - we avoided using the toilet at Sanias house as it was a foul experience and instead resorted to using local cafes/restaurants Hand soap and toilet paper are not provided. I would expect this as a minimum. The shower drainage is very slow, within minutes of showering the room is flooded (bring your snorkel) The bathroom smells of sewage Overhead fan doesn’t do much to cool the room down - there is no A/C Rooms are basic, but they are very dirty and lightbulbs don’t work (a useful tactic by the proprietor of Sanias house so we could remain unaware of the full extent of the filth and squalor we rotted in) The neighbour has a rooster which wakes up at 4am daily (as a result my chicken intake rose dramatically during my stay) Noise from other guest rooms carries - bring ear plugs. Wifi is very slow/mostly doesn’t work. Bed is noisy, very uncomfortable and the room/sheets were not cleaned during our stay. We were woken to the sound of hedge trimming before 7am on the Saturday morning which woke us up, despite earplugs we couldn’t block this noise out.

In conclusion - if hygiene, comfort and relaxation are low on your list of priorities. Then your dream trip to Bali should start right here. Just make sure to...

Absolutely Terrible.

The grounds are architecturally very pretty but unloved and dirty. No service from the staff to speak of.

There is no security and the main door is open to the street at all hours. It is located right in the middle of a market, which means going to and from the property is tiresome as you are constantly harassed by stall vendors.

The room was very basic, and barely scraped one star. Cracked glass in the windows and the air con didn’t work properly. Being basic, there is no Wi-Fi or phone down to reception

Our room was absolutely filthy and the bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. It was a disgrace. The toilet and shower were stained and the towels - presumably they were once white - were grey and frayed. Don’t expect a new toilet roll or a bin anywhere in the room either.

The hot water was unreliable and on the occasion it did heat up slightly it stopped again. The electricity also cut out completely.

The bed was also dirty, and had what seemed to be sand in it, which was odd. The sheets were old and covered in stains, with some appearing to be blood. Advisable to sleep on top of the sheets rather than under them.

The bed was pretty uncomfortable but that seems to be quite common in Bali, and there was a lot of noise from neighbouring properties. Don’t expect a decent night’s sleep.

If the venue had staff that cared and actually did some proper cleaning and basic hotel maintenance then it could be very nice. At it is though, this is very much one to avoid...

Overall was a very bad experience staying here.

Pros:

1. Can experience rustic traditional Balinese house stay
2. Located in the main Ubud Street Market, so just step out and you are in the shopping street

Cons:

1. There is almost no security. The main door was not locked, even in late night and no guard/receptionist at night
2. There is no lift, so we have to climb stairs to all floors and the bungalows are having 2-3 floors
3. There are almost no helper boys to help take luggage to room, so we need to climb the stairs with our luggage and the staircase doesn't have support handles.
4. Reception and rooms don't have telecom phones. So we need to go to reception if anything needed.
5. No inhouse dining available, so no option to order paid food from within hotel if needed
6. Street becomes dark and empty after 7:30pm, so it's totally dark and street has dogs at night
7. Cabs can't reach the hotel due to small street so we need to take luggage atleast 100-150mettes from Ubud main road to this place and then again carry luggage ourselves
8. Our room did not have a good flush and no jet or Sanitized tissue paper. So we had to get a bucket for bathroom
9. AC in our room was weak, it was just working and ventilating. It was...