The Princess In The City

2011-04-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Puteri Pacific Hotel was our choice of stay for the short Good Friday weekend getaway, just recently passed. As we had planned to roam the urban center of Johor Bahru, arguably the nucleus of the state of Johor, Malaysia, our choice seemed prudent at the time. With this establishment being primely located alongside a well-known, though decidedly near ancient shopping complex Plaza Kotaraya and only a few minutes stroll to the nearby ethnically Indian influenced area similar to Little India in Singapore as well as the mammoth City Square Mall, makes it seem to be the perfect choice for a little urban romp about whilst having the option to seclude yourself away from it all, if you do enjoy that sort of thing. It also had within it the Secret Garden Spa of which one of us was especially dying to try their treatments out.

The outlook of the hotel itself was not quite as grand and pristine as pictured in the above photograph. Noticeable areas of the exterior walls of high altitude showed signs of mold and mildew from improper care under the bright sunlight, something we weren't able to initially notice as we arrived at the venue at 7:30 pm on a Thursday night, well after the setting of the revealing sunlight. Though some may argue that such superficial things are of negligible importance given its what's inside that counts. Well ...

We arrived, we checked in and were assigned a room on the 12th floor. Room 1201 to be exact. The reason for us revealing the number of the room will be quite evident in due time. We took some quite amateurish videos of the interior of said room with the intention of posting it up here but decided against it in order to safeguard the dignity of our would be readers from our antics. We will however consider uploading such videos of future visitations. Back to the room, which looks something like this:

Which in all fairness was quite acceptable. However the main presenting issue with the room wasn't the room itself but was in fact the bathtub. You see, there were these blackish stains near the sinkhole of the tub. If one were the creative type, one could imagine the previous tenant trying to be a little more than funny with a squid, if not a whole family of them but I digress.And given that it was one of those bathrooms where you needed to step into the tub to shower made the experience all the more unnerving. The neighbouring lodgers were also ... how shall I put it .... quite excitable. Perhaps they were watching a football game or wrestling or engaged in some apartment sequestered fiesta. Needless to say their bellows were of no comfort to us yet we could not fault the hotel or its staff for the behaviors of their lodgers. And so we left the room and informed the duty personnel of the main issue; the stain of which he dutifully informed housekeeping to clean up while we sauntered off to locate a venue to consume our dinner. We didn't have to trudge too far away as within a 5 minute stroll we would come across another well known restaurant name in Johor Bahru, which was the Singgah Selalu of which it's more popular branch is located in the Danga Bay area. The food that we ordered was nothing out of the ordinary which would have been a let down had we not been all that famished.

Dinner done and we returned to the hotel with news from the duty personnel that the stain in our bathtub was duly dealt with. And so it was with some measure of hope that we made our way back to 1201 only to find that the stains were as how it was when we left it. Black and unnerving. And totally unacceptable for a hotel of this supposed stature. We requested for a room change and got something like this:

Sans the vase, laptop and twin beds. Needless to say the first thing we checked was the bathtub and was both relieved to know that it was clean as well as realize of the inclusion of a shower cubicle. How quaint ... And though the walls of the room had a sense of being unkempt, what with brownish streaks flowing across its wallpapered interior, it had decidedly more ambling space than 1201 which we hoped was a genuine attempt on the part of the hotel staff to make amends.

The breakfast on the first morning, the Good Friday morning, was quite simply excellent. The menu was what we would term as the standard array of dishes you would find in any well reputed hotels, though we have to say that the quality of the food is way beyond that of being standard. Be sure to give the prata and omelettes a go, well worth the wait.

With breakfast done it was off on to an urban romping but not before my wife had an experience of the Secret Garden Spa there but more on that later. Shopping for apparels at City Square while at the same time being able to catch Source Code at the Cathay Cineplex on the top most floor of the mall there really made our decision to pick a hotel within close proximity to urbanization worth it. With the time at around 6:00 pm on said Good Friday we headed back with the aim of having a swim in the hotel pool. I mean, what's a holiday without some swimming right?

The pool at the Puteri Pacific is located on the 2nd level of the building and is not in itself an extensive pool. Judging from its size, one could probably barely fit a family of twenty in it, and I do emphasize the word barely. Again apologies for the lack of pictures or videos as we do not wish to endanger our equipment what with there water being involved. Anyway, the size of the pool was not the main gripe that we had as there were at the time, not as many people there. And even if there were, the residents there seemed to have enough sense to stay out of each other's swimming lane. The main problem was the state of the water in the pool. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't as if the water was pumped in from a nearby bayou. Quite the contrary the water appeared as clear as any you would find in most well maintained swimming pools. The thing was, upon spending 15 minutes immersed in the pool I found myself itching quite severely. The thought that I may have some sensitivities to the chlorine in the water did cross my mind but when my wife, who clearly has no such sensitivities, also complained of a similar itchy sensation creeping across her body did I strike that hypothesis off. Perhaps the filtration system was faulty or perhaps it was the way in which the water was delivered back into the pool, which was via overhanging pipes which poured the water in. This method could have made the water collect contaminants in the air to merge with the water already in the pool. Whatever the reasons may be, the itch that we felt was unbearable. We left the pool after only spending barely 20 minutes in it. The most disappointing part of the swimming pool debacle was of how when we attempted to alert the caretaker of the pool of what we experienced was it seemingly brushed off and classified as a we've-not-any-complaints-from-anyone-else-about-this matter. Definitely not the kind of feedback we'd expect of such an establishment. A polite "We'll look into it." would have done nicely.

Next up was a night out on the town, with us first having dinner at Nando's located in the basement level of City Square Mall. For all lovers of spice and chicken or a combination thereof, we urge you to try it. Oh and especially try the Espetada with Extra Hot Peri-Peri sauce (or one that's of your level of tolerance), it's simply mouth-burning. This was followed by a midnight movie in which we caught the animated flick Rio. The movie in itself wasn't bad, however the atmosphere of the cineplex in general in the middle of the night was not at all that appealing. Might we say that conditions of watching a midnight movie differ greatly in terms of the sense of personal safety in Singapore than it does in Malaysia. Or maybe it was more a case of us not being 'acclimatized' to the situation which would otherwise be normal, we assume for the average Johorean.

The Saturday morning breakfast that followed was horrendous if compared to the one we had the day before. It wasn't that the food was bad, it was that getting to the food was that bad. Granted we came down from our room at 8:45 am which is by breakfast timing standards, quite late. Then again, never have we ever encountered a situation in any hotel where we were required to queue a good half an hour before we were even allowed into the cafe area. Just to give you a perspective on what it looked like:

And it wasn't for a lack of empty tables either. While we were patiently (or at least attempting to be patient) waiting in line we could easily notice a large number of uninhabited tables. It's just that the utensils and plates on those tables were not cleared promptly enough to facilitate their use. In other words, the buss boys and girls really need a good whipping to speed up their work. Only after we've gotten our seats from waiting in line for a half an hour did we notice this:

Hordes of people queuing up for specially prepared food and blocking access to the already prepared food that were placed just beyond them. Granted one can't really make out the exact nature of the situation from the above picture but just know that we had to spend another 15 minutes jostling with the crowd who wanted the specially prepared food as well as those who wanted the already prepared food. My wife brought up an excellent point about there being no initiative on the part of the cafe staff to manage the crowd or at least the manner in which they would queue up. To which I wholeheartedly agree. Things could have definitely been managed better and more efficiently. All in all whatever exquisite taste that the food provided was supplanted by the hurried and near chaotic atmosphere that we experienced. Most definitely not worthy of what is perceived to be a fine establishment.

All in all, The Puteri Pacific for all its supposed grandeur is not, at least from our experience and opinion worth the RM270++ per night, excluding taxes. The food served during breakfast is great but the lack of efficient and effective ways of managing the crowd truly killed the experience for us. Add to that our experience in the swimming pool as well as that of the bathtub in the initial room really does not put this hotel in good standing with us. One would be best served to look elsewhere for good service and amenities that would be more worth your hard earned bucks.

We believe it would be much more economical to stay in a cheaper hotel outside of the city and to use those extra savings in Malaysian Ringgit to grab a taxi into town and back to said hotel.

In fact the only real saving grace would be Secret Garden Spa which is recounted through my wife, as I did not make any bookings with them, has top notch service and therapists to execute their treatments. This too we say need not necessitate a stay at the hotel housing it.

The Maiden Post

2011-04-26T06:01:00.000-07:00

A bit of background on us before you begin flipping through the would-be (hopefully) innumerable entries of perceptions; because that's what they are, we wouldn't even dare sully the reputations of professional journalists by calling what we write as reviews, on various touristy locales and scenic, or otherwise locations.

We're a Singaporean married couple of which one of us currently works as an Assistant Welfare Executive in the Social Service Department at what is termed locally here as a Voluntary Welfare Organization (VWO) and the other half of us is a Craniosacral Therapist, who also delves into Lymphatic Drainage Therapy and various other body works.

Whenever our commitment to our employment or life would allow, we love to escape the urban confines of this island city scape to seek out otherworldly experiences; or at least those that we would not consider mundane. As such we thought, why not share the experiences of our travels and senses of the various locales so as to provide you readers out there with information; biased though they may be by our perceptions of the situations we encounter, which may be crucial to planning that elusive escape of yours. Or at the very least, it would be for us a diary of sorts to reminisce of the various experiences we as a couple (and in the future, family) had experienced.

Although this would be an effort on both our parts to add to the content of the entries, the majority of the written content would come from the one working in a VWO. So with that said, we hope you enjoy reading our entries .......

As & Yani's Travellogue

The Princess In The City

The Maiden Post