This last weekend, my wife, her nieces and nephews, and I went to Genting Highlands. Genting is a Vegas type mini-city perched on a hill. It is famous in Malaysia for being one of the few places that has legalized gambling and there is also a large amusement park there as well as indoor shopping.
This was my second trip there. The first time was only a day trip. This trip was not a pleasant experience which was partly due to the timing of my stay (the first weekend of Malaysian school holiday).
But was mostly due to the hotel I stayed in, First World Hotel, and its poor planning for crowds such as these and poor customer service. In particular,
1.) The parking garage is underneath the hotel therefore one must take an elevator up to the lobby to check in. The day we were there two of the elevators were not working. The crowds were huge and considering all the other floors of the parking garage this led to a ridiculous situation. In the end, we could never get an elevator as they were all full by the time they reached our floor and we ended up climbing the stairs -five flights!- with all our bags.
2.) There are few directions on what to do at the check-in(which is not like other hotels and involves taking a number and getting your room through a computerized kiosk) and even fewer signs.
3.) The bathroom in our stuffy little room was filthy. Called twice to housekeeping and also asked a maid I saw on our floor but they never came to clean it.
4.) The amusement park was overcrowded. After hours of waiting, only got on two rides.
5.) The breakfast buffet was again the focus of an overcrowding problem. It was like a riot with people shoving one another and not enough stations for the food. In addition, they did not refill some of the things (cold milk for example) and ran out of food. That’s just not acceptable in a big hotel like First World charging the rates they’re charging. Also the food tasted like cardboard.
6.) The arcade ,where one can play a host of both video and non-related video games, gives tickets to be redeemed for prizes for those who score well. Several people in my group received the tickets but like everything else in First World the process to retrieve the tickets is ridiculously complicated and involves standing in long lines for what????a really cheap gift-two pencils (!)
Not to sound like a racist but Genting is very Chinese as are most of the people we saw there(I think it's safe to say Chinese are more into gambling). Malays and Indians and foreigners go there too but not in as large a number. Chinese establishments are very poorly acquainted with the notion of customer service and Malaysian Chinese in general also behave very badly in crowd situations having no clue on how to act in crowd situations and no concept of an orderly line or queue and just being very rude in general. Would be nice to have a Chinese free day at Genting.
Well anyway Genting sucks-Hopefully will never go back there and First World is one of the worst fleabag hotels I ever stayed in run by idiots with no idea of the concept of customer service and how to plan appropriately for huge crowds(additional manpower etc.). I guess my trip could be summed up by the note I left on the windshield of the moron who parked near our space partially blocking our car when we wanted to leave - NICE PARKING JOB, ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!
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