Sadly, the former ratings are no longer acurate reflections of this place post Covid.
First, there is no more serenity since local jobless youngsters developed an hobby of playing loud music with super bass as early as 6:40 am!! Another morning, we were woken up at 5 am by loud chanting music, which according to other locals, is not common practice even though it is the praying time. Underatandble there is little the manager can do about it, but it does make it hard to rest for the guests.
Second, not sure what's going on with the night guard. We went out to check around the house for source of loud music, once at 11pm and once at 5am. He was no where to be found, maybe on break both times. Since the place is open-planned with jobless folks roaming around, and the fact that there is the need to arrange a nightguard on site, not sure how safe I should feel when he is constantly awol.
Also, the house leaks everywhere during heavy rain, including the only toilet with a roof. Unfortunately we got really bad weather in dry season. Debris of nature was blewn all over the place, especially in the open-air master toilet.
But the most concerning part is the management. After a long night of storm, we confirmed with Dewi to have the house cleaned in the next morning, and told him we'll be leaving in half an hour. We also later texted him that we've left and the house is all theirs. Received no reply. Guess what... after a long hot day and got caught in another heavy shower on the way, we came back, tired and half-wet, desperate to rest and freshen up, only to discover the house is still the same mess from the storm. The bathrooms are such a wreck, you'll be dirtier after you shower there.
Shocked and furious, we contacted Dewi. He sent an employer to clean. When we asked him to explain how this could happen, never would I imgained that his response would be, "Well woud you like to check out early?"
And then came excuse, ridiculous ones too according to other Balinese villa managers. He claimed that there were only one set of keys, and that we should have left the keys in the house. Apparently their second keys were "taken away" by "other guests from 5 months ago" (even though we were the first guests after Covid) . They never made another copy, and never once thought about mentioning it to us. Then, they claimed that they usually ONLY come to clean "WHILE guests are still in the house". How absurd! They claimed that they did come to clean, found that we were gone, and simply left.
I don't buy any of these. To me, they didn't take it serious to provide the most basic house-cleaning service that even the cheapest motel would provide, not to metion it is clearly requested. Even if they did try to come and clean, they didn't care enough to communicate with us when problems occured, even though with whatsapp it should be so easy nowadays. The most abhor of all is when they knew they messed up, their response was to ask us to leave!!!
So, after 12 years of travelling the globe together, to the fancy hotels in Tokyo and the most humble family inns in the remote rural areas of Peru, picking hotels carefully each time and alway had good memories -- we left in advance for the very first time, because even one more day would be torture to us.
To be fair, the first day arrived we loved this place. It was the kind the house that is better in real life than in the photos. Lusi and Dewi greeted us with the typical Balinese hospitality. It was definitely not perfect, but we embraced the whole experience at first. I do wonder how we'd feel about this place minus the storm and the loud music. Sadly there is no "if", and when hardship occurred it did not withstand the test. Truth is, many places changed drastically due to Covid, but it seems that it has hit this part of Bali extra hard. I hope they can bounce back afterwards because it would be such a shame. Unfortunately, I would not be able to give better reviews for the single worst travel...
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