The house is beautiful and it was so interesting to learn the history of the family. Poh, our guide, really made it come alive. Tours are at 11, 2 and 3.30. It was well worth a visit, and if you can afford to stay here, I am sure it would be amazing!
Such a great place to stay in wtih so much history. I didnt expect the room and bathroom to look so modern and new..love it! Service is also very personalised since it has only 18rooms. The breakfast spread is yummeh..I love the handwritten notes that James left us everyday..thanks for this great experience and we will definitely visit again.
The Mansion, room size and ambience are up to expectation and I would give it an excellent rating. But however the service level has pulled it down to an overall Average rating.
The staff are very courteous but there are much room for improvement on attentiveness. Here are some incidences that have let us down:
1. We are not served welcome drinks and cold towels upon checking in but we noticed that Caucasian guests were being served instead. My wife and I felt discriminated and insulted.
2. There was no fruits basket in the room. After repetitive requests, the fruit basket was finally presented but only on the day after.
3. Cigarettes butts in the ash tray outside my room was not cleared timely enough. We checked in at about 5:15pm, left hotel for dinner at about 6:15pm and returned at about 9:30pm. Left hotel again at about 10:00pm for massage and return at about 1 am. Cigarettes butts are not cleared. Two butts still in ash stray and one butt on the table. It was probably blown away by wind.
4. Ceiling fan is noisy and the speed is not very controllable. Difference between fast and slow is almost negligible.
5. We bought some frozen food to bring back home for our relatives and friends to savour our discoveries in Penang. We stored in your hotel freezer. When checking out, we requested for our frozen food to be taken out and to have additional packing over the frozen package. Instead of conscientiously help us packed it, we were simply given some newspapers and plastic bags and expecting us to do the wrapping ourselves. However your staff helped only after we asked again.
I hope the management take my opinion seriously otherwise The Blue Mansion is not as great as it claimed to be.
Regards
Don Mok
Dear Mr Don Mok,
Thank you for staying with us at THE BLUE MANSION and for your excellent rating of our property ambience and room size.
I am disappointed to read of your review of our service and express my sincere apologies for your experience.
Please be assured that we certainly do not discriminate our guests in any way and the incident regarding the welcome drinks and towels stemmed from a mistaken oversight rather than an intention to exclude, and for this I am deeply sorry.
I have also personally looked into the ceiling fan in question and resolved the issue immediately with our maintenance team. Thank you for highlighting it to us.
Our guests’ positive experiences are of utmost importance to us and I will personally share your comments with the team as a learning point to improve our service. I hope this goes some way towards articulating the passion all of us at THE BLUE MANSION share in delivering special experiences. Once again, please accept my deepest apologies and I hope to be given another opportunity to welcome you and your wife to THE BLUE MANSION again. If you do decide to revisit us, I will personally see to it that you have a wonderful stay.
Yours sincerely,
James Lim
Resident Manager
We really enjoyed the historical building. And, restaurant was also grate. However, already I had mentioned at the check out, that night was so crowded near the hotel... Anyhow, we spent a memorable time during the stay, thank you from Japan.
We stayed in the Mandarin Suite for one night - our time was too short. We have visited this property several times to show friends around and always thought we would like to stay there. The opportunity arose on a visit this time - we were not disappointed.
James, the general manager, was extremely pleasant and keen to talk to his guests. Our huge room could have slept our entire family, but more importantly we felt we were staying in an old Penang treasure.
If you after a 5star luxury modern hotel, this is not for you. If you wish to soak up the ambience of old Penang, and enjoy a rare treat in Penang's offering of hotels, then this is it.
We sampled a few starters from the restaurant - very acceptable, but got the impression the chef was trying too hard to serve up something 'different'.
Would we recommend and stay again? Yes, definitely.
