The Sintesa Peninsula hotel is the largest in the quaint town of Manado, the capital of the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia. It is the closest to the Philippines and is a part of the Islands of Celebes. It is famous for spices and natural and human beauty. Its growing importance is due to its tourism and conference centres.
The hotel is the middle of the small town, about 30 minutes from the airport named after Sam Rutulangi, a national hero. The airport is the mainstay of connectivity for the city though roads are now aplenty to link to nearby tourist spots and port.
The hotel is large and well laid out. It has a spacious lobby and large ball room.3 elevators take you to the higher floor. Most rooms have a view of the sea. Some have a fantastic view of an adjoining volcano and may be preferred as the sea view is not unimpeded.
The restaurants serve adequate food manly local Indonesian and Asian with standard western fare too. The pool is large but crowded on Sundays when a weekend brunch takes place.
There are now several business hotels in Manado but the Sintesa remains the best.

For the standard of this hotel the price paid was very reasonable.I stayed for 3nights...and enjoyed it.Checkin was a tad slow but the staffs were polite.Room had an excellant view of the town and sea.It was spacious and big with lots of room to place your luggage.Bathroom also was very big but minimal amenities.Overall it was a comfortable room with a nice big comfy bed.
Service wise we had room service and no complaints.Quite efficient as they delivered the food within half an hour.But the quality was average and portions not that generous.The breakfast buffet was good with a wide range but no variety from day 1 to day 3.
Since the hotel was ontop of a hill..luckily we had a car at our disposal so we didnt have to climb up as it was rather steep.
I would return to this hotel but rumour has it that it was formerly a hospital so not a very nice thought if i were to go back.

I am not sure what criteria are applied in Indonesia when Hotels get star ratings. Is it only hardware, or does it include software as well?

Upon check-in, the Receptionists (4) were more interested in talking amongst themselves instead of attending to the would-be guest (me) who was waiting to check-in.

Although wi-fi was advertised, access was intermittent and in the bedroom signals were really weak.

Having asked for a wake-up call at 6.15 am the night before, I was awakened at 5.15 am, with a computer-enabled follow up 15 minutes later at 5.30 am.


At around 6.30 am I proceeded to the Cafe for breakfast and found all the ingredients and apparatus at the egg station but no chef! I fried the omelette (and have a photograph from my business associate) as proof! So did another guest!

The hardware is up to snuff and all you can ask for, but the software?

Very mixed experience staying at the Sintesa Peninsula Hotel. Staff were disinterested and slow - I received consistently poor service, especially from front desk staff. Facilities potentially very good - for example, the fitness centre has brand new equipment, but no air conditioning so unpleasant to work out in high humidity. Room service and food very good, but small portions and slow service. Large rooms and great views of city, but the location is not very convenient - set apart in large grounds up a long driveway - and the staff were again slow and unhelpful in organising taxis. In short, would not stay here again: not deserving of star rating and certainly not off room cost.