Country Reviews: Great Hotels in Banda Aceh - Pade Aceh

Hotels that are great are hard to find. It is even harder to find a good one in the area of Banda Aceh, Indonesia since the place had been stricken with poverty and tragedies in the past. Country Reviews will introduce a few hotels and lodgings which will suit what a tourist will normally want in Banda Aceh to make your trip to Banda Aceh as comfortable as possible.

1. Pade Aceh, Banda Aceh's Central Area

Jl. Soekarno Hatta No. 1, Desa Daroy Kameu, Aceh Besar, Indonesia

Located in the central area of Banda Aceh, Pade Aceh will offer you the amenities commonly seen in various business hotels worldwide. This hotel provides to its customers 24 room service and parking for those who wants to move in vehicles. Pade Aceh has 65 rooms, with 3 different categories. 

They are: 

1. Deluxe Rooms with a shower head

2. Suite Garden View with Bathtubs

3. Suite Mountain View with Bathtubs

All 3 of them have their pros and cons but the 2 suites (garden and mountain views) contain spacious areas with bathtubs. They are also accordingly priced up but all rooms have cable television and a mini bars filled with drinks and snacks. All rooms also have their own private balconies (the 2 suites have 2 private balconies) where you can glance out of your hotel room to smell the roses in the morning. The beds are clean and their mini bars are stocked to the maximum. Generally, the rooms are clean and what you would expect from a boutique hotel but the whole hotel will seem a little run-down for clean freaks' likings.

However, the pools can't be accessed when the meeting rooms are used so you should check with the counter staff the schedules for meetings to take place at the Pade Aceh. This is because you will have to go through the meeting area to go to the pool; an engineering flaw. The Pade Aceh staff will gladly help you with your woes and worries. They directed to me the most touristy place in Banda Aceh patiently with their broken English which I didn't mind at all.

However, their restaurant will need renovations as their restaurant is mushy and dirty with the orders slow to come. I had to wait 30 minutes for my fried rice when there are only 5 customers in the restaurant which is definitely infuriating. Their room service was also one of the worst in Banda Aceh where their exorbitant prices and limited selections shocked me. A beer costs 10 US dollars there when I can buy a can of beer down the road for less than 5 US dollars back in my country.

All in all, while it is not the best experience that you could have in Banda Aceh, it is still one of the more decent ones in Banda Aceh. Be sure to hold your alcohol appetite as the beer there is expensive as most Indonesians do not consume beer at all.