Gerindem Cottages

I arrived at the cottages without a booking, because I wanted to see the place first. I saw on the AirBnB and *********** that there were space before showing up. When I arrived the staff was nice, and showed me a free room. The room was fairly decent, looked Bali clean and there was an outside area, that was private for the room. So I decided I would stay for a couple of nights. We even agreed on the price, and I thought all I needed was to do the check in. Then one of the staff members hands me the phone to talk to the owner. I thought it was going to be a welcoming call, but instead I received a rude explanation on how they can not take me in as a guest. Apparently because I didn't book 5 min in advance, they had decided to keep the room booked for some more "valuable" customer. I offered to do the online booking, as I had the app open in my hand and the room was still available on the app. I was willing to pay the same price if nessasary (the only reason I didn't book in advance, was because I prefer to see my rooms before booking. I also usually offer to pay the place directly, so they can avoid paying service fees to various booking apps and that might allow them to give me a small discount). Usually this practice has been met with gratitude, but in this case it seemed to have resulted in that I was apparently not valued as a customer. The owner talked about someone sending a query to see the place before. And even though I had sent a message to a few places this was not one of them. So not sure if they were mixing me up with someone else, and that's why they behaved this way. In either case, I never heard an owner saying they won't accept a customer who is on site, and willing to pay the same price or book online, because the prefer to keep the place unbooked for a more valuable customer, that might book later, so they don't loose business. As I just arrived to Ubud and Bali, I was really tired and just wanted a place to sleep so I didn't feel like fighting the owner. I asked if I could leave my bags in the reception while going to look for another place to sleep at least the night. Thankfully, one of the staff members picked up on the situation and clearly had worked in the service industry before. They called another place close by for availability and offered to take me to see it. Even though the place wasn't for me, I really appreciate them trying to help me solve my situation and maintaining service quality til the very end. While the experience of the owner was really rude and the establishment wasn't really as high end as the pictures give off. I was really impressed by the staff. I would give the staff 10 points for Balinese kindness and overall customer experience. There was this one guy, I would hire in a heartbeat, as they did work according to what true service quality is all about! If it weren't for the staff, my experience at Gerindem Cottages was not a positive one. Due to this, I wouldn't recommend this p