The verdict
One hotel to celebrate in, one to live in, one to hide in. The St. Regis is luxury with the volume turned all the way up, worth every cent for two or three nights. The Laguna is the one I’d move into for a week, and the best value at this level in Nusa Dua by a clear margin. Amarterra is a lovely hideaway that charges too much for it. For a week, five nights at The Laguna and the last two at the St. Regis works beautifully, though not for everyone.
The best way to understand these three hotels is on foot. Start at the St. Regis and walk north along the paved promenade that runs behind Nusa Dua beach. You pass one big hotel after another, each with its own stretch of sand and its own colour of sun umbrella. Halfway along you reach Mengiat Beach, the liveliest part of the walk, where Amarterra keeps its beach club. And just before you arrive at The Laguna, the path rounds Peninsula Island, a small headland of lawns and rock that is, for me, the most beautiful stretch of this whole coast.
It’s a pleasant forty minutes, and it covers three Marriott hotels. In fact Marriott has more than that inside this one enclave, from a Westin and a Renaissance to a Courtyard. What struck me on the walk is that the three I’d actually recommend don’t feel as if they belong to the same company at all. Marriott no longer runs hotels so much as a collection of brands, each with its own personality, and here you can walk between three of them before lunch.
On a booking page they look like three versions of one product at three price points. In real life they’re three different holidays. And the difference between them comes down to one question most people never ask: how much of Bali do you actually want in your holiday?
At a glance
| The St. Regis | The Laguna | Amarterra | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marriott brand | St. Regis | The Luxury Collection | Autograph Collection |
| Opened | 2008 | 1991, rebuilt 2022–23 | 2013; Marriott since 2023 |
| Size | 124 suites and villas | 287 rooms, suites and villas | 42 pool villas |
| Entry room | A 92 m² suite | A 36 m² room | A villa of about 200 m² |
| Beach | On the sand, but it feels apart | Compact, on the promenade | A walk or shuttle away |
| Food | The most theatrical | The best every day | Safe |
| For two, mid-November | Sold out ($870 earlier) | $249 | $414 |
| Family of four | 3.2× | 6.0× | 2.7× |
| Ideal stay | Two or three nights | A week | A few nights, on an offer |
Rates are the cheapest with breakfast, taxes and service on each hotel’s own website for two nights in mid-November 2026. Family factors are from our check of 44 hotels.
How much of Bali does each one let in?
The St. Regis keeps Bali politely outside. When I reviewed it, I called it Atlantis transplanted to Nusa Dua, and I meant it as a compliment: grand, modern, colonial dark wood and heavy fabrics, built to impress rather than to whisper. You don’t come here for the island. You come for luxury at full volume, and it delivers that without a trace of half measure.
The Laguna invites Bali in. A carving of Dewi Danu, the goddess of lakes and waters, sits above the check-in desk. The headboards carry sulaman embroidery from the kebaya, and the breakfast room was rebuilt as a tribute to the village warung. It’s also the one hotel in Nusa Dua you can simply walk out of, onto that promenade, with the Bali Collection a few minutes away. It’s the only place in the enclave where I felt I was somewhere rather than on a property.
Amarterra builds its own Bali: a red-brick Majapahit village with water courts and bronze herons, behind high walls. It’s beautiful, and it’s a concept, which I’ve written about in my review.
Which is the better hotel to spend the day in?
The Laguna, and it isn’t close. It has 287 rooms, which should make it feel like a factory, and instead it’s the most convivial hotel in Nusa Dua. It’s packed together far more tightly than a resort this size has any right to be, so nothing is ever far: seven lagoon pools threading between the buildings, Kulkul Beach House by the sea, De Balé in its village courtyard under the bodhi trees, and the peninsula gardens for a walk. Staff have worked here across generations, and nothing about the warmth is performed. It’s a hotel comfortable in its own skin, and that’s very hard to fake.
The St. Regis is the better hotel to be impressed in. The grounds are enormous, and you feel the scale most in its saltwater lagoon, which is where we spent our days; every stretch of it we explored had something new. It’s less good at letting you do nothing. The St. Regis wants to entertain you, and it’s very good at it, but there’s no off switch.
Amarterra is the better hotel to be alone in, in your own villa with your own pool. As soon as you want company, you end up at the main pool with the staff, which tells you something.
Which rooms are better?
The St. Regis, by a distance. The cheapest room is a 92-square-metre suite, the bathrooms are some of the largest I’ve had anywhere, and every guest has a butler who actually changes the shape of a stay. One flag from my own stay: I wouldn’t book a lagoon villa. They look beautiful, but people walk past all day, and you’ll have very little privacy.
The Laguna’s entry rooms are 36 square metres, comfortable and freshly done, and size is its one real weakness. The trick is the Lagoon Access room, where you step off your balcony straight into the water. It’s the room I’d book, and we hardly used it, because the rest of the resort kept winning the day. The Laguna also markets a 24-hour butler service. It doesn’t deliver what the St. Regis does, and I don’t understand why it leans on it so hard, in a hotel where almost everything else undersells itself.
Amarterra wins on space for the money: a one-bedroom villa of around two hundred square metres, with its own pool and a living room open to the garden.
Where will you eat best?
For theatre, the St. Regis. Breakfast at Boneka has to be seen to be believed, and Kayuputi by the sea is the most serious dinner in Nusa Dua, with a wine list that has won Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence every year since 2010. Every evening after the fire dancers, the sommelier opens champagne with a sabre and pours it for whoever’s around, which is the only time I’ve seen a hotel give theatre away for free. The bar bill afterwards makes up for it.
For eating well every day, The Laguna. Arwana, on the sand, is simple and outstanding: good ingredients, precise cooking, and a lobster spaghetti I kept going back for. Kulkul Beach House might be the best beach bar in Bali. And breakfast at Banyubiru works because it’s built like a small market with everything cooked to order rather than a buffet under heat lamps. The St. Regis cooks to amaze you. The Laguna cooks so you’ll come back tomorrow.
Amarterra plays it safe in the kitchen, and its free shuttle to the restaurants nearby is the best thing on its dinner menu.
Which has the better beach?
Surprisingly, none of the three wins on sand alone. The St. Regis beach felt like a separate wing of the resort, with less atmosphere than the rest, and we barely used it; the lagoon was the real draw. The Laguna’s beach is compact and pressed against the promenade, but it’s alive: crab hunting at low tide, Kulkul behind you, Peninsula Island a few minutes away. Amarterra has no beach at the door, but its own spot at Mengiat Beach, the liveliest stretch of the walk, with sunbeds and cold water waiting.
If the beach is the reason for your trip, The Laguna gives you the most of it. If it’s just the backdrop, the St. Regis lagoon is the better place to spend a day.
Which is the best value?
When I rechecked the hotels’ own websites for two nights in mid-November, The Laguna came to $249 a night for two, with breakfast and taxes. Amarterra was $414. The St. Regis was sold out; a few weeks earlier, for the same dates, it was $870.
At $249, The Laguna is the best value at this level in Nusa Dua by a clear margin, and the gap with Amarterra makes no sense to me: $165 more a night to give up the beach. The St. Regis costs around three times as much as The Laguna, and for two or three nights it’s worth it, because you get an almost uncomfortable amount for your money: the butler, the champagne hour, a breakfast without a ceiling. My honest reading: the St. Regis gets the credit it deserves, The Laguna is underrated, and Amarterra is a little overrated on price.
And because the St. Regis can sell out weeks ahead, if you want it, book early.
And with children, or if walking is hard?
Families see the biggest differences. On their own websites, The Laguna sent a family of four to a two-bedroom villa at six times the price for two, so it’s worth asking about a suite with a connecting room; the website won’t offer it, but the hotel sometimes will. The St. Regis came to just over three times as much, and its Family Traditions offer lets children under twelve eat free at every meal. Amarterra’s two-bedroom villa came to 2.7 times. What 44 hotels charge a family →
If walking is difficult, The Laguna and the St. Regis are the two easiest resorts in Bali: flat, compact and with buggies on call. The easiest hotels in Bali →
The Nusa Dua hack: five nights here, two nights there
For a week, I’d do five nights at The Laguna and the last two at the St. Regis. You get the easy rhythm of a hotel that feels like home, then the fireworks of one that doesn’t, for less than a week at the St. Regis alone, and the move is a forty-minute walk along the promenade or five minutes by car. But I’d only suggest it to some people. The two are so different that the move can feel like leaving a dinner party for a nightclub, and not everyone wants the nightclub on their last night.
St. Regis, Laguna or Amarterra?
If you’re celebrating, the St. Regis, for a few nights and in a suite rather than a lagoon villa. If you want privacy and your own pool above all, Amarterra, but on an offer. For almost everyone else, and certainly for a week, The Laguna is the quiet winner of Nusa Dua.
If you’re a Marriott Bonvoy member paying cash, you lose nothing by booking through us: your points and elite nights still count, and the advisor benefits come on top. Current offers in Nusa Dua →
The full reviews: The St. Regis, The Laguna and Amarterra. For the other big name on this beach, see The St. Regis vs The Mulia.
Choosing between the three? Send your dates, and we’ll compare the real totals with whatever offers and benefits apply.
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