Hotel Romantik di Komodo

Felt like a hotel from the 1980s. Room was very nice as was the pool but a totally bizarre set of priorities with no eco / sustainable qualities. No place to refill water but instead if you ask for water they send someone one to your room with small plastic bottles. They replenish these plastic bottles each day. They give you new tiny plastic bottles of shampoo each day and wash the towels every day regardless of requests. Totally unnecessary use of energy and plastic. Breakfast is poor. Great number of staff there but seem focused on putting out stacks of plates ans cups correctly and often no milk available. No hot water so if you want tea you just have a pot which brews constantly and they just periodically add water too. In a country full of beautiful fresh fruit their breakfast fruit is not fresh and often covered in flies. There is so many staff they could just bring each person a little plate of fruit if they liked. Lots of options in the hot plate buffet but all seem straight from a frozen / package and not fresh at all.

Hotel with pros and cons I booked Laprima hotel because of its good views with closer proximity to town than other luxury hotels, with a decent price tag. I think we got that! PROS - good sunset views from your little balcony, with plenty of space to hang wet swim gear from your days adventures - Lush grounds with frangipani, birds of paradise, other other pretty plants - Great pool and there is also a BBQ area and spa on site - Decent coffee - Comfy bed - Clean towels each day and a shower that does not get the whole bathroom wet - Box breakfast provided for early departures (ours was good)! CONS - The food is just okay- some variety, fresh fruit every day, nice layout of dining space, but not great cooking. Also, don’t expect Western choices (not that we did) - Low quality toiletries so don’t forget your own, especially conditioner and even bar soap - the worst problem was that we were not picked up at the appointed time at the airport and the man at the front desk lied about someone coming for us! We had pre arranged our pick-up through Trip.com beforehand, but when we walked out the door of the airport… no one was there with our names OR the name of the hotel on a paper. No biggie, we call the number of the hotel and the man says that someone will be there in five minutes. We wait ten before calling again and the man assures us that someone is in the parking lot so we just have to find him. Meanwhile of course there is a huge crowd of taxi drivers begging to take us, but we don’t want to stand up our driver so we lug our suitcases and backpacks down the steps and search the parking lot for any van or bus with our hotel name on it. No sign. So we call AGAIN and ask what’s going on and the man says (no joke), “Sorry, we had a VIP arrive and couldn’t help you right away.” So we got the message loud and clear that we were not important. Finally, we get some taxi driver to take us to the hotel. It’s been 40 sweaty minutes and since the hotel is only ten minutes away by car, we could have been there and back again a few times at this point. We pull into the driveway and there is the hotel van, parked in the shade. Needless to say, we were pretty mad but we’re trying not to lose our cool. The man at the desk really did not know what to do. He didn’t offer to upgrade us until we suggested it and he seemed unsure how to handle the situation at all. It seems looking back that it was just a problem of miscommunication and very inadequate training. Perhaps the front desk is not his usual role and he was just there for low season. But beware. It made me have trust issues with anything else the hotel provided. Would we get our laundry back? Would they really have our breakfast boxes ready on time for our early pick- up? That one was almost a no as well. To be fair, the same man did help us print a document several days later. I don’t want to vilify him. But he really messed up the first impression!