Sunday, June 14, 2015

Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur - Exceeding Expectations

I had a wonderful birthday retreat last week at Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur. Strategically located in Jalan Sultan Ismail, the hotel caters to both business and leisure travellers with more than 600 rooms and suites and with excellent facilities such as indoor gym, swimming pool, hair salon, spa and spacious banquet halls to cater for all kinds of functions.

Initially I booked the Executive King room without breakfast. During check-in, I was attended by a staff named Peter who recommended an upgrade to the Horizon Club room for just RM180++ . For this upgrade, we got to enjoy the services at the Horizon Club including complimentary tea, all-day beverages at the club's private lounge, complimentary WiFi and broadband Internet access in the room and at the lounge, personalized services and even late check-out at 4pm.

Horizon Club floor

Hotel corridor

The room at Shangri-La is no doubt, luxuriously decorated complete with a chandelier, befitting its reputation as a five-star hotel. 

Executive King Room

The hallway

The king-sized bed faces a 42-inch plasma TV and a cabinet containing a well-stocked mini-fridge and tea-making facilities. What is more, the hotel even provides instant coffee machine and coffee capsules that comes in 3 different strengths. 

From another angle

Coffee machine in the room

Coffee, anyone?

Tea-making facilities

Well-stocked fridge

Some snacks are available in-room

The bathroom boasts a modern design. Guests can opt either to soak up in the elongated bathtub or to experience the soothing rainshower. The shared sliding door for the shower and toilet cubicle strikes me as ingenious as it maximise the available space in the bathroom. 

Hotel bathroom

The shower cubicle with rainshower 

I love the perfume-like smell of the hotel toiletries but I thought Shangri-La should invest in their own brand of toiletries like Mandarin Oriental and The Westin hotels do.

Hotel toiletries

Just like other hotels, Shangri-La also provides in-room safe box, bathrobes, iron, ironing board, shoe-shine kit, and other standard hotel amenities. Worth mentioning is their safe box which is large enough for guests to store their laptops.

In-room safe box

In the cupboard

After checking in, we decided to go for tea at the Horizon Club private lounge located at Level 2. Some clubs cater only for adults but at Shangri-La, small children are welcomed at the Family room:

Club lounge at Level 2

Our kids were entertained by the toys in the room

Our tea

During check-in, I asked Peter whether there was any promotion for birthday celebrations like spa discount or something, but he apologetically told me the hotel does not have any. However, when we came back from our tea at the lounge, I was pleasantly surprised to find a birthday cake in the room, complimentary of Shangri-La Hotel. I wasn't expecting that at all! The chocolate cake came moist and sinfully decadent, just what I wanted for my birthday treat!

The birthday cake compliment from the hotel

The next day, we took quite some time getting ready and ended up almost missing our breakfast. Regretfully, we did not manage to have our breakfast at the Lemon Garden Cafe at the lobby. Luckily since we upgraded to Horizon Club room, we were able to have our breakfast at the club lounge instead, personally attended to by the staff there. The breakfast was really good, and I especially love my eggs Benedict which is perfectly seasoned and simply oozed with goodness!

Egg Benedict with grilled veggie, hash brown and beef bacon

Steamed cod fish, dim sum, grilled cherry tomatoes and seasoned sausage

Overall, I thought the hotel delivers on all big fronts. The room was simply lovely and the services immaculate. It was quite a pity I was not able to sample their spa menu considering it was my birthday treat, but maybe the next time I'm here, I will try it out. 

Rating: 10/10