In Kuala Lumpur I stayed in one of the best hotels I have ever stayed in, the Shangri-La!!
The service was absolutely flawless, the arrival the smoothest I have ever experienced, and the lobby was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, stunning!! ^
So I thought I should write a short review about this hotel as well and there are also some pics at the end so you can have a look yourself.
I booked a “value rate” on the Shangri-La webpage which gave a lot of extra benefits such as free airport limousine transfer (roundtrip), breakfast, late check-out, unlimited laundry, free local calls and broadband in the room.
And believe it or not, in spite of all these extra benefits and the standard of the hotel I did not may more than 150-160 USD per night including all taxes!! Amazing!! ^
Just the airport transfer itself was well worth it, after all the airport in Kuala Lumpur is located a good 60 km outside the city centre, that’s quite a distance!
With such a cheap rate in such a great hotel I could almost have stayed a few more days just to enjoy the hotel.
The booking was made on the Shangri-La webpage, and a few days before arrival I contacted the hotel by e-mail to confirm the airport transfer and make sure they had my details (flight number, arrival time etc).
At the airport there was a young woman standing in the arrivals hall with a Shangri-La sign, I approached her and she asked me if I was Mr jacob_m.
Shangri-La had a desk at the airport, and after signing a paper at the desk they called for the car (the cars are not allowed to wait outside) and the nice girl kept me entertained until the car had arrived outside the terminal. She was quite friendly and very charming, but it took some time before I got used to the Malaysian accent.
The driver was also very pleasant and spoke perfect English. The car was spotlessly clean and inside the car there was a hot towel, a newspaper and a bottle of cold water waiting for me. Excellent!!
The ride to Kuala Lumpur took around 45 minutes, surprisingly quick considering the distance and the time of the day (late afternoon=rush hour).
When the car finally stopped at the hotel a young woman opened the door and immediately greeted me by name and welcomed me to Shangri-La.
I was very surprised she didn’t even ask for my name, she obviously knew well who I was and it soon became clear that the only reason why she was standing there was to wait for me to arrive!!
I was told we would check in in my room so we walked straight into the hotel and to the lifts, no need to stop at the reception since she had all the papers with her. I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to the driver.
Inside my room on the 12th floor I was checked in. She asked for a credit card and my passport and wrote everything down on a form. When the paperwork was completed she asked me if I had any questions and then wished me a nice stay and left.
Wow, what a welcome!! That was the smoothest hotel arrival ever in my life and I was absolutely fascinated by how well it worked and how well it was prepared. ^
I was so overwhelmed that I started thinking if I even got a key, but the key was actually on the desk, together with a personal welcome letter with my name on it signed by the front desk manager. Nice!
A few minutes later the luggage also arrived.
The room was quite nice, nicely decorated, but actually not that large. On the other hand I had a corner room, and based on the emergency exit map the corner rooms seemed to be smaller than the other rooms, but in return they offer a much better view. I was quite happy after all and the view from my room was great, I loved the view at night.
They also had a very good turndown service at the hotel which worked very well. A towel and slippers were placed on the floor by the bed and they also placed a bottle of water on the bedside table. The cover was also removed and they adjusted the ligting and closed the curtains. Everything was really prepared so you could go straight to bed when you came back to the room in the evening.
The hotel itself is also very beautiful, well not the outside, but the inside.
The lobby is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, awesome! The bar was also very nice and some evenings of the week they offered live music, and funnily they had a small stage on top of the bar. I have never seen anything similar before!
The hotel also had several restaurants, a bakery, a shopping arcade, a large business centre, an outdoor swimming pool, a beauty saloon, and an excellent fitness centre.
The breakfast was served in the Lemon Garden restaurant and it was easily the largest and most extensive breakfast buffet I have ever seen. I thought I had seen a lot when it comes to breakfast buffets, but this one was absolutely enormous. They could have kept the buffet and used it as lunch and dinner buffet as well, that’s how much food there was.
A fun feature of the breakfast buffet was also a chocolate fountain where you could dip things in chocolate, the children obviously loved it, and actually many adults did as well.
Overall it was a fantastic hotel experience, one of the best ones I have ever had. The service was flawless and the hotel had so much to offer that you hardly needed to leave it.
On top of that it was very incredibly affordable, I still can’t believe how little I paid considering everything I got.
I warmly recommend the hotel and I really hope I will get the chance to experience more Shangri-la hotels in the future.
Pics
The entrance to the Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur
The beautiful lobby!
Another photo of the gorgeous lobby
The reception and the concierge
The nice bar
The bar in the evening with live music (notice the stage on top of the bar!)
The two girls entertaining in the bar, they were pretty good!
The bakery in the hotel
The enormous breakfast buffet in the morning, this is just a part of it!
The chocolate fountain in the breakfast buffet
The swimming pool
Inside my room
The view from my room, quite nice!
And finally:
The famous Merdeka Square and the two (actually three) towers at night