Santika Beach Hotel

21 March 2006

The Santika Beach Hotel is located at the southern end of Kuta Beach. This makes it handy to the shopping and dining options around the Kuta Square area, as well as the main beach around Legian. The hotel is rather large, with 171 rooms, but yet it still feels like a relatively small property. There is a large three story block of rooms near the street entrance, but the rest of the buildings are only one or two floors. The main lobby is a large open air pavilion with the lobby and shops on the ground floor and the main restaurant, where breakfast is served, on the second floor.

The buildings scale down more and more as you get closer to the beach, until finally you get to just two rows of thatch roofed single story bungalows. These are among the best rooms, and highly recommended. The bungalows feature large beds and sitting area inside, as well as a front porch. The large bathrooms feature sunken bathtubs, which look out onto a private garden surrounded by a high wall. There's a shower in the garden, so you can bath outdoors, which is why the garden is surrounded by a high wall. Slightly apart from the main hotel grounds is a beach-front “suite area” with about 10 rooms and it's own pool.

Although the hotel has its own section of beach, it is far from the best that Kuta has to offer. The beach at this point is quite steep and narrow. In fact, at high tide the beach almost completely disappears. The Santika does have a sort of artificial beach built behind it's sea wall, for those that need a bit of sand to sunbathe on. There's also the hotel's own “sunset” restaurant stretching along the beach front.

Hotel facilities include two pools (plus one childrens' pool), spa, tennis court, childrens' playground, meeting rooms, three restaurants and a small shopping arcade.

Rooms feature air conditioning, hot and cold water, mini-bars, complementary coffee and tea, color televisions (about 35 channels), hair dryer and IDD telephones.

Pluses: Good location, near restaurants and shopping, but not in the middle of it. Friendly and very helpful staff. Reasonable security. Garden Bungalows are excellent value for money.

Minuses: So-so beach, and almost no beach activities. No fitness center. No in-room internet connectivity, with limited availability in the front office.