Hotel Sfera — Hotel in Perak

We stayed in their Executive Studio room for about 10 days. The room had a king size bed and a single bed, spacious, clean with tiled floors, a large balcony, bay windows with a large sofa, great air conditioning (not too hot and not too cold, just perfect all the time). Room had a big desk & chair with power points, separated from the bed area by a wall, so you can work at night without disturbing anyone's sleep. There is a large TV screen on the other side of the wall, which you can watch from the beds. The bathroom was clean, good water pressure, had hot water available at all times, packed toiletries provided (toothbrushes with mini toothpaste tubes, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel). Coffee/tea making tray available (free coffee, tea and sugar sachets replenished everyday) with a good size fridge & freezer where you can stock ice or milk. The swimming pool was just great, it is outdoors but still inside the building on the 3rd floor, toilet facilities, outdoor shower at the side. The pool is safe with a mini slide which my kid enjoyed very much. Was relieved that the entire time we were there it was pest/roach free, day or night, although a few tiny red sugar ants roamed around. Zyqah and Izzat at front desk were very helpful, kind and professional. Special thanks to Izzat, who went above and beyond helping us during a midnight emergency. We cannot thank him enough. All their staff were very kind, friendly and helpful, especially the housekeeping crew. If you need any laundry done, there is Intan Laundry nearby, who will wash, fold and iron on request your clothes for you. There is a 7 Eleven (open 24/7) and a supermarket, TF Value, which you can buy food, clothes, supplies just at the back of the hotel. A bakery and pharmacy Hing round the corner and lots of stalls and eateries surrounding the place. Would recommend the 2 economy rice coffee shops for lunch as they are cheap and good tasting with lots of side dishes to choose from. Also there is a nyonya kuih stall in the coffee shop behind pharmacy Hing. They sell really good bak chang at only RM4 each. The fried rice stall there is good as well. Plenty of Malay stalls nearby which sell fried cempedak, keropok lekor and best of all on a hot day, icy cold air tebu (sugar cane juice). So refreshing you will long for it everyday. Our photos of the room were taken on our last day, so the beds are not as pristine as they usually are after housekeeping visits everyday. The hotel has 2 lifts, which closes very fast, so everyone is very helpful at keeping it open for first timers, who are unaware of this endearing (albeit a bit alarming at first) feature of this hotel. Lobby is nicely air conditioned and clean, just lovely to sit on their long sofa benches and have a chat with their friendly reception staff (when they are not busy)...

Worn out hotel and DIRTY - seems like they're not reinvesting their profit back into the upkeep of the hotel.||||2. Poor service. Aircon didn't work in the first room allocated. Informed the receptionist. Instead of a simple a straightforward room swap, we had to wait for maintenance. In the end, we swapped into another room after half hour wait. This was at 9 in the evening (at night, as they would call it).||||3. Two of us. 1 room access card was offered. Had to go through reasons and process of activation etc. just to request for a second card.||||4. TV channels - 5 altogether. Only 1 is working.||||5. Car Park - Have park the car in a open public space shared with supermarket behind the hotel. Unguarded. This is a public free car park to begin with.||||6. Unfriendly unhelpful cleaning staff (I guess this depends on how people interpret rudeness)||||7. Dirty furnishings.||||8. Dirty fridge.||||9. Breakfast option - Good, because there is a lot of options. Poor, because it's bland you'll end up wasting food that you thought you'd finish.||||10. If they put you in a room in another building, then you'd have plenty of walking and stairs to do.||||Why these points above need to be mentioned? It's supposedly a 3? 4? stars hotel. It's expensive by local standard. And you'd expect those basics points mentioned above aren't mistakes made by big hotel like this.||||It also appears they mostly make their revenues by contracting out accommodations to the local naval (tentera laut) people and some ?offshores workers? But that doesn't mean they can treat other paying customers like some freeloaders staying at their hotel.||||Recommendation||||I'm based in room 217. Will be checking out tomorrow. Plenty of other better hotels around I'm sure. This one:||||I'm not recommending it to anyone.||||Dr....

Will I be there again? Definitely no. In Lumut I have always stayed in Orient Star hotel, not much of a hotel, but at least trying (unsuccessfully) to meet some international standard. I was convinced by the misleading pictures on the web site and by a friend of mine (who assured me that the hotel had been recently fully renovated) to stay here. Result: the hotel is a low quality low building located right at the corner of one crossroad. After 30 minutes for hotel check in (with only one person ahead of me), the receptionist (sitting on a brown chair that must have been beige once) gave me access to the so called hotel distinguishing itself for not having a hall, being dirty and messy in all common areas, with noisy guests, with unavoidable noise coming from the roads, having so called renovated rooms (meaning that some new pieces have been added to an obsolete scenario) which would …. require immediate renovation and in which everything needs maintenance, if not cleaning. Air conditioning must come from a movie of the Flintstones; everything is ugly if not dirty (by the way the clerk told me that he gave me the best room …. I cannot imagine the conditions of the worst one). Anyhow all in all the room was “acceptable”, but the elevator is really dirty and its floor is covered by a black carpet which hides the dirt but cannot hide its own dirt (…. few years old). The breakfast is almost OK but, just to complete the pleasure, the muezzin’s call keeps you in good company day and night. |I really do not understand the above enthusiastic comments of people, either they normally live in shacks or they have some degree of relationship with the owner. In a few words, stay away and do not consider those 4-5...