Relaxing Retreat At 5-Star Singhasari Resort, Kota Batu, Indonesia

Singhasari Resort, the most premium accommodation in the city

The Singhasari Resort is the only 5-star accommodation in Kota Batu and it’s definitely the most lavish hotel in the city. It has numerous excellent services and facilities that other hotels in Kota Batu don’t have. I love its artsy gate, resembling an ancient Javanese palace due to stone walls and decorations resembling Hindu shrines on the walls.

A perfect retreat

As you enter the hotel, you will immediately be fascinated by the property’s open, outdoor space with a large swimming pool perfectly blended together with the hotel’s building and the view of green Mount Arjuna. It’s a serene hotel, with zero noise from the street, which is suitable for your perfect retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Rooms with many amenities

Kota Batu is considered a colder city among most Indonesian tourists (about 25 degree Celsius, or 77 degrees Fahrenheit on average), who are used to much hotter temperatures, so you may not find an air conditioner in most hotels in the city. However, in the hotter, dry season (from April to October), the temperature can rise to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), and the heat may be uncomfortable for some.

At Singhasari Resort you don’t have to worry, as all rooms are spacious and air conditioned. The rooms have everything you need to ensure a comfortable stay such as an LED TV, Wi-Fi, safe deposit box and a balcony with a view of the mountains. However, there are more amenities if you stay in a premier pool access room, which is more spacious (60 square meters / 645.83 square feet) and has a direct access to the hotel’s swimming pool!

Traditional foods

All rates come with a breakfast buffet at Kutaraja Restaurant, one of the hotel’s restaurants. The buffet has a large variety of options, from fruits, salad, pancakes, omelettes to fried noodles and traditional foods served in clay pots.

For local foods, try ‘kolak pisang,’ a type of coconut milk cocktail containing banana, yam and cassava, and ‘onde-onde,’ a deep-fried sesame dough with mung bean filling. Menus are different for each day, so you will get something different everyday!

The only place in town to have alcoholic beverages

Alcoholic beverages are very hard to find in Kota Batu, as Indonesia is mostly a Muslim country (with the exception of places like Bali). It is easier to get alcohol in bigger cities like Jakarta, but in places like Kota Batu, you will only be able to buy alcohol in certain supermarkets in the nearby city of Malang (only about 30-minute drive from Kota Batu). However, if you want beer or wine (try the local beer, ‘Bir Bintang,’ which tastes like a Heineken), go to Singhasari Resort’s rooftop bar named Dimension, which has a gorgeous view of the mountain and the nearby Malang below. Singhasari Resort is perhaps the only hotel selling alcoholic beverages in Kota Batu!

The hotel has another restaurant named Hayam Wuruk Lounge, a 2-floor lounge, which serves cocktails (order the sweet Virgin Shirley Temple for a non-alcoholic beverage), beer, wine and some western foods like black forest cake and burgers.

At Hayam Wuruk, you may enjoy sitting on one of its unique chairs and having your photographs taken. The rattan chairs are different shapes, but the most unique are the chairs without cushions, where you can sit on hundreds of short circular canes of the same shape stuffed!

Enjoy the sunset by the swimming pool

Although Kota Batu is a relatively cooler place compared to most of Indonesia, many times it can get pretty warm at noon, so it’s a good idea to bring your swimming suit with you! There is a shallow children’s pool next to the adult’s pool, so you can bring your children to swim with you.

When was the last time you saw sunset in a mountainous area? If you stay here, you will be able to witness a beautiful sunset! In the evening if you have nothing else to do, go to the pool area, order a cocktail from the lounge and enjoy the time when the sun is slowly disappearing from behind the mountain. What a peaceful view!

Many more amenities

This resort has so many indoor and outdoor facilities that many other accommodations don’t have, including a hot tub (inside a room near the swimming pool), a game room (they have an Xbox consoles with ‘kinects’, where you can punch, kick or make real movement to control the game), a playground, a tennis court, gym and a billiards table.