The Hermitage, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel, Jakarta

December 30th, 2023

Posts in this series:

Introduction - Island Hopping in Southeast Asia

Review - British Airways Business Class B777-200 Toronto Pearson to London Heathrow

Review - Finnair Business Class A350-900 London Heathrow to Helsinki

Review - Finnair Business Class A350-900 Helsinki to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi

Review - Conrad Bangkok

Review - The Ritz-Carlton Langkawi

Review - Firefly Economy Class ATR72-500 Langkawi to Subang

Review - The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur

Review - Malaysia Airlines Economy Class B737-800 Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar

Review - Alila Villas Uluwatu

Review - TransNusa Economy Class A320 Denpasar to Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta

Review - The Hermitage, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel, Jakarta

Review - Qatar Airways Business Class A350-900 Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta to Doha

Review - Qatar Airways Business Class B777-300ER Doha to New York Kennedy

Enroute:

Our last stop of this trip was Jakarta. I’ve visited Jakarta once before under similar circumstances, where I had a layover from Sydney to Dubai. Jakarta is a sprawling metropolis, but I personally didn’t find it to have much to do there. It’s certainly not in the same league as Bangkok when it comes to tourism. I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental on my last visit, which was fine. I wanted to get one more night in for my Marriott membership year, and the Hermitage looked intriguing. Compared to the Ritz and the other Marriott properties in the city, the Hermitage seemed to have a bit more character.

Check-in:

We arrived at the hotel shortly after 7pm and were checked in immediately. For some reason, the front desk agent was adamant about Marriott’s late checkout policy being subject to availability. I really wanted to go to this specialty Chinese sauerkraut fish restaurant before it closed for the evening, so I just asked her to check with her manager and get back to me. While we were at the restaurant enjoying a lovely meal, the manager whatsapp’d me and apologized for not being able to extend checkout to 4pm due to high occupancy. So I had to temporarily suspend my dining pleasure, went to Marriott’s website, sent a screenshot of the late checkout policy to the manager and put my phone face down after that. Unsurprisingly, we were offered the 4pm checkout when I checked my phone after dinner. All that song-and-dance and indigestion for nothing.

And that about summarizes the check-in experience. It’s not like they weren’t friendly though. They were just wrong.

The lobby of the hotel was, as I expected, rather charming. The colonial building was restored but maintained the original style. I particularly loved all the vintage furniture. The hotel fit in quite nicely in the neighborhood, given its location within the diplomatic district where all the ambassador residences were.

Unpack:

For our one night, we stayed in the one-bedroom studio suite with club benefits.

The suite consisted of essentially three juxtaposed rooms. I didn’t mind the design of it, but there was an odor as if somebody had smoked in the room prior. And while the hotel described itself as a “fine 5-star”, I’d take that with a grain of salt. Not that I was expecting a jaw-dropping luxury hotel at $200 a night. Although in Jakarta, you do have some serious contenders at that price range, both the Park Hyatt and Four Seasons were only marginally more.

Last in the suite was the bathroom, which wasn’t meticulously cleaned. I found a couple long hairs on the shower floor. The toiletries didn’t appear to be high-end either.

Our suite was on the second floor, so there was no views to speak of. Granted this was constrained by the building vintage.

I saw a taxi driver taking a nap under our window, which made me chuckle. I wish I can sleep like that on airplanes. I’d never have jetlag again.

Unwind:

The Hermitage had a rooftop pool. However, it was so poorly designed - the water spilt everywhere, making the path incredibly slippery to walk on. There was no other way to get to the rooftop bar.

From the rooftop bar you could see the panorama of the city. The rooftop itself wasn’t too inspiring, as there was barely any seating and no service until 4pm.

We got a massage on our departure day. The hotel didn’t have a spa, rather we were brought to a guest room that was converted to a treatment room. The massages weren’t great. I would not recommend getting it here.

Refuel:

I’m not sure if the Hermitage had a designated club lounge, since we were invited to use the 1928 restaurant as the lounge.

In the evening there was an ok spread of cold dishes, desserts and a couple of hot options. Additionally, there was a bar from which you could request some basic cocktails. For a SE Asian hotel, the offering was uncompetitive.

I just picked at some dragon fruit.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the same restaurant. While there was a buffet set up, we just ordered from the menu.

Unfortunately, all of the dishes were mediocre. I was glad we didn’t order more, because we couldn’t finish any of them.

Depart:

So, uh, yeah. As you can probably tell, the Hermitage wasn’t great. I want to caveat that maybe it was just the fact that we were at the end of an extended trip after staying at some amazing properties, the returns had just completely diminished. That said, I just didn’t find anything going for this hotel. Was it acceptable? Sure. But I don’t see any reason why anyone should choose it over the other dozens of similarly priced hotels in Jakarta.