Hotel

hotel review: loloma’s at white rock

Posted on April 4, 2016

Life has been hectic the past few months . And it had been TOO long since our last getaway so we had to plan another one. After discussions about whether to travel up or down the coast, we settled on travelling inland to Bathurst (about 200 km north-west of Sydney). ROAD TRIP!

Then came the joy of finding a place to stay over the long weekend… Availability was hard to come by. And after shooting off piles of emails, we finally found somewhere that we were happy with: Loloma’s at White Rock. Relaxing, peaceful, luxurious… yep – that’s what we needed. It’s not a hotel but a bed & breakfast, our first B&B in Australia.

Opened late last year, it is a new kid on the block. There were not many reviews around when we looked online but the pictures did speak for themselves.

Out of all the places we looked at, it easily ticked the boxes of what we wanted. It looked modern, clean and had character – none of this generic decor that you get in hotels. The lovely communication from the owner also added to our decision to book Loloma’s at White Rock.

It is “outside” of town, however, only about a 5-10 minute drive from Bathurst in the quiet residential suburb of White Rock.

Reception & Check In/Out

There really is no official check-in process. The owner requested the day before if we could advise her of our estimated arrival time. And sure enough, we were promptly greeted on arrival. It was quick and easy.

Rooms

We opted for the slightly cheaper room (to suit our budget) and so we assumed it was smaller. But it was certainly spacious enough for our liking. It felt like we were in a studio apartment. The room is climately-comfortable (if there is such a word): options to use air-conditioner, ceiling fan, bathroom heater and electric blanket. All bases are covered. The bed was very comfortable with a pillow-top mattress. The bed is fitted with an electric blanket (for those colder nights) and soft, fluffy pillows which we couldn’t wait to lay our heads down. The kitchenette is equipped with a “coffee-pod” machine (we don’t drink coffee so have no idea what those are called), a microwave, a kettle, a toaster, a bar fridge, cutlery and plates/bowls. Anything one would need for a short stay anywhere.

The room has a little sunroom where we could sit and enjoy breakfast with views of the pool deck. The bathroom is modern and spacious with all the necessary toiletries. Having a shower here was incredible, the shower head had perfect water pressure and was huge. It was like standing under a waterfall. But the important thing is cleanliness and it was clean. The Other Bits

Our stay also offered plenty of inclusions with no hidden costs:

free wifi
access to Netflix
free parking
breakfast hamper (meeting dietary requirements without extra) – on booking, the owner sent a little questionnaire about our breakfast habits and dietary requirements and was able to prepare the breakfast hamper to our needs. We felt utterly spoilt for choice. What you see in the photo was only half of what was offered, there was more in the fridge.

The Verdict

Loloma’s at White Rock is a wonderful B&B. The room is comfortable, private and luxurious. The warmth and welcoming owner made us feel so comfortable. She was so helpful and hospitable. This was our first ever B&B stay in Australia and we will be sure to try it again if all places and hosts are as friendly and kind.

We have no complaints about our stay. Maybe our only feedback is that the room needs some facial tissues. 🙂 But that’s really about all we could come up with.

So would we recommend it? Most definitely.

Disclaimer: Loloma’s at White Rock offered us a special room rate. There was no expectation for a review or an endorsement. This review and opinions expressed are entirely our own.

This entry was posted in Australia, New South Wales and tagged accommodation, B&B, Bathurst, bed and breakfast, Hotel, hotel review, Loloma's at White Rock, luxury stay, road trip.

48 hours in dubai: this is what we did (day 1)

Posted on November 13, 2013

We’ve been back for over a month and it seriously feels like we’ve never been away. How does going back to work do that to us? And we’ve written a few posts about Turkey but still yet to cover another part of that trip; Dubai.

So what is there to do in Dubai? This is what we did in our 2 days stopover.

We arriving late on the Tuesday night (Day 0) and had booked everything with our Emirates flights as part of the “Arabian Adventures” 3-night stopover. It was our last ditch at feeling “away” before we flew back to Sydney.

The package was a VIP welcome before customs (which was really a “hello” and “this is where you go for your hotel transfer”) with a Welcome Package and complimentary transfers to our hotel, Park Regis Kris Kin. We were told to sit and wait for our names to be called…. everybody turning up after us were being transported off but we sat and waited and waited and waited. Finally, we got to our hotel which was amazing and super comfortable (we have reviewed it at Tripadvisor).

After a day of flying from Antalya to Dubai via Istanbul, we were exhausted so were happy to just crash on that first night.

Day 1

According to our package, before the pre-arranged (as part of this stopover package) City of Merchants tour, we were meeting a representative at midday at the hotel. This meant our Wednesday morning would not be as productive as we had hoped. So we spent the morning exploring our first mall in Dubai. The walk from the hotel was 5-7 minutes but goodness, the heat was unforgiving and we were relieved to hit the air-conditioning. The mall was filled with luxury brand shops but not with many shoppers. It did get us questioning how there could be so many malls yet not all the malls be busy? We later learned malls were a form of air-conditioned entertainment to escape the searing heat of the desert.

Meeting our representative at noon was extremely pointless because she provided no additional information than what was provided in the Welcome Package – so that was the biggest waste of our time. We were beginning to get a little unimpressed with the service we were getting from the Arabian Adventure representatives.

However, they were able to redeem themselves with the City of Merchants tour. The tour guide whose name escapes us now (dammit!) was extremely entertaining. We also received bottled water every time we climbed back on the coach. They were very conscientious about not letting us dehydrate!

With the half day tour, we got:

(1) a photo stop at the Burj Al Arab: the self-proclaimed “7-star hotel”