Hotel Puri Ayu

I stayed here about eight years ago, when it was still new and clean. The rooms were clean, breakfast food was delicious and the staff were friendly. The pool was too small, though. Recommended if you want to stay in the middle of Bali.

The listing photos don’t look genuine, or maybe they were taken during the only time this hotel was clean. It was really disgusting. We had a horrible experience and I’m spending an hour posting this wherever I can so others don’t have to go through it. We had to change rooms twice after finding water all over the bathroom floor and running onto the bedroom floor. Both rooms smelled rotten and mouldy, and there were dozens of mosquitoes. It was unbelievable, but true. During a romantic moment with my wife, an employee opened our door using the staff ' swap key and walked in, even though we had the "not disturb" sign outside. He was lucky I didn’t rip his head off.

We picked this hotel for its location near the embassy we needed. The lobby and staff were good, but the room was awful. We paid 650,000 for a suite. Getting there was strange: the porter led us out of the lobby, down through the basement car park and into a corridor that seemed underground, though it must have been at ground level. A number of rooms were off it, including ours, to our dismay. The room had a lounge, which seemed to be why it was called a suite. It was fairly spacious, but the furnishings were old. There were no windows, just some glass blocks high up on the bedroom wall. One of the two AC units was noisy and the other didn't work. WiFi didn't work down there, away from the main hotel. It felt like a cellar, and the musty smell gave my wife a headache. If you stay here and get a room with a number starting with 11, say no. At 650,000 a night it was grossly overpriced, even in the off season.

The room was spacious and generally clean, so this is a decent place. The lift wasn’t working while I was staying on the third floor. Traffic and the mosque from the main road could be noisy.