Overall, we had a very good stay at Grand Hyatt Bali. It is a beautiful resort, the property is impressive, and our experience end-to-end was largely enjoyable. However, there were a few service issues that stood out and prevented what could otherwise have been an excellent stay.
Our experience at check-in was mixed. We had booked two rooms, and we genuinely appreciated that one of them was made available around 1.5 hours ahead of the scheduled check-in time. Unfortunately, the second room was handed over almost two hours after the normal check-in time, and that too only after multiple follow-ups. An early room is certainly a welcome gesture, but it does not really compensate for the second room being significantly delayed beyond the committed check-in time.
Another persistent issue was the telephone in our room, which simply did not work reliably. We complained multiple times and the team made several attempts to repair it, but every fix lasted only a few hours before it stopped working again. At a resort of this category, particularly given the sheer size of the property, a functioning room phone is a fairly basic expectation.
The most disappointing incident, however, was the unnecessarily rigid approach to the “last order” timing at one of the bars.
We were travelling with our three-year-old, who was weeping uncontrollably for an ice cream. The staff had actually taken an ice cream bar out and were about to give it to him when they realised that it was 6:31 PM and billing had closed at 6:30 PM. To our disbelief, they literally took the ice cream back from a crying three-year-old and put it away because we were one minute past the billing cut-off.
We completely understand that hotels need rules, closing times and billing protocols. But hospitality is also about judgement and discretion. Surely there has to be a better way of handling a situation involving a three-year-old over a difference of exactly one minute.
What made this particularly ironic was an incident at the very same bar a couple of days earlier. While entering a tip, we accidentally added an extra zero, resulting in a substantially higher tip than intended. Despite raising it and making multiple attempts at different levels to have the amount corrected, we were unable to get it reverted to the intended figure.
That contrast summed up our frustration rather well: when a guest needed one minute of discretion for a weeping three-year-old, the 6:30 PM rule was absolute. Yet when a guest accidentally added an extra zero to a tip, there appeared to be no comparable urgency or flexibility in correcting it.
None of these individually ruined our holiday, and I don’t want them to overshadow the fact that Grand Hyatt Bali is a very good resort and that we genuinely enjoyed our stay. But for a hotel at this level, it is precisely these details that separate a good experience from an exceptional one.
Policies and protocols are necessary, but hospitality ultimately also requires discretion, empathy, consistency and the ability to resolve problems when they arise. With a little more attention to those aspects, this could have been an outstanding stay.
