Review 1.0 Kristal Hotel, Pondok Indah, Jakarta, Indonesia

Welcome to Hotel kristal

The hotel is on the right. Another hotel is on the left of this picture. This picture may look like a busy road but its not! There is only one supermarket that sells overpriced items... and a pharmacy and thats about it!

Security is tight. this is how Obama feels like.

Nice tropical trees all over the hotel.

Main entrance to hotel as well as to the pool.

So if you walk to the right at the hotel entrance you will see the pool entrance.

The views from the pool

The hotel design both interior and exterior is dated. Feels like I'm on the set of Survivor.

Nice kois at the pool entrance.

If you walk out from the hotel, you will come to this supermarket, HERO. Hang on... 'the fresh food people'??!? Where have I heard that from!?!?!? Hmmmm.

Coming back from 'the fresh food people'. the view of the hotel kristal. Actually, Hero sells tainted meat.... so I dont think they are really the fresh food people. No. Fail indeed.

Now on to Jakarta in general:

01. PRIVATE DRIVER. You must absolutely know someone in Jakarta. So get on facebook, add a random Indonesian friends and become their best friend. In return for your friendship, they will provide you with great local knowledge... such as recommending me to a private local driver. We tried two drivers, one guy's car was stinky & was an average driver and the other guy's car was clean and awesome & I believe he is the Indonesian Champion king of drivers. I remember that we paid around AUD70 a day... meaning he would drop us at a shopping mall like Block M, WAIT til we had enough and drove us to another shopping mall. We had him drive us like 6am to 12 midnight. So this is a must.

02. TRAFFIC. I've been to Thailand and Malaysia and I thought the traffic jams were horrendous but I changed my mind once I stepped out the airport in Indonesia. Every time we left for a destination, we'd get stuck in traffic for 2-3 hours. No joke. Also you must not be afraid to die, you must learn to cut in and fight your way through intersections keeping your own lane or forever get stuck. Lastly, I advise to bring a big 2L wide-mouth empty plastic bottle with a cap.

03. MASSAGE CENTERS. I say, one must definitely get a massage in Jakarta. It's completely different than getting a massage in Thailand. It's softer (less painful) and I reckon it focused more on aromatherapy. Anyways, its just different and a must experience.

04. SPEAK INDONESIAN ONLY. Fortunately for me, I lived in Malaysia for a year and so I could speak the Malay language which is similar to the Indonesian language. No one here speaks English (same as with Thailand)

Now onto HOTEL KRISTAL

First things first is that I didn't plan this trip to Indonesia, and just went with the flow with the person who orgnised this trip. So unlike my well-planned Bangkok trip, I will try to be as detailed as possible (and leave out all my complaints).

On the way to the hotel, we passed by a suburb called Pondok Indah. Lots of mega wealthy people live here. The houses shouldn't be classified as mansions but like forts or castle or the White house.

We finally arrived at the hotel, with the driver weaving about the crazy traffic. At the entrance to hotel, there was tight security. Guard dogs, under-car mirrors to check for bombs, bullet-proof vests, the works... all one needed was some gun-fight or explosions. After that, passed the hotel car park. The hotel on the outside looks very polished, clean and nice and gives a good impression. At the lobby, there is another security check. The lobby looked very well, proper and grandish.

There is a massage center - not recommended at all, it was expensive and was not happy with the service.

There is a gym - never seen hotel gyms so packed before. As if I was at a local gym. I do weight training at my local gym in Melbourne and I can say the hotel gym makes the grade. There are personal instructors too.

Nice huge swimming pool and a hot pool too. There was a bar at the swimming pool. Didnt get a chance to visit it. The pool area was big and spacious and very clean. Lots of other guests were relaxing and having fun.

Unfortunately, didn't get a chance to sample the hotel's restaurant food - no free complimentary anything! Poor form.

Since I was travelling with a big group, we stayed in the 3 bedroom apartment. As we made our way to the room, the corridor reminded me of the corridors of condominium or high rise flats back in Malaysia. Rather weird observation but I didn't feel like I was in a hotel.

Upon entering the room, the living room was HUGE and clean. There was a big dinning table, sofas, big lcd TV and the TV unit. The balcony looked out to the road which we came in from. There was split unit air-conditioning in every room.

Cupboard in the single bedroom

Single bedroom. Its super cold in here - tiny room and a split unit in your face.

The single bedroom - I slept here.

Double bedroom 2

Each room had a wardrobe. Very spacious.

Table counters. Only the master bedroom had its own LCD TV.

Also the master bedroom had its own bathroom and toilet.

The kitchen area had a electric hot plate, microwave, fridge, kettle and a water cooler (staff would come and refill the water - smart people dont drink tap water over here!).

Kitchen area. Water cooler. Electric hot plates. Microwave. The hotel does provide washing detergent. Fridge.

The dining area. We took the chairs out to another room.

View from the corner of the room. This 3 bedroom is huge.

Tv area.

View from TV area.

Main door entrance.

There was a master bedroom (queen size), a double bedroom and a single bedroom. The master bedroom had a nice big bathroom while the other bathroom was small and cramped. The shower cubicle was unfortunately not clean. There was hot water every time someone had a shower though.

There are absolutely no shops in walking distance. There is only one supermarket, shoe shop and a pharmacy - which is adequate for most travelers. However the supermarket, HERO is overpriced and I bought 'fresh chicken' from the meat department which turns out to be tainted and had the world's worst food poisoning ever. You can see my name in the Guinness book of records for achieving this feat. If I was still there, I'd complain to every possible authority known to all Indonesian men!

Whenever we wanted to go out to the big shopping malls, as I said we had to deal with the traffic jam. It is just ridiculous how long we were stuck in traffic. Again.. always travel with a big empty plastic bottle and sit at the back of the van.

I am on the fence about recommending this hotel. The room rates at this hotel is not cheap (for me personally anyways), the location was not great (I know there is always a car or taxi to takes us to the shopping malls)- but what I mean is that, for me personally, I also like to walk out of my hotel and be able to go to nearby shops and restaurants.... not only just the same one and only supermarket. But please note that there were lots of other tourists that were staying at this hotel.

Overall impression.

Room 3.5 out of 5 stars

Price 2 out of 5 stars

Location ? out of 5 stars

The location of the hotel bugs me the most. I didn't know where the main shopping mall were so until I do more research and planning if I ever go on another trip to Indonesia... I cannot give a recommendation if its the most convenient located hotel.