Semara Resort Bali Unggasan

What People are saying

Expensive venue for sunsst drinks

Dianne D on 05/02/2018 20:13

Visited on New Years eve for drinks and to watch the sunset. Beautiful setting and lovely ambience. But drinks were overpriced and food prohibitively expensive (compared to other establishments in the area).

Beautiful experience

SarahECali2015 on 31/01/2018 07:42

We were fortunate to stay in 3 villas during our visit. We experienced the Ambar (2 nights), the Tamarama (2 nights) and the Villa Nora (1 night). Each villa is uniquely decorated, spacious and has a private infinity pools with breathtaking views. The Villa Nora is shared with other guests, while the Ambar and Tamarama are private villas (with 5 bedrooms each). Each villa was clean, spacious and never had any issues with wifi (total plus).

The entire staff was very welcoming, completely thorough and very helpful. The customer service scores pretty high (for Indonesia). The butler service was fantastic. Especially Dewa Alit. He was so helpful, cheerful and astute. He added value to our stay, for sure. When we come back, we will be requesting Dewa Ali to our villa.
The food was good and was delivered to us at any time.

We did use the Spa a couple of times, which was nice. I kindly recommend to the spa to install all noise cancellation panels to the walls, as you can clearly hear the pool noise from below. We did find a spa 15 min's away from the resort (and it was amazing and I preferred it over the resort's Spa).

Sunday's Beach Club is operated separately from The Ungasan, but Ungasan staff organized sunbeds with the Sunday's staff when we want to lay at the beach. A few mornings, we opted to use our breakfast Sunday's vouchers in lieu of eating breakfast at the resort's restaurant - which was nice as the menu is different. Since Sunday's Beach Club is open to the public, expect to see visitors coming through the lobby, using the pool and going to and from Sunday's.

I do think it's of value to mention there are a lot of steps when going to Sundays. There's a funicular, but it only gets you half way to the beach. One will be climbing up or descending down a lot of stairs. I didn't see (or ask) what's the option for those in wheelchairs and or the elderly, but just in case if any reader is wondering, one might need to inquire to Sunday's Beach Club or the resort.

If you don't have a motorbike or car, the resort is set back from anything that is in walking distance but taxis are readily available.

I recommend families and friends to stay in the villas. This is also a beautiful spot for honeymooners and couples and I can't wait to come back.

Wonderful and Relaxing Stay

_shelbyrabara on 29/01/2018 18:00

My husband and I had such an amazing stay here! From the moment we walked in, we felt well taken care of. The villa we stayed was absolutely beautiful and had an amazing view of the Indian Ocean. Our favorite part was taking the funicular up and down the cliff to Sunday’s Beach Club. The staff and the service is outstanding, and I highly recommend this resort for anyone visiting this part of Bali. Can’t wait to be back!

Luxury B&B at best, NOT a well managed resort

jenjen484 on 25/01/2018 04:41

As a couple, my husband and I are pretty consistent with our vacation choices - all we want is a resort with a nice beach, nice restaurant, a room with ocean view, and infinity pools. We had stayed in excellent resorts in a similar pricing category in other Asian countries, so we came with corresponding expectations in terms of food, service, and hotel ground maintenance. At the end of our stay here, we had rather mixed feelings -

Pros:
1. Spectacular view and well maintained hotel grounds
2. Complimentary (I say this with air-quotes) afternoon snacks are always a treat!
3. Excellent F&B quality at the Sunday Beach Club; Inventive menu and friendly staff
4. Infinity pools in villas - we basically never left our room and spent the whole day by the pool
5. Attentive butler who is always eager to help - nothing is too much trouble and we felt very well taken care of.

Cons: we were a bit thrown off by weird things like
1) a room phone that does not connect you to your butler properly (The line never goes through so we had to call the front desk to transfer every time) - much sunbathing time was wasted trying to dial and redial and wait for Butler to call back again, etc.
2) a TV with bad image quality and satellite signal (my grandpa owns a better TV than this)
3) No wireless/bluetooth speaker, no device to play your own music - really? for a room priced at 800-1000 USD per night?
4) the fact that they have broken each villa off into several rooms that could be rented out gives it a strange set-up, as these rooms were not designed to offer much individual privacy - you could easily walk around a low bush and enter someone else's pool/terrace. Once your fellow villa vacationers get a bit loud or rowdy in the public living room/kitchen, you can hear them too
5) A la carte breakfast that only lets you choose one main course, one 'side' and two drinks (juice + coffee) from the menu is honestly a bit cheap. I understand the need for a la carte in Bali - Bali is not the kind of place that would tolerate a buffet as that is simply a recipe for bug-disaster, and a la carte is the best way to keep everything fresh and hygienic, but you should let the guest choose more than one course from the menu. Another resort we stayed in at Bali offered a five course menu (one cold, one sweet, one bread/pastry, one savoury hot main, and one dessert) for their a la carte breakfast with at least one hot, one chilled beverage, and one energy boost smoothie shot that is not only generous in portion but also insanely delicious. At Ungasan's pricing, one would expect a much more substantial breakfast selection.
6) No tea kettle, coffee maker, or cups/utensils in the room! We had to ask for it to be sent to us - wait, what? seriously? Isn't this supposed to be the kind of standard amenity that I could even find in a Best Western? Are we supposed to make our own tea in the shared communal kitchen? Am I back in a college dorm?
7) Front desk helped us book another restaurant in the area and made a mistake with the reservation. When arrived at that restaurant we ended up having to wait a whole hour to be seated...It's almost like we are back in Manhattan again.

In a way, this resort really sets itself up for high expectations with its pricing. Any seasoned hotelier would know that when it comes to 5-star resorts, details are everything. How could you charge this amount if you cannot deliver an experience that's worth the price? With this luxury category, you simply cannot afford to make rookie mistakes like having a dysfunctional room phone, smelly cleaning towels, lack of amenities in the room, slow service, inefficient check-in/out procedures, etc. It's such a pity that an otherwise perfect resort has to be marred by a management approach that prioritizes short-term profit over guest satisfaction. You get the impression that they are using this insane profit margin to pay off the property mortgage or something...We will still come back to this part of Bali, but will probably stay at Alila or Bvlgari next time.

Not a five star hotel, rather a serviced apartment/villa style place

LittleMissSmith_2010 on 09/01/2018 02:16

I very much agree with the previous reviewer - this place is not a five star resort at all. Even though the villas are new and nicely appointed, and the views are beautiful, the service is practically non existent and the quality of F&B is extremly low.
There was no proper welcome at arrival, and a feeling of chaos, as the reception is shared with the beach club. The butler service is rather poor and not personalised at all. The beach is open to public and there is no preferential treatment/special area for the villa guests to stay. On the first day we did not even get a beach bed. Firstly they did not even want to let us go to the beach, as they said there was a “waiting list”.
The food overall is rather mediocre and the breakfast concept, especially, is really strange for a five star want to be property. It is a la cart and you are only allowed to order one item of the menu. Very cheap attitude for the prices they charge per night. Not even mentioning they served us tea with plastic! spoons at the restaurant.
This may be a good place if you want to rent a whole villa for a party, but I would not recommend to stay in the one bedroom
villas at all. For similar prices you can stay at Bulgari Resort Bali and if you want to experience Sundays Beach Club, you can just come for a day.