Hotel Rooms in Penang
If you are keen on going to Penang for a holiday, I am sure that you would be looking for a good hotel to stay in.
Besides the classy E&O Hotel which I mentioned earlier, what other options are there?
If you are thinking of staying in Georgetown, your hotel search on Trip advisor may have given you the option of Cititel Hotel Penang.
The location is great! The good food are all within walking distance from the hotel. So it’s really convenient to eat, go back to the hotel to rest, eat again, and rest! 🙂
This is a good place to stay, if you want to be near the E&O hotel and historic sites such as the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and other temples.
The hotel also had a really huge lobby which made it really quite grand. There was definitely lots of space here for the kids to run around and for tour groups to gather.
However, there are some shortcomings about this place….
The rooms are nothing to shout about. They were small, clean & functional, like in a 3 star hotel (Except that it is supposed to be a 4 star hotel).
But the biggest disappointment about Cititel Hotel happened at check-in…
We made our booking online via the hotel’s website. Well, on the site, you are guided to choose the type of room you want (superior/deluxe etc). And right at the bottom of the form, there’s a BLANK box where you need to put in your request.
We made our BIGGEST mistake here. We just put in “adjoining rooms please” cos we had zero idea, what other possible request we can put in.
Well, when we checked in, they gave us two adjoining rooms on a smoking floor. So we asked for non-smoking floor. That’s when they said, ok, but your rooms are not adjoining. Cos non-smoking floor doesn’t have adjoining rooms. And it went on that both rooms are have twin single beds. Cos we didn’t say we wanted King or double beds.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t give us better rooms. We ended up with two rooms side by side, but separated by an electrical room. Both rooms are with single beds. Really awful start to a holiday.
Lesson learnt: be as specific as you can in that little box when you make your booking.
As I was driving around in Penang, I reckon the Best Place to Stay in Penang is not in Georgetown but at Batu Ferringhi.
Resorts that are nice are the Holiday Inn (Stay in the new block) and the brand new hotel called Hard Rock Cafe Hotel.
Yes…Hard Rock has a cafe and hotel in Penang…I did not even think they had one there 🙂
This Hotel was just built in 2009, so everything is still relatively NEW.
They have a really cool lobby with the “The Beatles” to welcome you at the fireplace.
Lots of places for you to pictures and “cam-whore” at…:)
But what really got me and the kids excited…is the Water Play for the kids! 🙂
Isn’t that COOL!
I felt like I was at the Singapore Zoo’s Water play area…and the swimming pool even goes right up to the patio, if your room is on the ground floor! Just open your balcony and JUMP right into the POOL!
I tried booking a room over the weekend, but it was fully booked out! Will definitely be trying out this hotel, the next time I am in Penang! 🙂