address :
> Gili Trawangan island, Lombok (please see the map)
> Direction: after you jump off the boat, turn right and walk along the road for about 5min. Find Cafe Fortuna on your left. Then after this cafe, there will be a small alley with a little sand path to Gili Hostel.
contact :
> phone: +6287765267037 (owner’s mobile)
> website : www.facebook.com/gilihostel
period of stay : March 2013
room rate : Euro 12.47 through HostelBookers for 1 bed, AC, Bfast (through hostelbookers)
related to my trip journal : A quick look of Gili Trawangan and Senggigi, Lombok island
my rating : ♥ ♥ ♥
Gili Hostel is a nice hostel that needs a bit improvement on things that look small but can be the key factor of its success or failure. Why did I say this?
It’s my first visit to Lombok so I am very excited. I spent a nite in gili and chose to stay in this hostel. When I arrived, the front office guy greeted me kindly. I made the payment in advance and requested a receipt. But he said they didn’t provide any receipt. Based on my experience, it is important to get the payment receipt. You don’t want to be double-charge at the end but if the hostel doesn’t have it, I cannot force them. I paid Rp144,000, the balance payment after deposit to Hostelbookers and I still had this ‘hard to trust’ attitude and managed to have them showed me the evidence for my payment. They then showed the book and apparently it was written that I paid Rp135k. It’s only 9k short but hey, no one wants to get blame for this shortage right?? Lucky I caught that.
After payment matter settled, that guy offered me if I wanted a deposit for locker’s lock and blanket. It was a bit weird to have deposit for a blanket. But I brought my own padlock and a cloth that I can use as a blanket, so no need for deposit.
At 12 noon, I got into my room. It’s really clean. There are like 2 stories inside the room with 6 beds in lower level and 2 beds in upper level. AC works well and the locker is big enough for my backpack. After unpacking it, I checked out the bathroom which is not bad. Then I checked out the toilet and oh… it smelled really bad. Like someone p*ed and didn’t flush. There were many tissues on the floor too. This smell and garbage issues really bothered me, especially when I saw the ‘p*op leftover’ inside the toilet.. Yaiks!! Ew… ><” I informed it to their front office but when I returned from my dive, that ‘thing’ was still inside the toilet seat. What an unpleasant scene.
Apart from that, their rooftop bar is a very nice place to hangout and relax with a very affordable drinks. Had a cider beer for about 35k, if I am not mistaken, which it costs 50k in other places. Just small issue with the stain on the pillow’s cover that made it looks dirty.
Their breakfast is kinda perfect. I had banana pancake, orange juice, tea and fruits.
So to be honest, I would give this hotel a perfect review if they could manage taking care of all my points above (hotel receipt, blanket deposit, pillows’ cloth, esp their cleanliness issue). It might be small things but I believe most of the guests would love it even more if those points are taken care for. But if it’s still going on and on like this especially that cleanliness issue, I (and maybe other travelers) would prefer staying in other place than having to experience that unpleasant toilet scene.
photo :
rooftop bar with affordable drinks
bedroom, it looks much cleaner than this picture 🙂
the MAP (click for larger view):
Hey there,
This is Lou the manager at Gili Hostel. Thanks for writing this, It’s really exciting to see that people are blogging about us! Especially as we’re a new hostel. This is actually the first time I’ve read something about us outside of the normal platforms i.e. tripadvisor, so it’s an exciting first for us. I’m really glad you had a good time. We’re the first backpackers on Gili and really want to the best when other spots eventually open up so it’s great to hear constructive critiscm sometimes. In terms of the cleanliness etc you’ll be happy to hear we have already extra cleaning staff and this will remain a top priority. Unfortunately we sometimes struggle with especially messy guests hahaha. We also have a new booking system etc and have a more traditional recpetion set up.
I just want to say thanks for blogging about us and that we really appreciate the good stuff, and will take the bad stuff on board.)
Hopefully you’ll swing by one day in the future and check out how everything has evolved. Plans for a rooftop restaraunt/ lounge area, and pool bar out the front are underway so things will look very different!!
Happy travels!
from Lou and all @ Gili Hostel.