Having been a regular ascot/somerset residence i was lured by the 'stay 2 nites get one free offer.'

I should have smelt a rat when i was asked for the first time to pay for the room at check-in, as it was too late to cancel my reservation when there was piling going on next door making it impossible to sleep.

Reception made no mention of this fact at check in and this wasnt helped by the fact there were no other rooms available.

The construction site is about 70% complete so if you value sleep and sanity, dont bother staying here for another 6 months

I stayed in a two-bedroom deluxe apartment in September 2011 for eight nights. I was initially apprehensive due to the negative reviews that I read here. I am glad to say that my experience was very different to the negative reviews, and that this would be my hotel of choice when I return to Jakarta.

The apartment was very big and spacious. The kitchen was fully equipped with appliances, cooking pots and utensils, crockery and cutlery, all maintained to a good standard. The integrated clothes washer and drier was very useful. The hotel provided dishwashing liquid and laundry detergent. There was a maid's room with a separate bathroom. In fact, the two-bedroom apartment had three functional bathrooms. The dining room, lounge room, flat screen TV and TV in the master bedroom made the apartment comfortable.

The gym was quite impressive, with a cardio room on the ground floor and a weights room and sauna on the first floor. The hotel has two tennis courts and an attractive pool. Exercise classes are conducted every morning in an aerobics room.

The apartment was serviced every day, and my only problem was that the air conditioner in the second bedroom did not work. The staff repaired this promptly when I alerted them to the problem. I found that using the telephone to ask for help was not as effective as visiting staff at the reception desk.

All of the staff in the hotel demonstrated a high standard of service, and most could communicate in English. The temperature in the breakfast room was quite warm, however the breakfast buffet provided a reasonable range of choices from hot food, to continental breakfast choices, salad, fruits and juices.

The location is not ideal at present, with major road construction hampering road traffic in front of the hotel, and noisy construction of three multi-storey towers next door to the hotel. Despite these limitations, I appreciated the convenience of the two shopping malls across the street and the small shop in the hotel lobby.

Overall I rate this hotel and good value for money, with impressive staff and impressive apartment and hotel facilities.

When I came to Jakarta with my family in July-August 2009, I already stayed a few times, each several days, at Somerset Grand Citra. Each of our stay, especially upon check-in, I always had several problems each apartment as well as in the breakfast room.

In July this year, I came to Jakarta again and stayed twice at Somerset Grand Citra, each stay was a few days. They still had the same problems as two years ago.

As I was always very busy and had very tight schedules in Indonesia, most of the time I could only check-in late at night, sometimes even around or after midnight as I arrived from different cities in Indonesia. It means most apartments were already occupied. Despite I always made my booking a few days in advance but I never got an apartment without any problem.

Once I checked in and got a two bedroom apartment in which the air condition in both bedrooms were broken and the engineering couldn't repair it anymore. Then I got another apartment in which the air condition in one of the bedroom was broken. Finally I got the third choice in which all air conditions were all working out well. Then we took that apartment. At the end it took almost two hours of the check-in until I could enter the apartment. I have two kids and one of them is just three years old and was already very tired. It was very unfortunate check-in.

Unfortunately the reading lamps in the master bedroom were broken so that the engineering staffs had to come and fix them. Also there were no hand towels at all in both bathrooms and the house keeping said that they couldn't give me hand towels anymore that night. The towels in both bathrooms were already very old and ripped-off. These towels were not proper anymore to be used in an exclusive apartment with high standard of price. The dishes in the kitchen were very ugly and too little for a two bedroom apartment. In 2009 the towels and dishes were still nice enough.

The air condition in the breakfast restaurant was also not working well. Every morning was always too hot in there. On top of it there were too many guests and not enough tables for all guests so that people had to wait too long to get a table. The breakfast room just didn't have enough capacity for the amount of guests that they had. Especially because all long staying guests + their families as well as short staying guests + their families had breakfast in that only one restaurant.

People also had to wait for a long time to order egg dishes as there are only two cooks did all the cooking for how many hundreds of people. The food was often empty and the staff didn't fill them fast enough.

The matrasses in the bedrooms were all already too old and not good to sleep anymore. There are also only two cushions provided for king size bed and one for single bed. no spare cushion & blanket provided at all. The worse was that those cushions were all very old and not good to sleep on anymore. Whereas in most hotels nowdays there are so many nice new cushions provided in the bed more that needed and there are always spare cushions & blankets in the cabinets usually.

On top of it around the area of Somerset Grand Citra there is a construction site of a fly over road that made the traffic jam really bad the whole day even until midnight time.

What I like most from Somerset Grand Citra that the location is very central that it's very easy to go to most part of Jakarta. Especially most staffs of Somerset Grand Citra are very friendly and helpful. They really try to accomodate my needs and always give help as much as they can. These make me feel like home when I stay at Somerset Grand Citra. Especially Mrs. Lucia J. Werry, Assistant Residence Manager, who is always very friendly and helpful to me. Free parking is also provided as I always had a car and a driver when I come to Jakarta.

There's a spare laundry room in the apartment that can be used for driver's room in case if the driver doesn't want to sleep in the driver room in the parking garage. Accross the street there is Ambassador Mall where people can shop for clothing, electronics and lots of good restaurants. It's very practical if you need to buy some good food and want to eat in the apartment.

Hence Somerset Grand Citra really needs total refusbishments urgently. They also should prepare and check an apartment before the guests arrive to make sure that everything is there and all equipments are working out well. It seems there's no general check before they give the apartment to their guests because I experienced these bad check-in almost all the time everytime I stayed at Somerset Grand Citra.

This is my second time staying here. I was shockingly disappointed. The room they gave us was old. Rooms were gloomy with few fused light bulbs, air-conditioning in the living room was blowing normal warm air, kitchen appliances does not work and etc. Breakfast is also a mad rush. So many guests and hardly enough food for all and replenishment is slow. Having said that, the staff are courteous. Basically Somerset should upgrade this hotel and refurbish it. Otherwise it gives a bad name to its brand. Other Somersets in Singapore, HCM, Manila and etc that I have stayed are reasonably well maintained. Buck Up!!!!