The Royale Chulan Hotel

I find 5 star hotels boring. Sure they are nice and the service is efficient but they normally lack character and personality. I love little hotels, they are affordable and as long as they are clean and they make me feel at home, I will return.

A good example is Eden54 in Kota Kinabalu. Really comfortable and a wonderful supermarket downstairs it's the kind of hotels I love. My favorite is Bon Ton in Langkawi. The staff know everyone by name and it's like home.

On the other end is The Royale Chulan in KL. What a "5 star" disaster! Every visit it will give me another thing to complain about. The latest, I went to get a take away coffee. Told the cashier I wanted an Americano. She asked me to wait as she needed to find some the staff. Finally a foreign staff arrives and asked me if I wanted "milk" with my Americano! I replied that an Americano is "black coffee". He looked at me with an arrogant expression and said "oh some people like milk". Next saw him use his fingers to "temper" the coffee in the filter basket. After he passed the cup to me I saw he just gave me a double espresso with no water. That is bad training and management.

Avoid that hotel like the plague!