26.05.14This has been our favourite place in our 4 months of travelling. Ben and his team are genuinely the nicest people and made our stay the best it could be. Amazing location, fantastic free gym & sauna, nice cold pool and yummy food. Ben helped organise our snorkelling trip, and kindly got us a discount with our scubadiving. The staff went above and beyond helping decorate the room for my boyfriend’s birthday and even helped organise donuts! Cannot wait to come back and see you all next year. Thank you so much🥰
25.10.23 This is one of the best budget places to stay in Gili T. Yes, there are some issues, mainly the noisiness of the rooms, but the benefits far outweigh the issues. We stayed at this hotel for 8 nights - we initially booked 2 nights, but then booked the following 6 nights there. We also stayed in 4 different rooms – some rooms are great, some make the experience terrible (sorry Ben!)
PROS / BENEFITS
- Central. This hotel is right in the middle of the Gili action. It’s very close to the port, shops, bars, but yet a few doors down so the music doesn’t keep you up at night. If you want to walk/ride through to the other side its also very central.
- Gym access is included. This is a huge advantage; there’s only 2-3 gyms on the island, each costing ~$ 9-15 per entry. The gym is well-equipped with unlimited water and stereo. The owner Ben works out there himself. The gym downstairs is air conditioned, while upstairs is open air. My only criticism is that the spin bikes were upstairs in the open air outside area – I was absolutely dying in the heat, and I think cardio equipment should be in the aircon downstairs. It’s hard to find any spin bike in a gym, let alone a good spin bike with a heavy flywheel like these ones, so I still used them and loved it. When I come back to Gilli, I will ask Ben to move one downstairs
- the WiFi is fast, reliable and unlimited. There’s only a couple of spots in the hotel it didn’t work (e.g. it may work on one side of the bed but not the other).
- aircon is included and it works: this was a little room dependant, the downstairs rooms had cold aircon, the upstairs rooms struggle and could only get the temp down to ~ 26 deg.
- the hire bikes are high quality. They cost 100 Baht ($10 aus dollars) per day to use and come with a lock. Gili is a small island, you can bike around it in 1.5 hrs, and every hotel / street corner will offer bike rental for 50-90 baht/day, but they’re old and you need to store them outside hotels/bars/rooms. These hire bikes are brand new, very good quality, a good deal (~$10/day), and are more securely locked behind the hotel gates.
- it’s very safe. The staff are around from early in the am til late at night, just cleaning and keeping an eye on things. the hotel area enclosed, getting in and out via a door. But there is no security staff.
- the sound of the mosque prayers is reasonably quiet for a hotel that is so central on the island. Seems to be just far enough from them that it’s not too bothersome.
- it comes with a basic breakfast daily – coffee, orange cordial drink, some fruit and a hot dish. Plenty to get you going.
- the owner Ben is an Aussie expat, very friendly, down to earth and helpful. He’s always around in the café, is happy to direct you, give you advice, and just have a chat. He’s a legend of the island.
CONS
- Most rooms are VERY loud and it does impact your comfort when you just need some peace and quiet on this island. There is only one, maybe two rooms that were quiet, and if I couldn’t book these room I probably wouldn’t stay here again (sorry Ben!). It’s not the call to prayer, it’s the building itself. In the upstairs rooms there is a gap between the wall and the (straw) roof, so there is direct communication (air) with neighbouring rooms / the outside / the gym, so you can easily hear road noise, gym stereo, the call to prayer, and neighbours talking and having fun times, like it’s in your room (because there’s literally no wall). Secondly, the gym is open early in the am, that’s fine, but there’s a boombox sound system upstairs, and no real wall, so if a gym user wants to put the music on max at 7am and you’re in the room upstairs, it’s coming right into your room. It’s not the hotel’s fault, but we had a few gym dudes do this to us, max the volume at like 7am and laugh at us when we asked them to turn it down. The downstairs rooms are quieter, so when we had the opportunity to swap rooms to downstairs we did. However, there was one set of rooms d
25.08.05 Bathroom stinks, shower does not work, stained sheets, ripped quilts, dust everywhere. Aircon barely works so room is boiling. Woken up at 5am to prayers. Bugs everywhere. Actually not worth the money, not even cheap accommodation compared to other places I’ve stayed.
