Hyatt Regency Sanur Bali Hotel Review: A Lush Garden [8/10]

Introduction

For years I refused to book this place because of a photograph: three squat blocks in a row, looking like the tax office of a hot country.

I was wrong. This hotel shut down in 2013 for a five-year renovation, yes, five-years. What came back is the one of the best value beach resorts in Bali.

Location

You probably already know Sanur. Quiet, low-rise, popular with people who have stopped pretending they enjoy nightclubs. The Regency sits right next door to the Andaz, and the two share a spa and a gym, both of which sit on this side of the fence. Everything you would walk to from here is strung along the boardwalk, paved and running a full 6km up the coast.

This is the eastern shore of southern Bali, which makes it the sunrise coast. I got up early for it two mornings running. Neither morning produced anything I would call a sunrise, just a very quiet hour. The water is shallow and the tides swing hard, so the sea is not always there when you want it. The beach itself looks good - not the white sand beach of Nusa Dua but not rocky either.

First Impressions

Reception is open air, the original 1973 design, kept that way so the gardens come inside. Every hotel does open-air lobbies now, and most of them come out sterile: a big box with some pseudo-heritage timber in it and a frangipani in the corner. The InterContinental over in Sanur has a very similar space, perfectly easy on the eyes, and I could not describe a single thing in it to you now.

The gardens are the main event - they are Made Wijaya's work afterall. The pools, several of them, are woven through the greenery rather than parked in a big rectangle out front. Even the event lawns, empty, look like garden. Their courtyards are planted so thickly you can barely see the other side. The layout exists to serve all this green: every guest room sits on one side of the site and the entire rest is left for wandering, so rooms are quiet, nearly all of them face garden or ocean, and the lawns sit far from any balcony, so nobody is getting a wedding DJ twelve feet from their morning coffee.

The Room

The lower your floor the better your room, because the buildings slope outwards and the ground floor gets the deepest footprint. I stayed in a Premium room, which is situatated on the ground floor and opens up into a terrace. The suites images are from a friend who stayed there right after me.

The rooms are well done, mostly monochrome with enough texture to stop that being dull, and yet something is missing that I cannot name. It's a house nobody ever accessorised. One loud cushion, a stack of books on the table, and it would be finished. It just isn't there.

The bathroom is the best part: big shower at the back, double vanity, full size soaking tub. There is a full size closet in the entry area too. The toiletries are Pharmacopia, which is the Hyatt brand standard, so even the soap here is corporate issue and nobody chose it for this hotel. The toilet sits next to the front door, so the first thing you present to a visitor is the loo.

Dining

Breakfast is at Omang Omang, the all-day restaurant, in a good-looking room with a full bar in one section for guests whose holiday starts early. The buffet is wide: egg station, noodle soup, congee, a sweet breads counter, with drinks arriving promptly. Good, solidly so. Exciting, no. I have eaten a lot of hotel buffets and this one would not make my top fifty, which for a Hyatt Regency is a perfectly respectable place to land. You will eat well and you will not discuss it on the flight home. Consider walking next door and pay to eat at the Andaz, which does the best breakfast in Bali.

Omang Omang keeps going through lunch and dinner and the room is nice enough that you would not mind. But the one to book here is the Pizzeria on the beach, sitting fully in the shade at meal times, which is the correct way to spend a Bali afternoon. The torn burrata and parma pizza with pesto was a 9 out of 10. The tomato focaccia before it was excellent too. The tiki bar next door does drinks and snacks all day and does them fine. The Andaz Fisherman's Club is the other reason to walk over.

The Pools

I lost count of the pools here, which tells you most of what you need to know. The main one has a carved stone grotto with a waterfall at one end and proper room to swim, and it never felt busy while I was in it. The rest you find by wandering: one under the trees down by the beach, another with a pair of stone elephants at the edge. At night they light them from below and let the gardens do the rest.

Kids Club

I don't have children, so I walked past Camp Hyatt rather than into it. It sits down by the Pizzeria near the beach, takes ages 4 to 12, and runs 9am to 6pm with real supervision. The theme is dinosaurs, there is a playground inside and another one outdoors, and the day runs on crafts and made-up games. One morning I came past a line of them feeding the fish at the lily pond with coconut shells. There is also a paid cooking class with the chefs if your child wants to come home with a skill. The first hour each day is free and after that it's about 7 USD / hour.

Service

By my third morning, several staff already knew my name, and the chat that followed had clearly not been read off a card. Check-in and housekeeping ran to the same standard. For the money this hotel asks, this is as good as service gets. There is a strong smell of repeat guests here, and the staff behave like they expect to see you again.

The Verdict

Overall: 8/10

Book the Hyatt Regency Bali if you want Wijaya's gardens, serene pools, and service better than the price tag suggests. Nothing else I have stayed in on this island is this lush and this well kept at once.

Would I go back? Yes. If I never reviewed another Bali resort, this is where I would quietly keep going.