Sari Ater Hotel, Ciater, Indonesia
 | Overall Rating: AVERAGE Stayed on June 2016 Traveled with Family |
The main reason people stay in this hotel is to enjoy the famous hot spring of Ciater, which cooked above the magma chamber of Mt. Tangkuban Parahu; and so did we. But we also had different reason. My friend gave me a free voucher to spend one night in this hotel, and I used it with my family. Too bad it was during fasting month or Ramadhan, which made us enjoy the hotel just from our room most of the time... and that was the very reason why, the interesting story created for us in this hotel.
We arrived early, around 1 PM, so the room was not ready yet. It was Saturday and the hotel rooms which some of them scattered as bungalow unit on the vast area of land were fully booked. We got lucky because we had the suite bungalow unit. But the moment we enter the unit, the unpleasant smell of undried carpet filled the room atmosphere. Later that afternoon, I asked if they could do something about it. The only solution they gave us was a can of room perfume spray. I was hoping they could change the carpet, but they didn’t have another dried one. This particular carpet in our unit was washed yesterday, but due the rainy day it didn’t got dried completely. So along that weekend we had to enjoy the unit with unpleasant mix odor between the smell of undried carpet and the room perfume spray which failed to eliminate the unpleasant odor... what a setback experience!
The room was equipped with working kitchen, dining table, living (TV) room, two bed rooms (one with queen size bed and one with two single beds), one bath room with bathtub, and one bath room with just shower. The hot water system in both bath rooms was naturally came from hot spring nearby. But because of that, when many people use it in other units, the debit of hot water decreasing and made the water very cold. Ciater lies in the high altitude mountainous area which makes the climate nice and chill and the fresh water can get icy cold. So without the hot spring water, impossible to have shower or bath.
To enjoy the indoor activities with my family, I brought several recorded footage of our previews vacation in China inside my laptop hard drive. But when we wanted to watch it via LCD TV in the living room, I just realized that I forgot to bring the cable. I asked the house keeping to lend me the cable. Thankfully, they had just exactly what we need and fit to my laptop and the TV. So at last we could watch it together in the living room, though the carpet still smells!
Around 5 PM, about 1 hour before the breakfasting of our fasting day, we tried the hot spring pool. This hotel has several hot spring pool. Too bad that the best one was under heavy restoration. But another one is close to our unit and we went there. The water was hot and nice and we had very good time until my two children, my wife and I got slight dehydration. We could not have anything to drink because we were fasting, and it turned out that the hot water made you dehydrated. So before things became worse, we call out the day and back to our unit. I learned something valuable that afternoon. That when you are fasting, do not dip into the hot spring pool! Thankfully my children could recover when we enter our unit and turned on the AC. And not long after that, we can drink after the sun sets.
The voucher we had was included the BBQ dinner in the restaurant in short walking distance from our unit. We enjoyed our dinner very much, because it was also the breakfasting of our fasting day. The BBQ was consider very good and complete with lamb ribs, chicken, beef sausages, and fish. They also prepared other dish like pasta, rice, soup for appetizer, and pastry for desert. Superb! It was also raining heavily outside of the restaurant, so we had to wait until it stopped by taking more BBQ on our plate!
On Ramadhan, we have to have very early breakfast or sahoor. And the place would be at the same restaurant we had our dinner. Since we had to take short walk from our unit to the restaurant, and the temperature in early morning of 3 AM could be very cold. I asked the restaurant for us to take away the food into our unit instead, because no way my two small children can bare to walk in that condition. Thankfully, though it was actually we may not take away the buffet breakfast, the restaurant manager fulfilled my request. So early in the following morning at 3 AM I walked by myself to the restaurant and collected our breakfast. They gave us plenty! I really grateful for that. Two thumbs up for the restaurant manager.
Around 9 in the morning, we took the free shuttle service around the complex. We didn’t do the outdoor activities because we were still fasting that day. But we stopped by in the public area of hot spring river. We took some pictures and when the sun got higher, we went back to our unit. Around 1 PM we checked out and went home.
Click here for original comment on TripAdvisor website
We arrived early, around 1 PM, so the room was not ready yet. It was Saturday and the hotel rooms which some of them scattered as bungalow unit on the vast area of land were fully booked. We got lucky because we had the suite bungalow unit. But the moment we enter the unit, the unpleasant smell of undried carpet filled the room atmosphere. Later that afternoon, I asked if they could do something about it. The only solution they gave us was a can of room perfume spray. I was hoping they could change the carpet, but they didn’t have another dried one. This particular carpet in our unit was washed yesterday, but due the rainy day it didn’t got dried completely. So along that weekend we had to enjoy the unit with unpleasant mix odor between the smell of undried carpet and the room perfume spray which failed to eliminate the unpleasant odor... what a setback experience!
The room was equipped with working kitchen, dining table, living (TV) room, two bed rooms (one with queen size bed and one with two single beds), one bath room with bathtub, and one bath room with just shower. The hot water system in both bath rooms was naturally came from hot spring nearby. But because of that, when many people use it in other units, the debit of hot water decreasing and made the water very cold. Ciater lies in the high altitude mountainous area which makes the climate nice and chill and the fresh water can get icy cold. So without the hot spring water, impossible to have shower or bath.
To enjoy the indoor activities with my family, I brought several recorded footage of our previews vacation in China inside my laptop hard drive. But when we wanted to watch it via LCD TV in the living room, I just realized that I forgot to bring the cable. I asked the house keeping to lend me the cable. Thankfully, they had just exactly what we need and fit to my laptop and the TV. So at last we could watch it together in the living room, though the carpet still smells!
Around 5 PM, about 1 hour before the breakfasting of our fasting day, we tried the hot spring pool. This hotel has several hot spring pool. Too bad that the best one was under heavy restoration. But another one is close to our unit and we went there. The water was hot and nice and we had very good time until my two children, my wife and I got slight dehydration. We could not have anything to drink because we were fasting, and it turned out that the hot water made you dehydrated. So before things became worse, we call out the day and back to our unit. I learned something valuable that afternoon. That when you are fasting, do not dip into the hot spring pool! Thankfully my children could recover when we enter our unit and turned on the AC. And not long after that, we can drink after the sun sets.
The voucher we had was included the BBQ dinner in the restaurant in short walking distance from our unit. We enjoyed our dinner very much, because it was also the breakfasting of our fasting day. The BBQ was consider very good and complete with lamb ribs, chicken, beef sausages, and fish. They also prepared other dish like pasta, rice, soup for appetizer, and pastry for desert. Superb! It was also raining heavily outside of the restaurant, so we had to wait until it stopped by taking more BBQ on our plate!
On Ramadhan, we have to have very early breakfast or sahoor. And the place would be at the same restaurant we had our dinner. Since we had to take short walk from our unit to the restaurant, and the temperature in early morning of 3 AM could be very cold. I asked the restaurant for us to take away the food into our unit instead, because no way my two small children can bare to walk in that condition. Thankfully, though it was actually we may not take away the buffet breakfast, the restaurant manager fulfilled my request. So early in the following morning at 3 AM I walked by myself to the restaurant and collected our breakfast. They gave us plenty! I really grateful for that. Two thumbs up for the restaurant manager.
Around 9 in the morning, we took the free shuttle service around the complex. We didn’t do the outdoor activities because we were still fasting that day. But we stopped by in the public area of hot spring river. We took some pictures and when the sun got higher, we went back to our unit. Around 1 PM we checked out and went home.
Click here for original comment on TripAdvisor website
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