Penang hotel question
 

Did a search did not find what I need.

What is the best Penang beach hotel?

I am looking at the Shangri-La's Rasa Sayang Resort, Penang

Any commnets?

It's the best hotel in Penang, but even then you have to be careful as they have a HUGE range of room qualities within the hotel. We initially picked the cheapest Main wing room and scoping it out on arrival were shown something that looked like a dying Motel 6 reject. So I immediately threw money at the problem to get upgraded to a seaview Garden wing room which was wonderful. Fortunately space was available!

We also thought the Chinese meal we had in the "Shang Court" restaurant in the hotel was one of the highlights of our trip.

Thanks for the quick and informative response.

I haven't been in awhile (>10yrs) but Penang Mutiara Beach Resort is also a contender for best beach hotel there. It's a little further away from town, towards the end of the road (map = http://www.hoteltravel.com/malaysia/...ringhi_map.htm). The Mutiara has a webpage on www.lhw.com as part of the Leading Hotels of the World chain as well as their own website at http://www.mutiarahotels.com/ but you may want to price compare them on other sites to get the best rates.

Try this:

http://www.e-o-hotel.com/

I stayed at the Mutiara last November. It's quite OK, and gets plus points for having its own beach separated from the rest of Batu Ferringhi crowd, but I'd rank it as 4 stars at best; it's a little old (70-80s?) and hasn't been refurbished much since then.

But if you do end up there, go for seafood at in the neighboring kampong, there's a moderately grubby-looking but cheap & good Chinese seafood place by the pier at the end of the road.

Off topic but the last time I was in Penang I stayed at the old E&O hotel before it was closed and redone. That ranks as one of the more memorable hotel stays I've had: the highlight was the bar with high-back leather seats and 100-years of tobacco smoke ingrained everywhere. Man, I'll tell you, hard to find hotels like that anymore <sigh>.

I've stayed at the Mutiara (a long time ago) and I thought then it was a little far at the at of the Ferringhi beach. We were at the mercy of whatever creative taxi fare that was dreamt up on the spot. Nice hotel though: separate shower/bath and great beach views. The plus point then I thought was that the beaches were more private.

Has anyone stayed at the new E&O?

As for the Mutiara's location, the taxi fare to Batu Ferringhi seemed to be a fixed RM 10. We had our own set of wheels though, which was nice for driving around the island, so we only resorted to taxis when there were a couple of Tiger beers coming up.

A few snapshots from last year: http://jpatokal.iki.fi/photo/travel/Malaysia/Penang/

These quite frankly make the hotel look better than it was, but the pool is very nice in reality too.

Hi - anyone with an opinion on Sri Sayang Apartment in Batu Ferringhi ?

Thanks ...

Are there any "nice" hotels on the west side of Penang? Everything seems to be in Georgetown or north of it.

No. The only halfway decent beaches on the island are all on the northern side, and Georgetown is the only city of any size. Is there any particular reason you want to stay on the west coast? The Mutiara is as west as you can get while still having a beach to call your own...

Not into beaches. The west side has a better flavour of old Penang/Malaysia. I particularly love the intricate carvings on the old Malay houses in the kampongs.

How is the Scuba Diving in Penang?

Crap. You need to sit on a boat for a few hours to get to Pulau Paya (off Langkawi), and even then it's underwhelming. Malaysia's east coast is much better.

a delayed but no less THANKS ^