The L in the L Hotel luxury Hotels represents Life, Love, Luxury, Lust, and Lifestyle and it is these elements that L Hotels & Resorts aim to bring over to each of its properties.
L Hotel Seminyak is a boutique property who aims to provide their customers with a highly personal and designer guest experience. With only 30 Suite Rooms and a personalized butler service, the L Hotel Seminyak does feel really cozy and homely, but also sophisticated.
But sometimes you just visit Hotels, and although they have great potential, it’s lacking a bit of that special vibe and small things that make an accommodation just perfect. There were some amazing things, but also some things that could definitely be improved at L Hotel Seminyak. Let’s start at the beginning.
The good, the bad and the Ugly.
When we arrived we got very friendly welcomed by the lovely receptionist and we took a seat on the very comfy purple couches in the reception while sipping our welcome drinks.
After a little wait, we got transported to our room by our lovely and personal butler. The room -a luxe suite – was excellent. Great layout with an awesome bathtub in the middle of the room so you could just sit in there and watch telly, relax or interact with the other person in the room.
If you want some privacy when traveling with someone else rather than your partner, you can just hop in the shower as this one has covered glass. But… don’t go in there if you are short of breath or if you like long showers as there is no ventilation, so it’s getting so hot and steamy after a few minutes that you just need to get it off. Great to save some water, but if you want to wash your hair and do a body scrub, you might get low on oxygen.
The good thing is that they have Penhaligon’s amenities – which smell amazing – and bathrobes to relax on the super cozy bed. All big plusses.
After freshening up we decided to drink a cup of tea, but after searching the room for a while we just couldn’t find the kettle, tea and coffee bags ( which you might expect in a luxury hotel ) So we called our butler, and within 5 minutes she had it organized in our room.
A bit later we went out for a while and came back in the early evening to enjoy a complimentary cocktail and snacks at the rooftop bar, something we really looked forward too as it looked awesome on their website and a complimentary cocktail is always welcome of course… And then… Bummer!! The rooftop bar was closed!?
We asked our butler about it, and he wasn’t even sure it was closed, but later he told us that it was closed since a couple of weeks due to the weather… Which is a bit odd, cause yes it was rainy at times, but the rooftop bar has a very nice inside area too, which wasn’t open either.
We assumed it was closed due to staff arrangements or the lack of customers. We found out that 2 of the 3 floors of the hotels where unoccupied, the hallways where pitch dark and only our floor was occupied ( 10 rooms max )
But then still….You offer guests a cocktail bar with a complimentary cocktail, then your cocktail bar isn’t even open, and nobody ever notified us about it. So we decided to head back to the room, put Sem asleep, chill out and ask for our complimentary cocktail delivered in our room, which we assumed they could make in their other bar at GROW Restaurant as they were open till midnight according to their information sheet. So we called at 09.02 pm to order, only to get told that the bar was just closed?! Say Whaaat?
We politely asked how come they advertised with complimentary drinks, then first the cocktail bar is completely shut, and then the bar shut hours before closing time. It was too quiet was their reply.
Hahaha we actually had a good laugh about it, but another bummer and not very customer friendly, okay from a business perspective and years of Hospitality experience, there are quiet times, and sometimes you shut earlier, but twice on a day is actually kinda funny, as when it’s so quiet you want to attract people or keep the ones who are there happy right?!
On top of that, this is a hotel with customers being there 24/7, not a restaurant.
But there was more to come…
The next morning, all fresh and fruity, we went for breakfast at GROW( which was included ) The restaurant is really nicely designed and very spacious but very dark as there was no light on, so the atmosphere and vibe were not really there. Maybe it’s to reduce costs as well, but again, flicking on the lights for a few hours for your guests is not going to break the bank.
Anyway, the hotel breakfast menu was simple and lovely. No mass production with too many choices, just easy and good. The tree choices where:
- L’ Breakfast with included 2 eggs ‘your way’ with toast and a choice of 3 sides, which were roasted tomato, spinach, bacon, and avocado.
- Healthy Breakfast which was Bircher Muesli with yogurt, blueberries and fresh herbs.
- Indonesian Breakfast with Mie Goreng OR Nasi Goreng
All breakfast where served with a bread basket with homemade jam and butter, one fresh juice and flee flow of filter coffee ( anyone who knows filter coffee in Bali knows that you will end up with really strong coffee and a handful of muddy coffee crap on the bottom of your cup 😉 So better order a tea or a bean machine coffee if you don’t like that… )
But anyway, great breakfast choices and really all you need for breakfast right?
So I decided to go for the Healthy Breakfast and Lion ordered the L’breakfast with Avocado, Bacon, and Tomato.
Five minutes after the lovely and friendly waitress took our order she came back with a big smile, but visible uncomfortable telling us that there was no Avocado, No Muesli, No Blueberries… Hmm. So there are 3 breakfast choices and 2 of them you can’t really deliver, and basically, the Healthy breakfast is not deliverable at all without muesli and berries. Bummer!
Lion changed his avocado into an extra tomato and I ordered the same ( Sem always shares a bit of everything from us ) We assumed the staff were waiting for an order, or they ordered too little. Still not good enough, but it happens.
When the food came it was delicious ( apart from 1 dark hair at Lion’s plate ) and we went off for a little walk.
In the afternoon we had a lunch tasting at GROW Restaurant and thank goodness, this was absolutely amazing and we recommend everyone to go and have a tasting lunch menu here! ( We will write a separate photo post about GROW later as the food looked and tasted amazing )
After lunch, I went to the room to work for a bit while Lion and Sem went to the beach with (o)pa and (o)ma.
We decided on a quiet night, having a nice bath and chilling out in front of the tv WITH a cocktail which we ordered at 8 pm just to be sure the bar was not closed again.
The next morning before check out we had breakfast again and we ordered the same as the day before assuming their order had come in, or they went to the supermarket or supplier to get their stuff together.
So after ordering breakfast, when the lovely waitress came back after 5 minutes, paper in her hand, with a big smile on her face and the words ‘Sorry’ we knew we were not having our Healthy breakfast again. BUT at least the Avocado was there 😉
All we could do was feeling sorry for the waitress who was a bit ashamed to tell us again..
The verdict on L Hotel Seminyak.
Not bad, but not good either. We would stay again if they improve at least the things we noticed and some other small details.
Rooms are amazingly designed, but also a few things not very thought through like no ventilation in the shower, mini side tables where you can barely park your remote controls a phone and a drink, a leather bed board that is losing its skin…
The rooftop bar which is a great selling point is not even open, we had to bring up solutions, like getting our drinks from the other bar, which also closed hours earlier without notification. No complimentary snacks, no complimentary apple ( Not that we care about things like an apple or snacks, but there are guests who do and go mental about not having these services – I know it’s sad, but it’s something the L hotel promises to its customers, and some people expect those items to be there )
Sometimes the bad things need to be addressed too as it’s sometimes just a matter of little improvements, staff training or change to provide the best service possible, especially in a luxury hotel.
If L Hotel Seminyak improves those things we wrote down in our story, we would definitely be open for another stay, as those things would have made our stay amazing, now it was ok with a few bumps along the way.
One thing left to say is that their staff is absolutely amazing and super friendly. When Sem was crying as we walked to our room ( He was not happy about something ) one of the butlers came knocking on our door a few seconds later and she brought in a mini fishbowl with a Goldfish for Sem to look at… He was instantly delighted, and so were we… And that’s great customer service!
For more information about L Hotel and bookings go here
