MERUSAKA Nusa Dua

The way I like to approach these kinds of reviews is giving a score for each of five key areas; resort overall, the room, the food, the staff, and lastly, the value. Each can be scored a maximum of one point, in 1/4 point increments. Here is what I think about each:

The Resort: The resort is beautiful, no doubt. A nice blend of Balinese architecture and more modern styles. A wonderful tiered main pool layout, taking it from just below the main restaurant level, down a sloping hill, to the beach level. We didn't see most room blocks, but ours was mainly one of suites, and had a private pool running alongside it. There were plenty of pathways, lots of grass areas, a number of different restaurants. The beach frontage of course, and different exits, taking you to different parts of Nusa Dua. Below are some photos of the kids in the pool and around the resort:

My only very small beef is that it took a fair while to walk anywhere! And it was almost always uphill out of the room, either to the pool or to the road. Apart from meal times, when we would take a lift up to the main restaurant. But that's a small beef. Overall I'm giving the resort full marks, 1/1 points.

The Room: This was the best part of Merusaka, and also gets 1/1 points. The room we had, a 2-bedroom suite, was outstanding! Beautifully appointed, spacious, clean, and very comfortable. We had a large central room, with a bedroom on either side.

The Staff: In true Balinese style, the staff were all exceptionally friendly, delightful to interact with, and very helpful. They are a lovely people. I guess my only beef is that there was really a core 10% of the staff who were clearly adept at their jobs, whilst it felt to me that many of them wandered around and avoided eye contact, especially in the restaurants. I guess many of them were in training, and we did quickly learn which staff to go to for our needs. Overall though, they were very friendly and helpful. I especially liked our WhatsApp Butler! This is a great idea, where I could message the housekeeping staff on WA, meaning we could easily arrange laundry, room cleaning and the like. My only criticism is of the beach staff. I am assuming the guy who worked in the beach sports hut was a Merusaka employee, as I am pretty sure he was wearing the uniform. Anyway, like the butler, he contacted me through WA. I wanted to arrange a jet ski experience for the kids. Right away he offered me discounted rates and free transfers. I was a little confused why this was happening 10 minutes drive away and not at the resort. But I booked, and was ready for the next day. Then the kicker. As we signed off, he asked if I could not tell the resort about him offering me a discount and keep the booking between us. He framed it like he was doing me a favour. But I saw through that. The reality was that he wanted to keep all the money for himself, and do it independent of the resort. Look, I don't know how much he gets paid. No doubt the local wages are not high. But this was outright dodgy, so I cancelled and blocked that number. Disappointing for the kids, but we found other activities that they enjoyed. Anyway, so that experience detracted somewhat, so I give the staff 0.75/1.

The Food: OMG. I was SO looking forward to the food! The Asian hotel breakfast is, in my experience, legendary. Or at least, it can be. My sister had stayed here, and she raved about this place, including the food. We had the all-inclusive package you see, which gave us pretty much carte blanche around the resort. But where I wanted to focus was breakfast, so even though that was only the second meal we had, we'll start there. Asian hotel breakfasts are legendary because they give you quality, variety, and a real taste of where you are. Yes, they all have western options, but in no greater proportion than any other cuisine, with the combination of Asian cuisines dominating. THAT is what I wanted. Merusaka's Gading restaurant did have Asian flavours, but it was a minority of choices. Well over 50% of the offerings were western food - sweet and savoury bread/pastries, bacon, sausages, eggs, salads, and all that go with that. The only Japanese I saw was sushi that was covered in flies, no thanks. They had a noodle station, which was very plain, some chicken soup and porridge, a couple of the same dim sum items every day, and a handful of local dishes that frankly were also very plain. I get that they need to cater to western palettes, but OMG, not to this extent! Send your catering management team to some of the more successful hotels in Asia and you'll see what I'm talking about. I was SO disappointed by this, it isn't funny. By Day 3, most of our troop no longer wanted to go for breakfast because it was so boring.

We also started at Gading, on our first night, and I do admit, their lunch and dinner offerings were ok. The nasi goreng was decent, as was the bebek goreng and the noodle dishes. The kids enjoyed the kids menu, but again, were well bored of it within a few days. We were told time and again, that Homaya was the restaurant for the all-inclusive crowd, as it was "exclusive". Well it took us three goes just to get in there. The first night they had a special function, and said we could pay $25pp to go. Another $125 for a meal! I don't think so sunshine. The next day we were told it was closed. Finally on the third day we went there for breakfast, only to see that it had exactly the same food as Gading, just only 20% of it, and NO staff. I was royally pissed off with the place at this point. We did eventually eat some proper local food there, and it was ok, but nothing special. The fish was very fishy, the whole prawns in sambal were hard to eat, and the soup, while tasty, was fairly plain. We went once, and didn't go back. We also went to the other restaurants they had, being the beach café and the bistro under reception. Surprisingly, both had unique menus, and both offered reasonable food. But again, western dominated in all respects. I guess I just didn't come to Asia to eat plain Asian food and mostly western food. So overall, the food was disappointing to me. It gets 0.5/1. If you want to read reviews of each individual restaurant, you can see them on my Google and Trip Advisor pages. I will likely mention the meals in Part 2 of this post as well.

The Value: So we paid almost $700 per day for our suite. Then I had to pay extra for transfers. Then I had to top-up for the all-inclusive. So all in all, the six nights cost me about $7-8k. Plus flights and spending money, which were all around the level I was expecting, so no issue there. And hey, I have no issue with the money spent on the hotel either, it's just that I do not believe we got value for what we paid for. I think that sort of cost is worthy of a higher standard of both food and drink. The property, room and staff are all fine (scamming beach activities notwithstanding), but not the edibles, which to me, I'm afraid, were pretty much top priority.

Total Score & Rating: So we have a 1 + 1 + 0.75 + 0.5 + 0.25, which equals 3.5 / 5, or 3 1/2 stars. Honestly, I think this is a fair rating. Yes, many people rated Merusaka five stars, and I can understand why, if the resort, the rooms and the pool was your focus. And those aspects, along with the staff, made up most of the score I have given the place. But when I go to Asia, I want to have access to plenty of high quality Asian food offerings, especially when I am paying absolute top dollar.

The last comment I will leave, and it truly is the really important one, when it comes to hotel/motel/resort ratings, is answering the question, would I come back? I'm afraid, in this case, the answer is definitely no. Yes it's a beautiful place, and was very comfortable. But for me, the three key aspects are these; One: the food just wasn't up to standard for an Asian hotel experience. Two: for what we paid, which is significant, it just wasn't worth the money. And Three: I realised through this, that a resort holiday simply isn't our style. We are more city explorers, not resort-goers. So the KL or Hong Kong options I had been considering would have been far more suitable. They would have met the mark on all three fronts too. So thanks Merusaka, but I'm sorry, this one wasn't for us, or for me.

This place was amazing! Met the expectations and more!! Thank you to Sari for being the best waitress x