Unfortunately our introduction with Nusa Lembongan wasn’t what we had hoped for. After buying a way too expensive return boat ticket and letting someone stupidly convince us to have him carry our bags on board after which he obviously wanted money for it, we were dropped at the wrong accommodation. Great. With a little one who needed to go to sleep, all three of us being hungry, a good 30C+ temperature and too many heavy bags this was just what we didn’t need.
Somehow the owner of the accommodation we booked thought that Shipwrecks Beach Resort sounded more fancy then the original name of Shipwrecks Surf Retreat (which was already quite pretentious) so this is what he called the place on booking.com. Obviously he forgot to update everyone that he changed the name though, so no one knew of a place called Shipwrecks Beach Resort. The guy who arranged the drop offs from the boat didn’t know, no one in the streets in the Shipwreck Beach area knew… On top of that they didn’t pick up the phone at the number that booking.com send us. All in all it took us a good 1,5 hours to find the place from Tropica Shipwreck where we were mistakenly dropped off. Even though it was only about 5 minutes away.
So already in a pretty foul mood and with a little one who was seriously tired, we were shown our room. Since Jace really needed to sleep we didn’t want to argue, but what a dump. The only good thing about it was that it was quite spacious, but the paint came of the bedroom wall which looked extremely dirty, the bathroom didn’t look too clean either, there was no mosquito net, the shower had no water pressure, everything felt damp…
We later found out that there were actually rooms that were a bit nicer, but sometimes you just don’t feel the love for a place. Especially since it wasn’t a cheap room either, it was advertised on booking.com for €32,- per night. We actually felt a bit uncomfortable and started our search for a new place to stay as soon as we got there. And we weren’t the only ones. A German couple that we met there also decided to leave much earlier than the two weeks they’d originally booked to stay.
The one thing this accommodation did have was a great location, it was right on a nice sandy beach. And in the end we ended up paying only IDR400.000 (about €27,-) for the one night we stayed there. The owner was very flexible when we told him we only wanted to stay the one night.
Weirdly enough this place got a pretty good score on booking.com. If you do end up going there, don’t stay in the first room on the right when you enter the premises, take one that’s more in the back.
So, to sum it up:
Pros:
- great location on a sandy beach
- good size room
- small but very nice banana pancake for breakfast
Cons:
- room felt damp
- no water pressure
- no mosquito net
- paint comes of the walls
- personnel hardly speaks any English
- not a great atmosphere
