Name: Hotel Timor
Address: Rua Martires da Pátria, Dili, Dili, Dili, PO Box 470, East Timor
Rating: 7

Air conditioning

24-hour reception

Smoke-free property

Gift shop

Garden

General

Non-smoking rooms

Room service

Fridge

Cable TV

Minibar

Hairdryer

Shower/Bathtub

Shower

Wardrobe/Closet

Toiletries

Rooms

Ironing

Laundry

Safe-deposit box

Concierge services

Luggage storage

Wake-up service

Telephone

Services and amenities

Restaurant

Snack bar

Kettle

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Airport transportation (complimentary)

Car rental

Transfer

English

Portuguese

Languages Spoken

No parking

Parking

Swimming pool

Outdoor pool

Pool and beach

Business center

Event facilities

Business

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the hotel

Room amenities

Comoro Airport

Atauro Airport

Hotel Timor

Dili

I stayed here for 3 nights when visiting Dili. It’s traditional style with a modern take. I liked all the wooden decor. The pool looked fabulous however I didn’t have time for a dip. The breakfast each morning was good with lots of options. Spacious room and comfy bed. Convenient location. Recommend!

Comfortable stay

Hotel Timor was fine with accommodation, food etc. The staff were friendly. Our bad experience was with the tour guide they recommended. 
We booked and paid him for 4 days of tours with a guide called Edy Lucky. The first 2 days were fine, but he cancelled the second 2 days on us. We spent 3 days trying to get a refund but to no avail. He kept  promising to but never turned up.
The people of East Timor are very friendly and we always felt safe. Unfortunately, one bad guide who rips you off leaves a sour memory of a country that desperately needs tourism to flourish.

Let down by the tour guide

Location is great for central Dili exploring, or for the early ferry to Atuaro ferry. The hotel has free airport pick up, with a lovely cold bottle of water supplied for the drive. 
The hotel and room itself was nice, the room was clean (although shower screen could have had a bit more of a scrub). Breakfast was the usual Bain Marie of eggs, mushrooms, Frankfurt, with yoghurt, cereal fruit and drinks. 
The price is on the high side even though it is a nice place to stay. I cancelled my second booking and stayed elsewhere due to the price. 

Nice hotel, good location, just expensive 

Hats off to the Special GnT and the ginger tea.
Had one of these everyday for my 10 day stint in Dili. Both are the inventions of a very talented restaurant staff member.

The evening crew at the Hotel are to be equally commended.

The food at the hotel is disappointingly European. The attempt at local fruits for breakfast and stir fried local greens for dinner could be so much better if the hotel took a chance with all that organic produce readily available literally 3 minutes ride by Bemo down at the Lecidere foreshore fruit and vegetable market.

Historic Hotel in which you can otherwise watch the wheeling and dealing of Dili and witness the microcosm of what Dili is today.

HT Gnt Special and Ginger Tea to wind down with

A great choice for our first stay in Dii - a lovely old Portugese-style hotel in a central location.  Rooms are large and very clean, on-site pool great to cool off, and inviting lobby area with cafe and restaurant.  Excellent service from friendly and helpful staff. A lot more character than other modern hotels in Dili. Highly recommended.

Lovely old Portugese-style hotel in central Dili location

Supposedly the best hotel in Dili with rack rates on par with hotels in 1st world countries, the Hotel Timor should be better than it is. I remarked to someone traveling with me that it is the sort of hotel where almost no one is paying their own bill (diplomats, meeting attendees, NGOs, etc) and even they must expect a certain standard that certainly wasn’t evident to me. Firstly though, the hotel is in a nice building. I was told that it was originally a Portuguese building although that wasn’t really obvious. The reception area is spacious with high ceilings and a restaurant/bar to one side. The building and rooms seem well maintained. The pool which is out the back is very nice although a little warm from getting full sun all day. The wifi mostly worked okay in both reception and the room. 

There is no lift but a small and seemingly very old porter easily carried my bags up the one flight of stairs to my room. The room itself was a good size with big bed and a couple of armchairs. The furniture was all of matching slated wood and in nice condition. The bathroom was not good. The plastic floor in the shower enclosure was cracked and the hot water was never even close to hot – in fact it was hardly tepid. I stayed on 2 separate occasions, was given the same room both times and never had hot water. There was a small, empty fridge that was not plugged in and had dirty pooled water at the bottom.  The safe didn’t work. A staff member arrived with a safe key but it was the sort of safe that didn’t take a key and no one ever came back to try again. Most disconcerting is that the room windows opened onto what looked like a roof but staff walked past all the time carrying sheets and towels so it apparently led from housekeeping to the rest of the hotel. It felt very invasive to have people passing within inches of my windows with some of them even looking in and waving to me. All in all, the Hotel Timor may be the best hotel in town but that doesn’t make it very good.  


Should Be Better

This place is a reasonable place to stay. The rooms are tired (particularly the bathrooms) but are reasonably sized. Food is good without being great. Good location with plenty of places within walking distance if you are prepared to look. It is a little on the expensive side but that appears to be normal for Dili. The staff range from very friendly to...not so much. Most were helpful but others...again, not so much. Overall, we were happy with our stay here and loved our time in Dili.

Reasonable place to stay



While Hotel Timor is one of the older hotels in Dili, it has still managed to keep up with the times.  It's not what you'd call modern but that would spoil the traditional feel of the place.

Our room faced the main street but, surprisingly, it wasn't as noisy as we anticipated (we were on level one).  There is no lift and the pool is accessed via level one, you have to walk down outside stairs to it.  There are chairs and lounges and a small bar.

Our room was clean, quiet and comfortable however the shower floor had been badly repaired.

For a tourist, it's not in the best location, there's nothing much around it.  You need a good pair of walking shoes, or a taxi, to take you to a coffee shop or restaurant if you don't want to eat in the hotel.

The restaurant and bar in the hotel is great, and they sell the best Portuguese Nata tarts and great coffee!  The menu is quite varied and beer, wine and cocktails are served, however prices are up there.

Not modern but more traditional 

I was here on business. Hotel Dili is very centrally located, which makes it ideal for reaching meetings, restaurants and shops. The restaurant is decent by Dili standards and it is a good place to hold meetings. Taxis to other locations are easily obtained and several ministries and embassies are walkable. The morning breakfast was adequate with a fair range of buffet items. The pool area, while small, is nicely maintained with a few loungers, though the constant traffic does not inspire relaxation.

Beyond that, the hotel is far from ideal. The facilities would have been new around the early 2000s and haven't been updated, so they are beginning to wear out. My shower base had no support, making it bouncy and cracked, causing constant leakage. It took no fewer than six requests over several days to provide a security box. The iron supplied was burned, leaving marks on my clothes. Internet speed (as elsewhere) is often exceedingly bad, making it very hard to work (hotspotting from a local SIM was often better, though still bad). The desk/chair are at very poor height making it painful to work at. The bed has a bouncy spring mattress which wasn't that comfortable. The Aircon worked well, albeit it was a bit noisy. Staff were polite but not good at problem-solving. To be fair, it is very hard to run a hotel in Dili: getting good staff, spare parts, etc is very hard. Management did recognise that my issues were not being resolved and even offered to upgrade me to a suite - which I declined because it faced the road which is noisy from early morning. I moved to a less problematic room on the mountain-facing side. Clearly management are doing their best but there is no doubt that the place is struggling, and relying a lot on its central location.

Handily central but really needs some TLC

Hotel Timor does provide a sense of place to the country. US$100 including breakfast does seem high for the standard of the hotel but as others have written before this does appear to be Dili prices. It’s very central location is the obvious plus. Breakfast is very basic, a cappuccino costs extra! Rooms are tired but spacious. The air con is noisy at night. Staff are very friendly. As others have said airport pick up seems unreliable, take a taxi for $10 and avoid waiting for driver and / or other guests is my advice. As I rate this hotel from a Dili perspective I rate it very good, in another country it would be average. 

Hotel Timor

Main amenities of the hotel

Location

Available rooms

Location

Description of the hotel

What other amenities are there?

Policies

Check-in terms and conditions

Additional information

Payment