Editor Pick
Absolutely Out of this World
- September 26, 2009
- Rated 5 of 5 by
koshkha from Northampton, United Kingdom
Kuala Lumpur is a city of fantastic hotels with exceptional service at great value prices. I've been three times and always come away completely amazed by how good the service ethic is in the hotel sector. However, even my high expectations were exceeded on my most recent visit when I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental.
I was in the city for a trade fair and very glad that the colleague who'd organised the trip had decided that we'd not perform well at the fair if we had to stay in a nasty cheap hotel. So she had booked us all into executive club rooms way up on the higher floors. I'm not sure how much of the service we had was due to the status of the rooms and how much was standard so keep in mind that not everything might be on offer if you book a more basic room.
We'd flown in overnight and were picked up by a driver at the airport. It's quite a long trek into town these days so by the time we arrived we were glad to see the hotel and shocked at just how close it was to the famous Petronas Towers. It really is literally next door. We were greeted at the car by a hostess who took our details and then we were taken through the marble lobby, directly to the lifts and straight up to our rooms. Check in was carried out in the room without any need to queue or wait. Everything was very courteous and pleasant.
My room was very nice. Sadly I didn't have a view of the Petronas Towers but I could look out over the lake, the KLCC conference centre and the aquarium through the floor to ceiling windows. The bed was large and very comfortable with luxurious linens. There was a seating area with table and chairs and a bowl of fruit which was topped up daily. I could make coffee if I wanted to, there was a fridge, a good sized work desk and chair and free wi-fi (always a bonus). The bathroom was glorious lots of marble and twinkly lighting with a separate shower and bath and some very nice toiletries. One of the benefits of our executive room plan was a dry cleaning or laundry allowance. This is not unusual in KL hotels and since it's such a hot and sweaty city, you do tend to get through a lot more clothes than normal. I took full advantage of my allowance each day, even hunting out things in the bottom of my suitcase just to get them pressed or freshened.
We kicked off the visit with a briefing for all the trade fair attendees in one of the hotel's meeting rooms and followed it with a Chinese banquet in a nearby room. As a non-meat eater I had plenty of choice but found some of the food a bit over the top. It's hard to say no when you're given soup and don't realise that it's sharks fin and you'd really rather the shark had kept his fin for himself.
We had access to the Executive Club which was beautiful and had fantastic views of the towers. The club was large, filled with comfy armchairs and sofas and offered plenty of free snacks and drinks in the late afternoon and evening as well as breakfast in the mornings. We tried out several of the hotel's many restaurants and considering the five-star status of the hotel, didn't think that the food prices were outrageous. One of my rather traditional 'meat and two veg' colleagues struggled a bit with the sophistication of the menu but I really enjoyed the international options on offer. We didn't always get the restaurant we wanted because the place was so busy that even as a resident you couldn't guarantee a table.
The hotel has a gym, spa and pool but I'm ashamed to say that sipping cold white wine in the club lounge was all I was fit for most evenings after a day at the trade fair. We had a bit of free time and took advantage of the really nice shopping centre that's just next to the hotel as well as dropping into the Aquarium which has some beautiful displays. I also dragged my colleague off to the Orchid Gardens which are my favourite place in the city.
From journal Malaysian Memories