Hi Nemo,
I and my hubby brought my parents to BTB last month for 3D2N. We booked two Bayfront Jacuzzi villas (Fascinating holidays had a promo) but when we got there they had given us a free upgrade of one of the villas to Seafront Jacuzzi. As far as I can see there are two main room layouts for the diff jacuzzi villas. I gave my parents the Seafront one but they later said they preferred the layout of mine! Too late!!
The seafront villa has two bathrooms - one has a sunken bath and WC. The other one is a walk-in closet/dressing area with washbasin. Mother complained that cannot wash hands after going to toilet, must come out of one bathroom and rush to the other one! Ha ha!!
Also their bed was right in the middle of the room, raised quite high with a platform running around it (father had prob getting into bed). This is because you get a lovely view overlooking the jacuzzi deck and the sea. The TV was in the corner and angled away from the seating alcove on one side of the room so it's quite difficult to watch TV unless you drag a chair directly in front of it. Their villa was one of those that had the front door situated below the road and & a uneven staircase with no railing leading up to the road. Mother also complained abt that because of her bad knee.
My villa on the other hand was raised above the road level and the stairs was a nice wooden one with railings. The bed was at normal height and headboard against the wall. There was more seating area in front of the TV & also got coffee table. Bathroom was all in one - two washbasins, toilet, sunken bath, wardrobe, safe etc.
We traveled around the resort by buggy most of the time because of my parents but everything is actually within walking distance.
Moral of the story: the villas are truly beautiful and romantic but older folks may have a problem with some of the facilities esp if they have mobility probs. So always inform the staff ahead of time in order to pick out a more convenient villa, e.g. those with doorway at road level etc. And btw, my parents had better room service & experience than we did - prob cos their villa more expensive. The staff came in to light their aromatherapy burner, leave cookies on their bed every night, even gave a good bye gift when we left the resort! We didn't get any of those things, plus our jacuzzi was dirty (slimy) and we had to call for the staff to clean it out before we could use it!
Food - i have absolutely no complaints! My hubby who is such a stickler for good service and good quality food thought their restaurants were great. We tried all three. Prices aren't cheap - they are like mid-priced restaurants in Singapore but have service & quality like the more expensive restaurants. Budget S$30-40 per person. The crossroads restaurant has a buffet breakfast for S$30 and it's expensive cos there is free flow champagne. To save, just eat the alacarte breakfast options, or bring your own stuff and eat in the villa - there is a small fridge you can use to keep butter and jam etc. There's also a kettle and coffee press in the room bar. You can bring your own coffee grounds altho that is also provided free. 4 free bottles of mineral water in each villa. If you order bottled water with your restaurant meal they charge USD$2.50 per bottle.
Service - no complaints about that either. The staff are really very well trained and genuinely friendly, as everyone here has said.
For villa recommendations, I would recommend you go to the Banyan Tree website and look carefully at the floor plans for the different villas. The cheapest villas have no seaview. The bayfront ones are high up on the hill overlooking the sea. Seafront is lower down on the hill & nearer the sea and villa on the rocks is at the lowest level. There is little or no beach at the resort. Most of the villas are high up on the hill and no easy path to the sea - which anyway is full of rocks on the shore, not sand. So don't expect it to be a beach holiday. It's a spa resort!
I also have some personal photos taken inside the villas - if you want to see how they look like inside, you can email me at
[email protected] and I can send u the link.
