Shangri-La Rasa Sayang, Penang

It was beautiful

Staff were all excellent except for: 1. On the day of check in, all front deck are without customers. So I approached an empty counter. The 2 staff that were there just used hand gesture, no smile, pointing me to other counter. That was rude by hospitality standard. 2. Upon checking in, we made our way to the lift with our luggage. No staff offered help with the luggage. At the same time, there was a guest from western countries. The staff clamoured to help him with the luggage ans even hold the lift door for them. Why are we locals did not get the same hospitality? We are guests too.

love the complementary for rasa wing benefits especially for welcome drink, afternoon tea and cocktails not enough time to get complimentary soft drinks, coffee and tea at pool ( will come again and try ) room service - the best breakfast nice especially stall outside teh tarik staff at concierge the best, they greet us and remember our room and remind us to come for cocktail, explain about bf staff at cocktail all nice and serve well. will come again and stay at rase wing only and not garden looking forward ground room / family room

room - sad bout the socket plug not much and not at both beds (very difficult) room seems old version charge airport transfer to customer quite high should give complementary.! hope u can offer me much more better offer in future

Room in Garden wing, spacious and even with an extra bed for our child, there was plenty of space. The room had a balcony with a table and chairs and a gate to a small garden overlooking the pool. The air conditioning will go off as soon as you open the balcony doors and there is a ceiling fan in the room which you could use instead. A lot of thought went into setting up the room. Complimentary "tau sar pneah", a local biscuit was replenished everyday. What a special touch! The breakfast spread was brilliant. Suggestions for improvement: Where were the Penang Hokkien Mee, Nyonya Kuih and Char Koay Kak and Chee Cheong Fun?! These were sadly missing even though Penang the food paradise is famous for these dishes! We loved the durian ice potong and ice creams available at breakfast. Housekeeping staff were all very courteous and friendly and would greet you everywhere you went. They performed their work impeccably. The many deckchairs facing the beach for guests to relax under the shady palm trees was amazing and the hammock was the icing on the cake. Brilliant stuff!

See above regarding what was missing at breakfast! Monitor lizard swimming in the swimming pool did put people off. They may not be poisonous but it is scary if you are not used to seeing it. And to have it swimming next to you in the pool is strange and put a dampener on the whole experience.

The staff are incredible and really want to please. Any issues, they will endeavour to resolve them. I would advise staying on the Rasa wing if you are without children as you will benefit from access to the quiet pool (where you will see the cutest monkeys and even a monitor lizard or two!) and you can also enjoy the afternoon tea.

Book the room with the bath on the balcony, as they are HUGE and the bath is a nice touch! The cheapest rooms on the Rasa overlook the car park - which isn’t exactly the most beautiful sight in the hotel. The hotel’s beach has also eroded too much to be able to use it, but if you have a family then you probably wont mind going to the busy beach next door in Golden Sands. Final thing - this may seem a bit picky, but the hotel needs to stop leaving ugly guest beds and cots in the hallways… it doesn’t exactly scream luxury.

Good location and first class accommodation

At check-in reception takes more money than the cost of your stay to cover any meals and drinks purchased on your room. They take the money at checking but on checkout they take 14 days to give you any money back - that’s just corporate greed !!

We loved everything pool, food, staff (apart from pool incident). We had family reunion from US, Singapore & London.

My mother in law has advance Parkinson’s disease and has difficulty moving. After breakfast all shaded spots around the pool were taken, so we sat her on a sun lounge and wanted to bring a sun umbrella over. It proved to be impossible. Even duty manager after seeing my helpless mother in law came out to tell us the rule was that no sun umbrella can be moved. It took an hour to find a shaded spot then we moved. my mother in law delicate skin turned red and stayed like that for the following 2 days. she was not in pain luckily. From then on we ended up reserving our seats before going to have our breakfast.

The grounds were gorgeous as were the staff. The breakfast and dinner buffets were also great. The stand out for us was the high end restaurant on site. Food was 10/10 as was the service. Highly recommend. Loved that they had a pitch and putt as something different to do.

We didn’t realise the other section was adults only (it’s very vague on booking.com) so something to double check if you are travelling with kids or as a couple. Instructions on arrival weren’t great - we weren’t told there was a sauna and hot tub next to the gym so we didn’t get a chance to use it. It looked gorgeous though ! The hotel needs a refurb for it to be considered a 5* and for the price I think but it was still a great spot.

the pool was big and close to the bar / restaurant, housekeeping were attentive

the bed was hard and the pillows were flat. Ours backs suffered. Upon check out we waited almost 50 min to get our credit card sorted. No complimentary drinks or gestures were offered considering our kids waited patiently and our plans were amended

Clean and quite

The staff are very friendly but they’re trained to focus on money more than the value. It happened with me 3 times, they also withdrew the staying cost twice 1- they called me after the reservation with booking.com that they will not provide the transportation which’s not free unless I pay the stay + plus the transportation. 2- when I did the checkout they also deducted the amount again. After 5 days I noticed a deducted amount from my credit card and after I contacted the bank they told me it was the Hotel they deducted the amount twice.

breakfast has a lot of selections. good

night entertainment - the live band was a bit outdated.