Nova Highlands Hotel — Hotel in Pahang

The worst hotel I have ever stepped my foot into.

We booked this hotel last minute and didn’t check the reviews prior to the booking/stay.

Went to Cameron Square (as directed by Waze) for check-in. The signage directed us to level 3 for reception. Reached level 3, no reception was there so we had to look for it and opened a glass door with black tinted to find an employee there. Showed her our booking, she then directed us to go to the next building (The Retreat) about 100m away (walking) for check-in. We then make our way as directed. We checked-in on 8 February 2024, queued for 1 hour plus (3:30PM-4:50PM). The receptionist then told us our room is in another building (Cameron Square) despite the check-in is being done at The Retreat (different building). Two receptionists at the time (Hana & Aisya) however were very professional, attended every and each guests with a smile, apologize for the long queue. Kudos to these two girls. They’ve made our one-hour standing more bearable. Really not suitable nor recommended for elderly guests or guests with small kids. They might go tantrum while waiting for the check-in.

We were told by the check in staffs that : Late check-out (after 12:00PM) is chargeable at RM30 per hour (despite the fact that we had to queue for one hour for the check-in) Our room and car parking is in another building (Cameron Square). So, to get free parking, we’d have to walk from our building to The Retreat (where check-in and check-out were made) - about 100m to waive the touch ‘n go charge. Then walk back to our car in Cameron Square, get our car and exit the parking free of charge. If you’re not willing to go through the hassle, you may opt to pay (RM1.59 for the first hour, RM1.06 per hour for the next subsequent hours for a maximum of RM6.36 per day) Cameron Square is a lousy, worn-out building which smells awful. Get on to our floor (level 8) with the awful smell and greeted by an even worse musty/mouldy smell when we stepped in to our unit. We immediately went to Watson’s downstairs to buy Febreeze, return back to the unit and sprayed it all-over. Even so, the smell remain. We were checked-into a worn out unit (stains all over the walls, ceilings, awful sofa, awful smells). One of the bed creaked even when we sit on it. Only two pillows were given for every queen sized bed with a normal thickness stuffed quilt. Glass door that’s not fully closed with no lock for each room (lacks of privacy), no fan/ exhaust fan was provided in the bedroom (so the bad smells circulates and didn’t escape the room) There were bed bugs Apart from that, everything else was fine. There’s a minibar, drinking waters, sink & tap, plates, fork & spoon, bowls, cups in the unit. This is my very honest review. To summarize, I wouldn’t return to this hotel. Used to stay at The Copthorne, way better deals. I believe, everyone else should despise, refrain yourselves from this hotel so the owner would care to refurbish/make better of the units. Honestly I travels a lot and this hotel has just made into the worst hotel of my life ever. But I still love the fact that the two receptionist girls able to maintain their professionalism albeit the situations. They deserve to work at a better place, not this...

What attracted me to Nova Highlands Hotel in the first place was the size of the hotel room and the separation of the living room from the bedroom. As my fiancé and I have different sleeping times, it seemed to fit our needs and the price seemed very cheap for what we were getting.

If you’re driving to the hotel, you will have to park in the mall and take your TnG out with you to validate later. The reception is in a completely different building. You’ll have to walk out of the parking lot and go to the building to the left of the cat house/kelate restaurant. RM100 required as a deposit which is quite standard.

A few pros of the hotel (using the word hotel itself is generous):

The space itself really is big. The kitchen comes with cutlery, crockery, a fridge, a microwave and a kettle, and some instant coffee and tea. The location is also good as it’s walking distance to a few locations (sheep sanctuary, Kea Farm, Chinese steamboat restaurant) if you don’t have a car. Being in a mall, you have easy access to convenience stores, restaurants and pharmacies too. It’s also nice that you get free parking although quite a hassle to walk to the reception building. In the end, we only validated our card if we had stayed overnight.

Now to the cons, and there are MANY:

Upon entering the hotel, it was in a state of almost dilapidation. This means: weird stains on the bathroom walls (luckily it didn’t smell though), water stains on the ceiling and walls of the entire apartment, hair which wasn’t cleaned from the previous occupants, spiderwebs in nooks, stains on the bedsheets (some of it looked like blood), stains on the blankets, stains on the fabric headboard, weird smelling sofa.

Although there was a kitchen with many appliances, the top of the kettle was not connected to the rest of the kettle, which is a safety hazard when handling hot water. We ended up buying bottled water to drink the entire trip. To add to that, someone stole the spinny part of the microwave (sorry, not sure the actual name of it). As such, the microwave turntable couldn’t spin! So I had to manually spin every few seconds in order to heat up anything.

Next, although the walls are not dangerously thin, it’s a gamble whether you have good neighbours. Mine were running around back and forth non stop at 3am. Either that or there are ghosts in the building making noise. You decide which is better. Also, I believe this hotel is combined with a residential area so some of them really make themselves at home and smoke a lot. We came to Cameron highlands to enjoy the weather. Imagine not being able to open the windows unless we want the smoke to come inside. There was also some construction going on which was quite noisy but thankfully they stopped in the evening.

Lastly, housekeeping doesn’t come automatically. You need to call a number for housekeeping to come.

Altogether, I really don’t know what makes this hotel a hotel. I would rather pay more to have a comfortable and less disgusting and disappointing stay.

Unfortunately no photos of the decay of the room. Didn’t want to curse my...

TL:DR: Poorly maintained building with rooms in a much worse state. Stench, bed bugs and leaking toilet were some of the issues. Reception team unwilling to offer refund. Do not believe all the 4 star reviews, the hotel is not up to standard. I think some reviews may be fake.

This was planned stay for the Singapore School holiday.

Upon arrival the reception team comprised of 1 young lady named Alia. She greets us with a smile and provided us the room key.

The first red flag of this hotel, is behind the reception desk; the curtains are discolored from mould. The corner is full of dust and spider webs. This gives an indication of how little they maintain the building.

Now onto the rooms themselves; upon opening the door of 518 you will notice the stench of damp/mould. The smell was strong enough for the small children to cough. The beds were lumpy and under flashlight you could see dust mites/bed bugs crawling around. Incredibly, the toilet door was in a worse condition; the bottom of the door has visible water damage. The damage was so extensive that you couldn’t even close the door properly became the wood from the door was distended and warped.

The hotel offered to let us inspect a second room 729, but the result was the same. Bad stench that my children didn’t even want to walk in. The bathroom had water dripping from the toilet pipe, the cabinets look like it’s about to fall apart.

After seeing two rooms, we did not feel comfortable enough to stay.

Another note; some rooms in the hallway have key storage locks that you can unlock via a 4 digit pin.(similar to postboxg This would appear to indicate a shared ownership structure. Some rooms maybe private or AirBNB. This would indicate to me that the hotel is not profitable enough to maintain themselves.

After deciding to not stay; the reception lady boldly advised that they would not offer a refund as per their T&C. The hotel would not offer any other rooms, because they were fully booked. After having a 15 minute civilized discussion with the reception lady, a compromise was offered; I would request a refund from Agoda so that the funds would be returned.

Thankfully, Agoda was willing to process the refund (still pending full amount in my bank account). Agoda web chat dept was very good at understanding the issues.

Quite simply: DO NOT BOOK...