Bali Palms Resort

My wife & I live in Candidasa & we decided to go & have dinner at the Palms Resort nearby to our hotel. We have friends that are staying there, we arrived at around 7.20pm ordered our dinner around 7.30pm we ordered a brushetta & a main course & this when it went downhill after waiting 1 hour & 20 minutes our entree arrived which we ate & another 15 minutes later after the entree our main course arrived so nearly 2 hours to get our meal, that is absolutely ridiculous by that time we had lost our appetite so we asked them to put it into takeaway containers. I find it bizarre how an entree of brushetta took 1 hour 20 minutes to come to our table, we were both not happy. We will never ever go back to the Palms again the waiting time is absolutely ridiculous very disappointed. My brother & his family are coming over to Bali in July & were going to book accommodation at the Palms but after what happened to us they are now going to look at other hotels. So if anyone is thinking about going to the Palms Resort for dinner expect at least a 2 hour wait time. I think they do it on purpose so you drink more alcohol while you wait for your meals, also a small bintang is 45,000 + service & tax absolute robbery. Never ever again bad service & overpriced food & drinks.

BEWARE if travelling on the ‘timeshare’ deal. We signed up for our trip 2 months before arrival. My best friend and I sat through the obligatory talk with Dave the representative. He wrote on a piece of paper various things about the timeshare deal. We did not see any formal paperwork. He begins with many questions about your life and digging into your affairs. After a while (and in full holiday mode) my best friend joked about ‘this place would be great for a wedding’ …my friend having started dating someone a few weeks before. Not even classing them as her boyfriend yet, just out for dates. This off hand comment turned out to bite us.By the end of this talk Dave expected us to commit to the timeshare- ridiculous, as it was all just his word, you could barely read anything he wrote on the paper, we had not seen a contract or anything. He wouldn’t give, up so in desperation, so that he would leave us alone, my friend said she’d need to talk to her family about it. He finally left us alone. Dave made us feel very uncomfortable the rest of the stay, we were in the pool a day or so later with friends we’d made at the resort. He comes up to us and says ‘I’M GONNA MAKE YOU SLL WET, LADIES” as he jumped into the pool next to us. Laughing and splashing us. Other guests staying there said how creepy Dave is, as he is very touchy feely when their partners aren’t around. I commented on this to one of the guests (who was staying with relatives, not part of time share) and he said it’d got so bad with his mum that he even asked Dave to stop touching her and that he wouldn’t be ‘feeling up Mum” if his father was there. These guests also told us that Dave frequently gets in the pool late at night with NO CLOTHES ON, inebriated. We were also told by other non time share guests that Dave had told them he ‘HATED INDIANS’ and didn’t like having to deal with them. A fact I’m sure he didn’t tell the lovely Indian family who were there the same time as us on the timeshare deal! Dave waited til a day before we left and then went up and spoke to my friend while I was off site shopping, (recognised her as a ‘soft touch’?) and said we’d travelled the time share deal on ‘false pretences’ as my friend had ‘a partner’ (!?) and that we’d falsely claimed to be single! Being single was a pre-requisite of the deal. Which she WAS when we signed up. And dating is hardly super serious! This interaction ruined the last two days of our trip and left a bad taste in our mouth. We tried to talk to Dave about it and he flat out dismissed us. Saying she’d lied, that she mentioned a wedding (an offhand joke) that we were liars. Even upon checking out the venue staff were puzzled as to why we had to pay the full bill. Until this, we had been having a great time and were considering making it our regular holiday venue. Not now! We’d eaten at the restaurant several times a day, had drinks there everyday, did the trips and used the day spa so it’s not like we spent no money at the resort. The venue was a bit dated, other than Dave the staff are lovely and helpful.

The restaurant has expanded their menu to include a number of Indian and Chinese dishes. They still do the Traditional Balinese speciality, the Duck Tutu, but it requires 24-hours notice. Nothing better than having ia cocktail or two during happy holur whilst watching the intended sunset.

We ate at the restaurant and had a fantastic time. The food was great as was the service. The cocktails were excellent and during happy hour were 2 for 1! They also had an excellent band playing which made the night fun. Great sea breeze and views.