We booked Jeeva Saba as our wedding venue, since end of 2018, nearly a year before our actual wedding date in September 2019. As our guests will come from out of town and some friends and family will flew in from The Philippine and France, we booked an extra night. We also booked another villa nearby for our extended family member.
The venue is beautiful and fit perfectly for our small and intimate wedding party. And therefore, the 1 star it earned for this review.
HOWEVER, the villa management does not understand hospitality service and has done very minimum to their guests.
Here are the big let-down:
1. As part of our booking, we are entitled for 8 hours of car and driver usage daily. However, due to the poor communication, we (my husband and I) don’t even get information on how the arrangement works. The management FORGOT to mention, that if we don’t make advance request, the car and the driver is NOT standby at the venue. That’s why when we want to use the car to go to the restaurant after our rehearsal at 7pm on the 1st day after check in, it was not available. The same for the morning of the wedding day when 2 of our guests, needed a transportation to go shopping at 10am. Because we didn’t arranged in advance, car and driver was not on standby until 12 noon so our guests had to booked a taxi.
2. The ONLY request we made in advance was for an early (5am) airport drop for 2 of our guests for an international flight on the 22 September (the morning after the wedding party) which was acknowledged and confirmed by Dini, the villa manager. I (the bride) received a phone call in my room at 05:35 am from our guests that they couldn’t get a taxi and that the villa staff couldn’t get them a taxi. WHAT?!!!.... I ended up driving my guests to the airport.
3. No explanation and no respond received from the villa manager (Dini) or her boss (Pak Handi) for the entire Sunday of the incident. The staff who spoke to me during the breakfast said they never had instruction from the villa manager about this airport drop. Dini only showed up on Monday, our check out day. Offering half hearted apology and excused that her child was sick and therefore she was not presence on Sunday. She also mentioned, that when the driver finally arrive that morning, our guests were already gone. EXCUSE ME? We booked the transport for 5AM!!
4. The villa has 8 rooms. We barely filled the entire rooms with guests (maximum capacity of 16 pax). However, on sunday morning, 2 of our guests wanted to have pancake AND the American breakfast. The waiter was trying to tell us that they will be charged for ordering extra!! We were only 10 person in total that morning.
5. Same thing happened when we asked for some coffee by the pool. The butler said it will be IDR 40,000 per cup which we said fine. It’s not about the amount of money, but when you only have 6 person staying and paid for in a villa supposedly filled with 16 person, I think that is too much.
6. On the day of checkout, Dini approached and offered a complimentary 60 minutes massage for 1 person. A bridal party consist of bride and groom, and the complimentary massage is for 1 person. Well done.
7. We had another catering company bringing our Sunday brunch for the family. Dini told me that should have been charged as extra event. With the villa doing nothing. The outside catering company had their own crew and set up without changing anything.
8. Left over wedding cake was left out in the dining room without cover until the day we check out.
9. Water stopped running when I was in the middle of showering, and they didn't call back when they fixed it.
10. You hardly seen/feel the manager's presence
JEEVA SABA management could do a little better in their hospitality service. If so far they never had any complaint and that all their guests were happy with the very minimum things they’re doing, then they were lucky. It is a shame that such a beautiful property was managed poorly. And with the kind of the price tag they are putting, if I had known these at the beginning, I would have brought my business elsewhere.
You have been warned.
