The Royal Tulip Springhill Resort opened in 2019 with 132 rooms and suites. The resort was developed by the Springhill Group, a local property developer, as part of a larger residential complex called SpringHill Resort at Jimbaran Hijau. Jimbaran Hijau itself refers to a wider development that encompasses the rural sections of Jimbaran, also encompassing the Raffles Bali complex.

Where the chain is concerned, Royal Tulip is the premium brand of the French Golden Tulip chain of the Lourve Hotel Group. The group already has a significant presence in Indonesia, with three hotels in Bali itself. There’s even a second Royal Tulip Resort, located near the city of Bogor in West Java. Having had an uneventful stay at their Marseille Airport hotel a few years back, I was curious to check this property out. I got even more curious when I saw how consistently cheap the rooms were, coupled with the persistently good reviews on TripAdvisor and Google… Is this for real?

Location

The Royal Tulip Springhill Resort is located in the deeper parts of Jimbaran, close to the massive Ayana Resort complex. There isn’t really anything within the resort’s vicinity, apart from semi-jungle vegetation. It isn’t precisely near a beach either and does not have access to a beach club. In fact, the nearest beach is a 32-minute walk away… not quite the ‘minutes away from Jimbaran Beach’ advertised by the resort’s website.

The resort is surrounded by houses built by the same developer as the resort. I frankly would advise having a car ready, since you won’t really get anywhere on foot. Not a good start.

Arrival and Check-in

We arrived in Jimbaran by car from Ubud at 13.00. After briefly getting lost, we found the circuitous path that led to the Royal Tulip. We were frankly quite confused by how barren the area surrounding the resort is. At the end of what looked like a dead-end road was the entrance to the resort. Once there, a security guard reconfirmed that we were heading to the Royal Tulip and let us in.

Once we pulled up into the busy lobby, nobody assisted us with our bags. Eventually though, somebody did take them after we walked into the lobby. The lobby was very lively, most of them being family travellers with children. I guess they had the same idea when they saw how cheap this place was! After a short queue, we were finally checked in. The agent handling our registration was friendly and well-intentioned. At the desk, she also offered us a cold towel and a sweet tea drink. Nice!

Our room wasn’t immediately ready, so we had to wait a bit before getting our keys. That was completely fine, since we were in no rush and had a slow day. We wer also early, after all! During the wait, I decided to look around and observed an interesting theme… There were banners plastered everywhere that said ‘Royal Tulip – Luxury Hotels’. Even the hotel’s facade had signage that said the same thing. It’s almost as if they were trying to convince people of something, eh?

Our Deluxe Pool View Room

After a roughly 20-minute wait, we finally received our keys. We were assigned to a pool-view Deluxe Room on Level 1 of Tower B. This meant going down the banner-plastered roofed walkway from the lobby to access our room. Interestingly, the door felt rather light and often didn’t close properly.

Bedroom

At 55 sqm, the room is undeniably very spacious, more so when you consider that this is a near entry-level room. But sadly, that’s just about the only positive thing I could say about the room. Well at the least, the room is equipped with conveniently placed power outlets as well as a nice-looking desk and chair combination. But sadly, that’s really it. Everything about the room honestly felt cheaply constructed, from the furniture to the fixtures. The in-room sofa for instance had virtually no padding and was very hard. The beds were unfortunately no better… they were sadly saggy and lumpy. Sigh.

But to make things even less desirable, the room felt hot. It made a lot more sense when you notice how small the air conditioner was. Coupled with humid conditions and a 55 sqm room, there’s no way it could keep the space cool. I wish they installed better air-conditioners given how hot Jimbaran could be. But at least they tacitly acknowledged this with the bed’s thin blankets…

Between the uncomfortable beds and the small air conditioner that struggled to cool the sizeable room amidst the hot temperatures outside, it was honestly very difficult to sleep. I really wished they had built smaller rooms with adequate air-conditioning and comfortable beds, like the offerings they have at the Mövenpick Jimbaran not far away. I truly don’t understand the point of a large room if you couldn’t commit to proper cooling systems. Sigh.

RoyalPedia

Interestingly enough, the hotel placed a sign with a QR code to access the digital in-room catalogue proudly named ‘RoyalPedia’. I browsed through it for a bit and some of the things on it were just… wow.

Bathroom

Near the entrance is the bathroom, which I guess is nicely equipped with a separate shower and bathtub. The toilet also had a bidet, which is a plus. The bath amenities were Royal Tulip-branded and weren’t great. But the bathroom similarly had issues, unfortunately. It smelled and felt really damp, to an extent that it wasn’t comfortable being in it for longer periods of time. Sadly, the weak water pressure only made it less nice. 

Balcony

Finally, the room also features a balcony equipped with a daybed and a table with chairs. As the name promised, the view was to towards the pool, although much of the panorama was blocked by the trees. Despite that, I appreciate that the windows kept the outside noise quite well. Additionally, it was interesting that the daybed was more comfortable than the sofa and the bed.

Resort Grounds and Amenities

The RoyalPedia conveniently shows a map of the resort, which also shows how small it really is. Here, you could see that the hotel’s gym and spa are in a standalone building called the Club House, which I believe is shared with the development’s residential villas.

Gymnasium

As the map suggests, the gym and spa is located across the driveway of the lobby. It was also quite hard to find, due to the small and the lack of prominent signage. Once inside the Club House, there is a neat maquette of the resort’s development complex.

Upon asking about the gym, the friendly spa reception staff pointed me upstairs to the second floor. Sure enough, that’s where the gym was… placed behind a nondescript door. The gym was small and fully used by several people. As such, I didn’t feel comfortable taking a picture of the gym. Instead, the following is a picture from the RoyalPedia. And yes, that is the full extent of the gym.

Business Centre

As I was wondering about during the wait at check-in, I stumbled into this room. Before I consulted the map, I thought this must have been a duty manager’s office or something. However, this turned out to be the library and business centre. Well… okay, I guess.

Pool

Lastly, the resort has one main pool, which might possibly be the most inviting-looking feature of the resort. The pool is also equipped with a slide, which I imagine must be appealing to the resort’s younger guests. To complement it, there were also several sun loungers that surrounded the pool, as well as several more standing on the pool. As an observation, I did think that the lack of cushions on the pool loungers made them look kind of sad. But anyway…

Other Observations

Finally, just to point this out, I feel that up to this point, there is nothing about the resort’s design that particularly looked Balinese: not the rooms, nor the public areas, nor the resort itself. Even the resort’s small gardens didn’t look very tropical… Sadly, you could stay here and not even know where you are. Sigh.

Service

To end this review with a slightly more positive note, I do have to mention that the staff members we encountered mostly seemed well-intentioned and friendly… at least at the reception and the security checkpoint. Other than those places, I didn’t really encounter anybody else.

Overall

Objectively speaking, this was perhaps one of my least favourable stays in Bali. After the excellent Sofitel Nusa Dua and the not-so-great Le Meridien Jimbaran, this was the third hotel I’ve stayed in on the island that boasted a French profile. Whilst this was the cheapest of the three, this sady is also the weakest.

From the poor location to the weak room offerings, nearly everything about the resort wasn’t great. As such, I sadly have little to recommend about the place. The only thing that ‘saved’ the hotel was the well-intentioned and friendly staff members… but I think that is the rule more than the exception in Bali (for which I’m very grateful for). I honestly didn’t think I’d ever have to, but even so, I’m very sad to give out a 1/5 rating for the first time ever. All in all, this is really for the sake of objectivity.

Sorry Royal Tulip Springhill Resort, but I can’t give a recommendation 🙁

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