Hilton Bali Resort

We stayed at the Hilton Bali Resort in August 2014 when it was called Grand Nikko Bali Hotel and under a different management/ownership.  We had booked an Ocean View Suite and when we got there, the Villa was fine, big enough, but the view was basically of a massive crane that was used to construct a neighbouring hotel (according to the hotel staff).  That might have been forgivable but the villa pool was rather cold.  The wife wasn’t into that so we stormed off to try and find the manager or the son of a bitch who was responsible for giving us the shit view!  Long story short, and to the hotel’s credit, they moved us to a Three Bedroom President Pool Villa which is over 1,000 square metres, has (you guessed it), 3 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen area, and one big arse swimming pool.  If you had a two or three couples, this would have been awesome Villa.  For us, it was a bit overkill, but appreciated and it definitely shut us up for the remainder of the stay!

So anyway, in we settled.  If I was being really nit picky, which I am, then the pool was a bit dirty, but hey, this was quite some upgrade and not dirty enough to cause a fuss. Perhaps if we had paid for that room level, I’d have made them clean it and packed a bit of a sad, but since we’d been upgraded, no need to cause a fuss.  The suite didn’t have a view, but when you have something that size, don’t really need it.

The service was pretty good, nothing spectacular, but nothing to complain about. Honestly I can’t remember what the food was like, there was a Japanese restaurant and that was what you’d expect a Japanese restaurant to be like on Bali – ok but not really that great. If you don’t eat Japanese food and think Chinese food is eaten from a cardboard box, then you might very well like it.

The beach at Hilton Bali Resort is ok, because Grobbler got sick, and the fact we had a massive swimming pool in our villa, we didn’t use the beach much. For young kids (toddlers) it’s not that great because the waves are quite big, but that might depend on seasons. It gets deep quite quickly too so again, not great for younger kids.  The pool area is pretty good though, loads of pools, nice grass area near the beach and lots of shade if you need it but also lots of open areas to get a tan.

Probably, looking back, this was probably the best thing about Bali.  It’s a big hotel but not so big that you have to walk miles to get places. It’s 20 minutes from the airport and if we came back to Bali, I’d be ok to stay here ok (although probably wouldn’t because we’d probably try something different). If you’re thinking about it though, give it a go, there’s not too much wrong with it and with Hilton taking it over it’s probably only got better.

Go to our Bali Destination Guide here.