overnite stay at Penang's Shangri-la Rasa Sayang

I've been planning to go to this newly refurbished resort & spa since the past one year.. infact eversince i completed my deliveries of 14,000 pc of handmade decorative tiles to them, errr, to their renovation contractor..

But other things have kept me away, and as months passed by it was put way back behind my little brain until i decided to focus on completing my new website about handmade tiles. Yes, the website is now live but still needing a few little sprucing up here and there, that includes some nice photos taken at this resort. Yes, my overnite stay at Penang's Shangri-la Rasa Sayang Resorts & Spa last monday was solely to take nice photos of my tiles over there.

But for the price of the cheapest room (RM695).. i've had to re-think whether i should check-in into another hotel instead.. i wasn't planning to do any relaxing holidays and get all those personalized attention and pampering treatments. I just wanted to snap some photos of my tiles in their quality finished environment and ambience, that was all..

After much deliberations which included spicing up my trip by asking a gal-fren to accompany me, i proceeded with a one-nite booking with a special request to view all the different types of room recently renovated and bearing my tiles in certain sections of their development. Hence, approximately 10am last Monday morning, we started our drive up to Penang Island..


An afterthought:

I re-wrote the above 4 paragraphs 3-4times since the past 5days.. but can't seem to finish the story. Mental block, huh?? But i think more to trying hard not to say what i really think incase i may offend certain people.. as though i have plenty of readers in this blog!! ;))

Can i just summarise that we had great fun and succeeded in getting done what we were supposed to do? We took plenty of photos of my tiles which were put in all (except the RM5000+ per nite Presidential suite) their 115 rooms in Rasa-wing. My handmade tiles can be found in all their Rasa Deluxe and Hillview bathrooms and their Rasa Premier Room & Suite open-air bath-tubs. Infact, the open-air bath-tubs facing the garden/swimmingpool/sea can be readily visible from all over the hotel's public places and my gal-fren was having a ball telling the hotel-staff that i did all those tiles, hehe.. And after all that photo-takings.. only two will be shown in my new website!! Now i suddenly feel like a photo-journalist!! But no photos are included here in this blog ya.. tak pandai lagi nak upload laa.. :(

Who may i offend, you ask...?? My potential customer, the operators of Penang's Shangri-la Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa, to whom i had introduced myself and exchanged cards with.. Why..?? For the price of the cheapest room at RM695++.. i've enjoyed all the little extra treatments and complimentaries they bestowed upon us including the cleaning of my car (very nice touch).

But we had 3 not-so-nice observations: compared to their old Garden-Wing, the landscaping design of their renovated Rasa-Wing is not 'professional' at all. Plenty of small garden pots bearing small bougainvillas of various colours lining the gardens, that instantly reminded us of my makwan-in-law's house in Kg Ampang Tinggi in Kuala Pilah.. I'm a garden-lover married to a gardener that prefers his lawn to be carpetry, smooth, very-green, no dead-patches and well-maintained.. therefore I'm very passionate about anything garden-ny!! But.. maybe the landscape designer did that on purpose? To get the kampung-feel...?? mmm..

Another 'garden-ny' observation was the view we had from the first floor Feringghi Bar&Grill Restaurant of the Chi The Spa Boutique. Plenty of overgrown bamboo trees all over the spa to the extend of hiding the beauty of the spa huts/structures/rooftops.. made us think of a derelict and abandoned development!! We were wishing we could see more spaced-out frangipanis instead.. but those few that we saw were all overwhelmed by the bamboos. Yes, yes just blame it on my gardener-husband ok?? I enjoy well-mainted gardens with frangis, pucuk paku gajahs, large leaves and minimal flowers ya..

Our third and final 'dislike' was the celebrated Feringghi Bar&Grill itself.. very quiet(dead?), very sparse/minimal breakfast selections (i'm used to malaysian buffets offering varieties, maybe??) and bland-tasted foods (i missed my sambal belacan you think??).. Should i ever come back to visit.. I'd certainly have my breakfast/lunch/dinner at the Spice Market Cafe in their old Garden-Wing instead!! That place is more lively with better food-choices, nicer decor, and yes, more to my taste-buds and styles..

Hope my comments and observations will be viewed as positive feedbacks by the resort..