Tiarasa Escapes Glamping Resort Janda Baik — Hotel in Pahang

We checked in on 24/10/22 and checked out on 26/10/22. Stayed at Rajah Brooke 1. Without taxes we paid RM1,740-00 per night. ||||Upside of Tiarasa;-|| 1. Has a good natural forest environment with a main stream running along the side of the property.|| 2. The forest around the property is soothing to the mind and relaxing.|| 3. The pool is good for young children to mess about.|| 4. There are some light activities mainly for kids.|| 5. The staff are polite and courteous. ||||Downside of this place|| 1. Management is hopelessly poor.|| 2. Staff are multi tasking without proper training and hence make mistakes (no fault of the staff)|| 3. Cleanliness is an issue, our accommodation was dusty, curtains/drapes were dirty, we washed our shower areas which was dirty.|| 4. Breakfast - on the 1st morning, we had breaky by the stream at 9.15am, despite management being aware that we do not consume beef, they served us beef ham. When we inquired whether it was beef ham by whatsapp to management, they took their sweet time to respond, so we asked one of the staff, who set up the food for us, one Mr Daud, a foreigner. He returned from the kitchen and said it was chicken. My daughter and I consumed one piece and we realized it was beef. Lodged a complaint with management. Deep silence. After we returned to our accommodation, Daud turns up and apologized that it was beef. He told us that he has been told to leave because of this mistake. Note, management has yet to apologize to us and take ownership of the problem. Deafening silence. Instead Daud was the one whom apologized despite it not being his fault. We were shocked and appalled. It was not Daud's fault. It was the failure of management. We immediately attended at the check in lobby and basically told the 2 staff in attendance what we felt including the fact that Daud is not at fault. Deep silence from the staff apart from some utterly useless response. Told them how management failure has resulted in us breaking our religious norms, which is very very serious. Among others, we told them to imagine if they had served pork to a Muslim guest, that's the extent of the gravity of their utter failure. Some 2 plus hours later, one Cik Zaiton Fuad, the GM catches us as we are walking about the property and well offers her apology. An apology has to be sincere. To my mind it was half baked and remains the same after our check out. Wasted our time talking to her.|| 5. Food at the cafe, please avoid eating at the cafe at all costs. When you check in, the check in staff don't even inquire whether you have any food intolerance or limitations. Zero. The Menu is of no value in guiding you on the contents. LOL on the 2nd night, we had dinner at the cafe, ordered 2 fried noodles with chicken (mee goreng) and 1 with prawn. Cik Zaiton Fuad turns up with the waiter at our table and is told in front of us that there is no chicken !!!! LOL next, Cik Zaiton Fuad turns up and they found the chicken...LOL !! The quantity of the shredded chicken was truly sad in quantity . Basically we ate pure noodles. You guys should check out the price for carbs at this place, might as well head out for dinner, which is in abundance and absolute value of money !||||Conclusion|| 1. I will not recommend this whatever you call place to my worst enemy. ||2. Absolutely not worth the money. It was my wife's birthday on 24/10/22 and the management was aware of this. The jokers would not even offer a cup cake with a candle on it. You guys got a special event to celebrate please don't waste your money at this place, go to a resort where the management has the capability to think and deliver. ||3. Management of this place, well I frankly think that Daud will do a better job then the current management, as he is honest, hardworking and takes ownership. Hell he has a brain and thinks. ||||Thank...

I've stayed at Tiarasa twice. Once pre-pandemic in the Hornbill tent. This stay was top notch.

The most recent stay was the weekend of 12 November, which was unfortunately quite traumatic. Our family of 4 - 2 adults, a 9 year old and a 7 month old baby, checked into the Ficus 1 treehouse on a Friday afternoon. And less than 4 hours after checking in, the treehouse floorboard broke and my husband's foot went through the floor while carrying our baby.

We are grateful that he only sustained minor injuries, and baby was not physically hurt. However, we had (and continue to have) major doubts about the structural safety of the treehouses, so we immediately vacated the room.

The night duty manager offered to move us to the only other remaining accommodation on the property (hornbill, max capacity 2 adults, 1 child) and told us he would refund us the difference in rates.

Given that we were very shaken up by what happened and our baby was crying inconsolably, we chose to drive back to KL that same night, instead of the 4 of us squeezing into a smaller room. We also didn't want to pay for a room that we specifically didn't book due to it's smaller capacity.

The night duty manager (Fitri) did as much as he was authorised to do, and told me that the resort GM will contact me the next day (Saturday) about giving me a full refund. I did not hear from them all weekend, and only received a call from Fahad, the resort GM, on Monday (after I wrote them a lengthy email, copying Majlis Perbandaran Bentong and attaching photos and videos of the hole in the floor and the rotted piece of wood that had fallen at least 10 feet to the ground).

Fahad was apologetic for not contacting me sooner and wanted to meet up with me in person, which I politely declined. We have since received my full refund, and Fahad has called me once more to enquire about my husband's foot and has offered to reimburse us for any medical bills incurred.

I told him that I wasn't really worried about a reimbursement, but more concerned about the integrity of the treehouses and I reiterated my email request for them to show proof that they will engage a 3rd party engineer to inspect the structural soundness and integrity of the treehouses, as we do not want any other people to be injured or worse. We (and Tiarasa) are lucky that it was only my husband's foot that went through the floor. A younger child could have fallen through and sustained serious injuries, if not worse.

He said they will be calling an engineer to check on the treehouses this coming week (22 Nov), but I have not received any proof of this.

The point of this review is not to deter people from going to Tiarasa, because service by staff on the ground is good. Rather, please ask for proof on structural safety of the treehouses before making a booking. You should be fine if you stick...

Enjoyed our stay at this place and the activities they provided, really interesting and the fact it’s in Malaysia and not far from KL. The food is nice, the ambience is superb.

However, there are few things to improve:

1. buggy from reception to tent: They only have one reception for check-in which is understandable so you gotta wait for your turn. Okay with that. But after that, you gotta wait for your turn to be picked up by buggy (they only have 2 when we were there), and there’s no system on who will be picked up first even you have done your check-in process first. They can just pick up anyone there depending on your luck. We gotta wait long to be driven to our tent. And there was misunderstanding where we checked in first, but the person after us got the buggy first. Really frustrating. So basically your time has gone there.

2. the service: im not sure about other services but what we experienced was the food service. It took a long time for them to prepare for the food. Understand for ala carte orders at Rasa cafe, we waited more than 30 mins to get our food. But for breakfast next morning which was already pre-booked and mind you the breakfast spread is rather simple — we booked for 8am but they served it at 8.35am, which I found unpleasant and quite a waste of time. There must be reason why we booked at 8am as we planned our time and activity. So basically your time is taken again.

3. the breakfast spread: we booked Rajah Brooke tent which costing around RM1.6k per night, but the breakfast spread is very simple and not much of quantity. 6 pax nasi lemak for 6 persons, 6 slices of bread (1 for each person, hmm), butter and jam (not enough), eggs, sausages and baked beans. Also 6 pieces of strawberries and cut watermelon, coffee O and 3 bottles of same flavoured juices. For this simple and cannot be added spread, with such a price, we would highly recommend the management to look into this and improve for better experience. We can get a full goodness of buffet spread with hotel rated at 300-400 per night, so you should really look into this.

4. room condition: whilst it is beautiful and generally clean, but you have to look into the curtain, bedsheet, ottoman chairs which got stained all over. Again, would like to reiterate that for such a price, it could be better maintained. Also the dust at the chandelier and some places are not being well cleaned.

Otherwise, everything else is perfect. Loved the bon fire with marshmallow activity, movie night and the ambience of the place. Food is delicious too! And love the biscuit served for the bon fire, super delicious, also the popcorn served during movie time. Great and wonderful experience.

If you improved all the above, you could be the best glamping place in whole malaysia or even overseas...