Samabe: Really a Rather Splendid Hotel

En route to the second part of our jolly in South Bali, I am overcome with butler angst. The second hotel we are invited to – Samabe – is not only all-suite, but all-butler, an affectation that’s becoming increasingly popular in high-end hotels around the world, presumably as a personalised version of room service.

Our butler will – gulp! – unpack for us. Which is fine, I guess, if you’re one of those people in possession of organised toiletry bags, rather than a plastic bag full of bottles and another one full of dirty laundry, and you have suitcases, and you pack said suitcases, rather than shoving stuff into them at random, and your suitcases have all their original zips and fastenings, and, and, and…

Mercifully, he doesn’t unpack. In fact, he doesn’t do much, apart from summon the occasional golf cart to ferry us around the landscaped, cliff-top grounds – I understand, however, he can deliver cocktails to the beach.

Samabe is the new opening from the folk behind the Grand Mirage Resort and the Devdan Show, and it is, frankly, rather splendid.

This is part of the living area of our family suite. Please note the telescope. A telescope! Yay! And, further, we not only have a freestanding tub and a separate shower but a guest bathroom in the dining area.

The infinity pool is rather charming, too, as are the views over pristine and unpopulated-but-for-the-odd-temple-monkey beach. We are on the all-inclusive deal – and, I think, if you had a high-powered job from which you wished to unwind by doing absolutely buggerall for a week, all-inclusive here would be rather splendid.

There are oysters! Foie! Caviar! Imported steak! Tuna tartare! Balinese fizz! Cocktails! (The boy’s Virgin Mojito hit the spot; my Strawberry Daiquiri – which I like to think of as ice cream for adults – was way off beam.

What’s outstanding about Samabe is that it’s a small luxury hotel – or, rather, it has relatively few rooms, though it occupies a lot of ground. So it delivers the sense of isolation and privacy that I’d imagine the well-heeled visitor seeks in Nusa Dua in a way that many of the area’s larger luxury places do not.

I’d like to say we make the most of the activities on offer. We don’t. We have our massages, eat our bodyweight in expensive imported food, mainline Cartoon Network (the boy) and read on the balcony (me).

And then it’s back to Ubud, and the ongoing battle to sort our new lives out. Gah.