The Edison George Town, Penang — Hotel in George Town

We were on a trip to Penang for work (was staying in another location) and was recommended by a friend on trying out The Edison Hotel as quote unquote "was a cool heritage-y hotel" to stay for a day. And, my hubs and I thought "Aiight, why not, let's give it a go." Let me break it down below:-

Service The check in were fairly quick plus a short tour of the hotel.

I was a little frustrated/annoyed by the staff that was working there. We heard a knock on our door, and was told that the parking up front (it's free by the way, no one asked to pay or we could reserve or any valet service) may be full as there was a group of "friends" travelling in and may block our car, so they asked us to park at the back of the hotel (which is a drive around the block as the front entrance does not connect to the back entrance) so we thought, OK pretty reasonable if all of the parking space has been taken up.

Later on the evening we drove out for dinner and came back - we drop up the front entrance, and i saw there was 2 available parking (the same parking that I left prior). The guard told me I could not go in (he refused to let us drive in) as the parking is FULL. I said, "There is 2 lot available there, can I just park there?" Then guard said "The parking as been booked." proceeded with an intercom to another staff came running out, asking us to drive around the block to the back of the hotel and they will open the door for us.

I was already a little annoyed by then, as there was 2 available parking space but I was not allowed to park. I asked them "Was it cause I wasn't driving an expensive car?." And they went on the repeat of having someone blocking my car etc.. - which in my opinion its an utter BS. We would definitely understand if we would have to pay for the parking upfront or even valet our car - we are more than happy to pay for the service, however, to give a BS excuse about car blocking and etc when clearly there is 2 available car park in the front and not allowing/blocking us to ENTER AT ALL, its just a discrimination on the hotel patrons and treating the guests unequally. Plus, we booked the room directly with the hotel, not through another 3rd party website, hence, we are paying whatever price the hotel publishes which is at a premium rate. **Note all of the groups of car parked up front were fancy sports car.

Second, since there is a group of people staying in the hotel, and there may be noises - as the staff mentioned they come and go as a group. Wouldn't it be better if they just put all the guests on the ground floor? The reason why I said that was because, I heard roars of laughter's and individuals on the outside of my room at night. I was located at the ground floor. Next day in the morning, there was a setup of interview with cameras and a group of people (at least 5) in the middle of the hotel, just right outside my room. Seriously? First, you discriminate us then, we have to endure the unnecessary noises?

I normally do not write a bad review for a hotel, as we generally are very tolerable with a lot of situations, but this just pushes the button as we are being treated unfairly (again, because I don't own a fancy sports car?) and having to tolerate roars of laughter at night after that.

Facilities Basic facilities, a very cute swimming pool. The breakfast area is OK too, we did not ate the breakfast the next day as we were still tired from the work and we decided to sleep in.

Room Rooms are clean and comfy - it has a modern yet vintage take. However, the divider between the bathroom and the bed is just a curtain, so if you have a heavy Nasi Kandar/Spicy food day out and you are sharing the room with someone chuckles The room does not come with a mini bar/fridge. There's a pantry down the hall that you can get all of your free drinks & some snacks.

Would I stay there again? No.

I rather stay at the Cheong Fatt Sze The Blue Mansion...

I want to sincerely apologize to the management of Edison in Penang for not having a Sports car or look up to par to stay at your establishment. It has been a while since someone made me feel unwelcome, and not good enough to stay at their establishment.

Our Booking had overlapped a timeframe when about 18 guests with their High End Sports cars had also come with what I assume was a magazine/filming crew. The first thing after they had checked in was the Guest Manager came to my room door and knocked non stop till I had opened the door to find out what was the emergency. He asked me to come outside and show me something. So I had after a long drive from Kuala Lumpur put my shoes on, a mask and headed outside thinking something had happened to my car which was parked outside.

No, that was not the case he showed me the many Sports cars parked at the entrance and indicated that for my convenience it would be better for me to park in the back (he called it private parking but to me it was more staff parking area.) as he indicated that people would block me as there were a number of them and would irritate me when I was going in and out of the establishment and since I was tired I did not think much of it. Going out for dinner, and when we came back my wife told me to park at entrance as it was late and we didn’t know where the back parking lot was. The guards, the receptionists wouldn’t even let us in. Telling us to go around back. Not knowing where the back was (not from penang) we kept asking what do they mean. Finally we decided to just try based on their vague direction and it took us out back. Which

1. Cannot be opened and closed without someone from the front opening the gate
2. Was indeed where the staff parked.

This started to annoy us as there was more then ample space for us to park up front, but if you looked at the entrance there was more then enough space (that night and the following morning and even in afternoon) to park up front.

So our car was now locked into the premise unless I walked to the front asked them to open the gate, with ample parking up front (3 spots last I saw in the early morning of 7 am, 9 am all the way to 12 pm). This made me conclude that they thought my car was an eyesore as it wasn’t a Maserati, Ferrari or Lamborghini. I was not even allowed to bring my car up front, and had to wait 10 mins for them to open the back door to let me out.

Please add to the fact that there was Bird Feces on the walls, and the cushion in the lobby sitting area were stained and not maintained with the floors dirty in a number of locations.

I don’t think I will ever stay at someplace that made me feel inferior. I will not recommend this place to anyone unless they wish to have people look down on them. I also don’t usually request any special service but do treat Everyone with a decorum of respect and not just think that those without sports cars are not even worth being treated like human beings.

Amenities :

1. Free Drinks and cheap snacks 24/7
2. spacious bathroom
3. close to alot of interesting things to see and do
4. treats you like a second class citizen if you don't drive a ferarri

Here is my suggestion, if you having an event like what was transpiring that would effect guest stay then perhaps

1. book the entire hotel for them
2. offer valet service instead of asking me to park in back then go back and forth to get the gate open so i can come in and out.
3. pre warn the guests that something was occuring and may effect a...

2nd Review, after second stay on March 2022 👎🏻

1. RM500/night for a luxury hotel, overpriced
2. Non-existence service, sadly for the current team, incompetent with keeping up with 'luxurious' experience
3. Front desk service personnel, unaware of anything, often on Youtube, instead of handling the guests
4. Only one personnel, a foreign gent handling the cleaning of the room, overall cleaning of the hotel, carrying bags for guests
5. Seriously short of staff, even though the hotel was not really at peak
6. Unfriendly crew, no one knows any guests by name, no eye contact
7. Lounge handled by new and untrained crew, could be interns
8. Prior to the stay the hotel sent email to guest on the special request, no one reads such replies from guests
9. Hotel pays more attention to social media influencers, who could be staying there for free, and neglecting the paying guests
10. Bathrobe, bedroom slippers removed from the room. When asked, the replies were inconsistent. One being not available anymore, another said awaiting shipment from China

1st Review, after first stay on August 2020 👍🏼 (1) Great service from the team - friendly, approachable, fast and attentive (2) Lounge - a great addition to the hotel, more so when it is a smaller outfit, making the whole experience more personable (3) The selections of coffee, tea, juices are good (4) Safety. Yes crucial for the hotel. The security does a good job in screening through the guests before allowing them into the hotel (5) While the hotel does not provide car charging facility, but it is good to know that we could charge the vehicle closer to the security booth

👎🏼 (6) Longer shower area, as the water spills outside of the area, resulting the dry area getting wet, something to look into (7) Continental breakfast, some local food, such as Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai would be nice addition.  How about let guests order what they would like to have, Kuey Teow soup, Loh Bak etc.  The current offerings, taste to improve, could be boring if stays more than one day (8) In-room dining, maybe a bed table or a desk with additional chairs would be nice, currently I noticed the crew struggle with where to put things when they sent the food (9) Cleaner pool, cause occasional leaf fallen into the pool (10) Hand wash liquid or soap in the room?  Since we are encouraged to wash our hands often (11) Some reading materials, books, magazines in the hotel, rooms, or for guests to bring them to the room to read?  Newspapers?  I know, many assume one would prefer to read from phones (12) Humanising the communications - received several e-mail asking about our arrival time, even though we have already checked in.  Makes the service more personable.   Bravo to Ivan, Emily and the team for constantly checking on us (13) Arrangement of the room. We were staying in 119. The wall is empty. The work table is long, but only one chair. How about converting it into a dining table. Sofa arranged to be on the far end, not where the TV is. (14) The snacks offered at the Lounge, not necessary suitable for all. Mainly calories, sweet, like a tech start-up. How about since it is a lounge - fruits, pastry, instant noodles (yes, currently offered as supper) (15) Courtyard, some activities such as yoga, light band music in...