Booked a Pavilion Villa and a Sawangan Junior Suite at the Ritz Carlton Bali to celebrate a special occasion with my family in October 2024, but ended up checking out two nights early and moving to another hotel because of a consistently poor experience and bad communication/service recovery from the RC Bali management team. Full details below.

Some background - Bonvoy Platinum so we generally stay at Marriott properties around the world. We are also frequent visitors to Bali. We chose the Ritz Carlton because we wanted a villa experience within a hotel and paid around ~US$1k/night for the villa and ~US$600/night for the Junior Suite.

Things I liked - 1) well-kept grounds and a peaceful setting, 2) friendly wait staff and butlers and 3) a large and quiet beachfront. Unfortunately, that's about where the good ends.

Here are just some of the issues we faced:

1) The property is very dated (don't expect mobile keys, USB-A/C charging ports, bluetooth speakers etc.) This was evident from the fittings and finishings of the rooms.
You could also tell that the maintenance was not very good. When we arrived, the flush controls were hanging off the mount (picture attached). The sheets in the villa also had blood stains on them. I did not expect this from a Ritz Carlton.

2) On the first day, the air-conditioning was not functioning properly in the villa. The A/C unit was a smaller, older unit which seemed small for an entire villa. It did not keep the room cold at all and probably was not functioning properly. We asked to move to an alternative ground floor pool suite or villa but was told around 4-5pm that none was available. A portable A/C was provided but did not do much to resolve the situation in the tropical heat. At around 10pm, and after much tossing and turning trying to go to bed, we made several calls to again ask for an alternative. We were only then informed that another villa on the other end of the property was magically available at the late hour. We ended up moving villas at around 11pm.
Management's initial response was "sorry about that!" - no follow-up or explanation. I fully understand that these things can happen at hotels, but the dismal response time, lack of follow-up or any offers of alternatives until we had to insist/chase was very disappointing - I've had far better service at a Marriott Courtyard.

3) The hotel is also clearly understaffed (at least when at capacity). We requested an ice bucket and 2 champagne glasses in the evening (they were cleared by housekeeping and not replaced) - this took around 45 minutes and only after multiple calls . A request for a replacement room key also took around 35 minutes. At the main pool/beach, it was difficult to find someone to order food or drinks from. Its hard to fault the staff because they did genuinely seem like they were frantically running around to serve the guests. Again, far from the "Ladies and Gentlemen" level of service a Ritz is famed for.

4) The F&B was also disappointing. Breakfast is only available at one restaurant that was already crowded on the first day. It was a 15 minute wait for a coffee and a ~20-25 minute wait for the egg station. Things got far worse on the second day when we arrived to find a queue of about 30 people (photo attached) that did not seem to be moving. We were told to wait in line and that there was nothing the staff could do to help. We spoke to Emanuele (in charge of F&B) and he said that this happened because "all the guests decided to eat at the same time". I don't work in hospitality but I reckon blaming your customers for your service shortcomings probably isn't the best move. We ended up ordering breakfast room service in the villa (and the hotel kindly waived the charge for this) but we unfortunately found human hair in our eggs (see photos). Dinner at the Beach Grill was also a disappointment as the steak (which was ordered medium-rare) was overcooked - even after sending it back (see photos). Mind you, this goes for about ~US$85. I also had to walk up to the welcome desk to ask for my bill after waiting for 15 minutes

5) Instead of a care-free holiday, the lack of attention to detail also constantly made us have to wait and stress out about the details. On our second day, we booked a tennis court at the Westin for an afternoon. We arranged for the RC driver to bring us there and agreed a return time. Upon arrival, the Westin staff had no idea where we were from and spent 15 minutes calling the RC to figure things out. Despite calls and messages, our butler was also uncontactable at this time. The Westin staff helped to resolve the situation in the end. On the return journey, the driver did not appear at the requested time. Again, after 15-minute wait, the Westin ground transportation staff told us that he was only now "just leaving" the RC (about a 10-minute drive away). We gave up and took a Grab taxi instead.

We eventually decided to leave the Ritz Carlton early for another nearby hotel that we had stayed at before. The staff did not give us any confidence that they could improve our experience - it was one unforced error after another and I did not want to waste any more of my holiday dealing with this. After check-out I did not hear from the hotel at all until I posted about the experience on social media.

I am sharing my experience because I really hope that the hotel management will look into these issues and improve so that future guests will avoid an experience like mine. I love the Ritz chain of hotels and consider myself quite loyal to the Marriott brand but I was genuinely, terribly disappointed.