Palm Malinamoc Hotel

If you value peace of mind in the months and weeks before your trip, this isn't the hotel for you. They'll cancel your reservation and not bother telling you. I'm travelling to Dili with my family in June 2024 and booked with Malinamoc in January. We received email confirmation of our booking for two rooms. So, two weeks before departure, I send an email to confirm our booking. They sat on that email for 3-4 days before responding that our room was taken, and that they'd need to cancel our booking. No recommendations for alternate accommodation, no indication that they actually recognise the inconvenience. I wonder - had I not asked, would we have just arrived next Saturday and been turned away? Amateurish is an understatement. So here I am, 8 days out from our arrival and scrambling to find alternate accommodation for my wife and three children in Dili (which is not easy). Be extremely careful booking with these people. They'll double book the room you reserve 5 months in advance, and not bother to tell you.

I can't praise Malinamoc high enough. We stayed here for more than 5 months, while my wife worked / volunteered at nearby Maluk Timor. Given the obstacles to hotel facility management and service delivery in this beautiful country, relatively, I think this is the best managed hotel I have ever experienced in my 35 years of travelling. Beautiful tropical gardens, lovely pool, nice apartments (well furnished, quality furnishings, nice standard throughout, good layout, light, everything working, impeccably cleaned) and wonderful friendly happy hard-working staff. It's a luxury to have 24/7 air-con and power all sorted for you, backup generator, internet (subject to country limitations), water barrels changed regularly, gas and a maid to do your laundry and service your apartment seven days a week, breakfast buffet and eggs cooked to your liking, 24/7 security. No request was too great - the highly experienced owner / manager Alvaro is happy to accommodate anything you need. It is close by the airport and not too difficult to wave down a taxi into town (which are cheap) or you can walk to the local shops, or you can even catch a mikrolet (local mini bus) if you're inclined, which go everywhere. The local neighborhood is very friendly and enjoyable to walk around. I can't recommend the place highly enough. It was a wonderful oasis and I think it is the best place to stay in all of Dili, especially if you have your own vehicle (I researched them all before we arrived and inspected many after we arrived). Thankyou Malinamoc (and special thanks to Alvaro, ).our maid Ali, our breakfast cook Mercy and the amazing head gardener).