Rooms and hotel overall looks 'evergreen'- OLD world charm, seems like a hotel still living in the 80s, but nevertheless room was sparkling clean, and sheets clean as well.
The pillows were comfy feather ones, and even feather duvet, surprisingly.
However, I would not rate this a 5 star hotel (could give it a low 4)

Booked 10pax buffet dinner for my husband's birthday (4 vouchers + 6 paying). Slipped my mind to inform them it's a birthday party. When we arrived, I asked if they have anything for brithdays, the answer was 'Sorry. You have to call in earlier.' This alone points out that the company does not encourage walk-in celebrators. So disappointing.
The next major disappointment was the food. I had such high expectations when I did the booking... unfortunately my expectations fell flat to the ground. It was 'East meets West' theme. Seafood was the main theme. BUT it was ALL OVERCOOKED! The beef was tough, the mussels were falling off the shells as were the clams, the salads were in such huge pieces that it was difficult to eat neatly and worse of all the ice cream was not kept at optimum temperature. My table was less then 10 paces away from the ice cream freezer. Yet my ice cream started melting even before i sat down to eat!
For a five star hotel the cafe isn't even worth 1 star. The hawkers at the road side would have served a better fare with better quality food at a lower price.

Overall hotel outlook - old from the outside but rooms are decent and clean

Service - one word. Terrible. We stayed a night at this hotel for the penang marathon. Upon check in we asked the staff on directions to lorong bangkok which was presumably right behind the hotel and the lady who checked us in was not able to tell us where it was but simply told us to check on the map!! We then asked on possible logistics/ transportation to get to the run site, but again, she was not able to help!! We were referred to another lady at the 'Daily Activities' table who was also unable to provide us with helpful information. It was finally that the concierge helped us out. The penang bridge marathin is presumably one of the largest running events in penang and i'm very surprised that the hotel was pretty clueless / ill-informed.

We were originally a party of 3. However only 2 of us made it and hence, the extra bed was not required. We did not inform the hotel , neither did they confirm the etra bed upon arrival. Imagine to our horror and shock, at 11pm, housekeeping entered our room with a bed when we were sound asleep. And no they did not knock or ring the bell prior to that!! We sent her away to be rudely awokened by a call 2 minutes later from front desk confirming this. Neither apologized for rudely entering our room without prior knocking/ ringing the bell until we lodged an official complaint this morning.

I hope something can be done to improve the overall service of this hotel.

Stay 3 nights at this hotel. No major complaint. The room are clean with a 32" LCD and it has internet access in the room, however it is quite slow. And there's only wifi in certain area like the lobby and cafe. If you need wifi in the room, an additional $5 is charge which I think is not worth it as it is too slow and signal is weak. The breakfast can be improved further as the taste is like a left over food from yesterday. There is a lot of hawker food around the hotel but the Gurney plaza is still quite a walking distance away. It takes about 20 min walking to reach there.