Our taxi from Ipoh arrived at the hotel at mid-afternoon. There was a security checkpoint before the drop-off where a cursory search of the boot was undertaken. Also, very annoyingly there was a pointless bag search before people entered the hotel, which consisted of a metal-detector wand being waved over our hand luggage. It did not detected my laptop, camera or any other metal items!

Check In

The hotel lobby itself is very impressive, and were greeted straight away by a staff member who guided us to the reception. When the receptionist realised we booked into the Horizon Premier Selection Suite, we were ushered to the Horizon Club check-in. I’m not sure how it works, maybe we should tell them first before wasting time at the main reception? After about 15 minutes waiting with no welcome drink or cold towels, we finally checked in. I noticed the people checking in beside us did not take their drinks or towels so used them instead.

Room

The suite itself is nicely decorated, with a walk-in wardrobe, lounge and bedroom. It is smaller than the Mandarin Park Suite though. The TV was awful, only fuzzy SD channels.

Dining

The breakfast in the lobby was very busy with lots of middle eastern and indian customers. There was a varied selection of worldwide cuisine, but I don’t think the food was as nice as the Mandarin.

The Japanese restaurant Zipangu was excellent but service was a bit slow. We had o-toro (bluefin tune belly sashimi) along with braised beef udon noodles. Both were delicious, especially the sashimi which I have never tried before.

The pool area was OK, but I prefer the Mandarin’s rooftop one and the service there was better (as free cocktails for suites).

The Horizon Club serves breakfast, afternoon tea and evening cocktails. It is a nice, quiet place to relax, the darjeeling tea is delicious and there is a small food selection. The Singapore sling is also good too. Below is a scan of what is on offer.

Service

Check-out for Golden Circle members was 2pm and we where allowed to stay and make use of the hotel facilities until our link transfer at 7pm.

There is a free shuttle service to the main shopping malls (KLCC, Pavilion/Starhill and Lot 10/Sungei Wang) but the timings are very bad … departs the hotel at 1030, 1200, 1330, 1530 and 1700. More freedom walking or taking the monorail.