Until the opening of the Alila Solo, The Royal Surakarta Heritage was the sole hotel in Solo to have a ‘5-star’ classification. It belongs to the MGallery Collection, making it one of the three Accor hotels in the city – the other two being a Novotel and an Ibis Styles. In fact, Accor has a very impressive footprint in various second-tier cities in Indonesia, making it useful to collect nights (the neighbouring city of Yogyakarta has 6 for instance). 

However, the MGallery Collection has always come across to me as a rather confusing brand. The brand has historically been an upmarket branch of Mercure, but it was later revamped to include a ‘by Sofitel’ tag (I reckon to make it more premium); now, that tag has since been dropped.

Booking The Royal Surakarta Heritage

Deciding to prolong our stay in Solo, we decided to book The Royal Surakarta Heritage the day before arrival. We booked our stay with Accor, and paid a room-only nightly rate of IDR550,000 (~£29). Outside the incredible price of the room, the price is more so a steal compared to the Alila Solo.

Location

Starting at a very high point, the hotel’s location is second to none. The Royal Surakarta Heritage is located smack bang in the middle of downtown Solo and is a short 15 walk to any place of interest in the city. Likewise, the centre of Solo is very much walkable, so I felt that the hotel’s location is incredibly practical and convenient. 

Arrival and Check-in

After checking out from Alila Solo, we went straight to The Royal Surakarta Heritage. After a 20-minute taxi ride, we arrived at the hotel’s crowded porte-cochere, where we were greeted by the doorman.

Spotting the reception table at the end of the lobby, we headed there to get ourselves registered. The check-in process was very straightforward and handled very quickly by the friendly reception associate. It wasn’t five minutes before we settled into our room. 

Our Deluxe Room

Bedroom

My initial impression of the room was that it was airy and spacious. The room is advertised at 31 sqm (smaller than the room at the Alila), although it certainly felt larger than that. I thought that the room and the entire hotel had a significant sense of place, given the decor. As such, it is no surprise to hear that the hotel is actually owned by the royal family of Surakarta.

The room features a small desk by the corner near the window, alongside a small wooden armchair, as well as a flatscreen LCD television. Again I appreciated that virtually every inch of the room is covered with traditional batik patterns, giving the room a lot of character.

Despite my good initial impressions, I found the orange wall to look quite loud and bothersome, compared to the rest of the room. I also found the room to be surprisingly dark and dim, despite the lights being turned on. Also, be sure to request an exterior-facing room as there is a sizeable number of rooms that have interior views. Moreover, upon closer inspection, the room has a lot of wear and tear and was certainly aging. This was particularly evident in the bathroom area.

Bathroom

The bathroom is located by the entrance to the room and features a bathtub and shower combination. Whilst the bathroom looked fine, the water pressure and temperature were poor. In fact, there was hardly any pressure coming out of the shower head, and I struggled to get the water above lukewarm. Sadly, the towels were also questionably off-white, making us wish that we brought our own towels. 

Furthermore, both the bathroom and for some reason, the inside of the closets were very damp. In fact, whenever we hung any clothes in the closet, it would end up feeling wet to the touch. Apart from that, the room was fine and reasonably clean.

Hotel Grounds and Amenities

Pool

The hotel has a semi-outdoor swimming pool featuring views of the Solo city skyline. The pool feels rather small and narrow, and as such, didn’t strike to be particularly inviting. Interestingly, there weren’t any loungers by the poolside, either, with deck chairs in their place.

Gymnasium

The gymnasium is located next to the pool and felt really spacious, despite looking a bit old. Still, the equipment looked well-kept and serviceable, although they aren’t to the level of that at Alila Solo.

Public areas

Interestingly, there are also a few seating areas scattered randomly around the hotel. One such example is the following seating area located in the indoors atrium courtyard. Whilst the space looked quite nice, it did feel really strange. For one, the atrium would look very nice had they installed ceiling windows for sunlight to penetrate the space.

Finally, located next to the lobby is the Srikandi Restaurant, where all meals are served. The hotel does not have any other dining outlets apart from the small pool bar located next to the pool.

Service

I generally thought that the staff were friendly and respectful. Each staff member were courteous, quick to smile and acknowledge or greet guests. Sadly, however, it did strike me that attention to detail was not very good.

For one, the two times we made a request to the staff, they were not fulfilled. One day, we went to the reception and requested our room to be serviced when we left at 09.00, only to find it not made up when we returned after lunch. The next day, our room was made up without question when we came back at 9.40. Next, we requested a taxi early in the morning to head to the airport the night before. Lo and behold, the hotel never made a request for a cab when we headed down the next morning. Thankfully, a cab arrived within 10 minutes of calling.

Overall

Overall, the hotel is inherently very mediocre, if not rather unsatisfactory. However, we didn’t have much qualms about our stay there given the hotel’s excellent location. In fact, it did seem like The Royal Surakarta Heritage is the only decent hotel option in downtown Solo. As a comparison, the rooms and facilities at Alila Solo are definitely superior, but its location pales in comparison to The Royal Surakarta Heritage.

As such, should I return to the city, I would not hesitate to stay here again (assuming that there are no new hotels nearby), although I’d probably bring my own towels.