Our Review Criteria
Our 10 Review Criteria
The team does not reveal their identity or affiliation with this site to any resort owner. We don’t sell rankings, nor do we trade favours for them. We believe that you, our audience, deserve fair and unbiased insights into every resort we review.
Each resort is reviewed on an approximately annual basis. If there are no major changes between reviews, we will leave the original review in place and just update any minor changes. However, if a resort has changed dramatically, we may write an entirely new review.
If our policies or approaches to reviews change, this page will be updated to reflect those changes. We will not make any changes to reviews or other documents on the site until we have placed a notice here.
Ranking Criteria For Hotels
Our ratings and rankings are not arbitrary. Our reviewers use a series of simple criteria to sort the best from the rest.
The idea is to ensure that our readers can easily compare one hotel to another without spending all day reading overly long and boring reviews.
We believe that it’s useful to be able to make an informed decision without getting bogged down in too much detail.
- Cleanliness and Maintenance – 1 (visibly dirty, mouldy, etc.), 3 (clean but minor wear or detail not cleaned properly), 5 (spotless and seriously obsessive attention to detail)
- Sleep quality – 1 (noisy, uncomfy, bad pillows, light leaks, etc.), 3 (average mattress/pillows and some street noise), 5 (silent, blackout curtains, perfect bed and bedding, etc.)
- Staff attitude and Service culture – 1 (indifferent, rude, or incompetent), 3 (polite but to a formula, reactive only), 5 (warm, proactive, and empowered to make things right)
- Check-in/Check-out experience – 1 (long lines, mistakes, unfriendly process), 3 (functional but nothing special, a short wait), 5 (seamless, mobile check-in works perfectly or front desk is truly instant)
- Bathroom quality & functionality – 1 (tiny, dated, poor water pressure, cheap/no amenities), 3 (adequate size, decent pressure, basic toiletries), 5 (spacious, modern, rain shower, great pressure, high-end amenities, etc.)
- Value for money (relative to market and the overall price) – 1 (feels like a rip-off even if it were free), 3 (fair enough for what was paid), 5 (feels like a steal at the price paid – punching above its weight/star-level)
- Food and beverage execution – 1 (inedible or outrageously overpriced), 3 (average), 5 (excellent, worth coming for even if not staying in the hotel)
- Location & immediate surroundings (practicality and vibe) – 1 (inconvenient, unsafe, surrounded by urban decay), 3 (convenient enough), 5 (perfectly positioned for purpose and the local area is vibrant, safe and pleasant)
- Facilities & Amenities vs Promise (pool, business centre, spa, gym, etc.) – 1 (broken, closed, or falsely advertised), 3 (present and functional but alright), 5 (better than advertised, fabulously maintained, thoughtful extras)
- Overall “personality” – 1 (soulless, corporate, generic), 3 (fine but forgettable), 5 (clear identity, you’ll remember it for years to come, whether you love it or hate it, it’s not bland)
Our Gradings
45+ = World-class
40-44 – Excellent/Highly Recommended
35-39 – Very Good/Happy to Return
30-34 – Solid 3 or 4 star experience
30 – don’t go, seriously, there’s something wrong with this place
Note: You won’t see too many reviews below 30 (if any) simply because our focus is on the best hotels in Bali, and something would have to go drastically wrong at a major brand-name hotel for us to feature a heavily negative review. What that means is that while Bali certainly has some hotels that aren’t the sort of hotels you’d want to stay in, we just don’t feature them.
It might be amusing to highlight some of the worst places to stay on the island, but it’s not particularly constructive and in our experience, most people are looking for the best places to stay not the ones with free bed bugs, fungal growths on the wall and bedsheets that look like they’ve been gently wrapped around a hobo for a month before being placed on the bed.
We would also note that the island has over 6,000 hotels, and we can’t review them all. So, we’ve focused on hotels that already have good reviews from their customers and hotels that have a solid reputation. So, we go into every one of our reviews and hotels in good faith, in the hopes that we find another great place to recommend to our visitors.
FAQs About Our Ranking Criteria
How Do The Reviews Work?
We send our team to the hotel, usually on separate dates and always anonymously. They complete a review form at the hotel and then meet up at a later date to share notes and to agree on the format of the final review.
This is to ensure that our reviews are always consistent and that they reflect a broad range of opinion.
Do You Re-Review Hotels?
Yes, we will re-review hotels. This will generally happen if a.) there is a sudden change in ownership or other major change at the hotel, b.) if online reviews from other sources suddenly turn very sour, or c.) if a review becomes so old and dated that it’s no longer valuable.
However, we reserve the right to re-review any property at any time for any reason.