W Bali Seminyak Hotel Review: Chic Vibe, Bad Sleep [7/10]

Introduction

W Bali opened in 2011 as the island's original lifestyle five-star, and for a while it was the only hotel in Seminyak where checking in involved a DJ. Fifteen years on it still works better than it should. A beach club with a dancefloor under the sand, 64 square metre base rooms. I'd still book it - if you're a young couple or families with older kids who loves a fun and chic holiday.

Location

Petitenget, the north end of Seminyak, down the same narrow lane that serves Potato Head. Being next door to Potato Head is the best thing about the address. The catch is the word north: Motel Mexicola and Mrs Sippy are a short walk, but the centre of the action around Seminyak Square is the far end of a walk that starts at five minutes and finishes nearer twenty, on footpaths that come and go, with scooter traffic for company after dark. You'll walk it once. After that it's Grabs. I'd still take this end over the middle: the lane seals the resort off from the road, and most properties at this price strand you on a clifftop with no exit.

The beach faces due west and the sunset drops into the Indian Ocean with nothing in the way. It is also not swimmable: rough surf, real rips, grey volcanic sand, and monsoon plastic from November to March. If you came to swim in the sea, go to Sanur. The airport is 20 to 30 minutes off-peak and up to 75 in the crush, and leaving here for anything more ambitious than dinner eats a day.

First Impressions

A long bamboo driveway, then a lobby of pop art on grey granite with a resident DJ working the decks. Check-in is warm. Also slow. At 7am off a red-eye it is a fair test of whether this place is for you.

The Room

I stayed in several room types to try the place out properly, and size is the argument in all of them. The entry-level Superior Garden View is 64 square metres, bigger than a suite at plenty of competitors. Pay up to Ocean Facing on floors three to five and the same footprint gets the sunset on your balcony. Best room here for the money, not close.

Now the sleep. The hotel makes nearly all of its own noise. Club nights push bass through your closed balcony doors until one in the morning, with the confidence of someone who knows you've already paid. You get five hours. At six the lobby DJ clocks on like a shift worker, the pool decks follow at 6:55, and by seven you're lying in the dark being gently remixed. I'd call it an alarm clock, except an alarm clock has an off switch. Light sleepers and anyone with a baby should book somewhere else.

The villas are the answer. 225 square metres behind high walls, a 43 square metre plunge pool, a cabana, and the quietest corner of a loud resort. They sit back from the sand, so no ocean view. Walls and privacy instead of a horizon, and here that's the right trade. The building is fifteen and the bathrooms know it: mine had a musty edge the air conditioning never quite beat, and a pool light that stayed dead however many times I reported it. The tech has aged too. The TV isn't smart, coffee means a plunger, and no socket within reach of the bed.

Dining

Breakfast is the best meal here. Buffet plus unlimited a la carte, beachfront at Starfish Bloo, and the spread is the widest I have seen at a Bali resort: sushi in the morning, steamed buns, nasi goreng. Order the egg-white omelette on sourdough. Fruit quality has slipped. It ends at 11, bold in a hotel that starts the music at six. US$27 if it isn't in your rate, and worth it.

At night FIRE becomes the grill, open flames and a fireball chandelier, and its party trick is a tableside board of 12 cuts. The beef is good. The price assumes you have nowhere else to go, and you do: Sarong, Merah Putih and Mama San are a walk away, Potato Head is next door, and nobody eats in here out of necessity. Starfish Bloo after dark does seafood and pan-Asian on the beachfront, and its Sunday brunch, oysters shucked to order and a dim sum station, is the one meal here people cross town for. Eat breakfast and brunch in, dinner out, and you'll have no complaints.

WOOBAR

Three levels and an oval glass floor you look down through into a dancefloor built under the beach. Structurally silly and I love it. DJs from Friday, and the Frozen Coconut in a hot pink shell, the most photographed object on the property. The wantons are excellent. Floor service can be slow. Go anyway.

The Pool and the Small Hours

The WET pool is the busiest square metre on site: loungers vanish before 11am, a few of them under a paperback belonging to somebody who won't appear until afternoon. The spa runs 24 hours, midnight massages are a real thing, and the gym never shuts. The W Sound Suite is the world's first, a properly soundproofed studio, so somebody built a silent room inside a hotel that pipes a DJ into your bathroom at six in the morning. Twenty-four hour spa, twenty-four hour gym, bar until one, five hours of quiet.

Kids Club

There isn't one. Not a room with crayons. Someone at the front desk told me, quite cheerfully, that this is a hotel for "young people who love party." I believe her. Children are barred from WOOBAR after 4pm, and babysitting means a third-party agency at a price they don't publish. I did watch a family with a two and a six year old having a perfectly nice time, so it can be done. They'll find you a cot. That is the entire programme.

Service

The warmth is real. The W Insider on my stay, Kezia, was the best of the lot, and when a dinner went wrong they sorted it and made it right on the bill. Consistency is the gap: loyalty perks are a lottery, checkout is noon whatever you paid, and our villa never had one main contact, just a rotating cast. Nobody is rude. It just depends who you get.

Two costs nobody flags: a 2,000,000 rupiah a night deposit on your card, and 21% on every ++ price.

The Verdict

Book it if you're a couple or a group in your twenties to forties who came for a beach club, a big pool and a walk to Potato Head, and who'd take character over a flawless finish. Take Ocean Facing over a villa unless silence is the priority. Skip it if you want quiet, if you're honeymooning, or if the children are under ten.