Shangri-La Golden Sands

The best hotels in Malaysia

by BrideTObee about Shangri-La (KL & Golden Sands)

From the beginning to the end of our holiday in Malaysia we chose to stay with the Shangri-La chain of hotels. At both hotels everyone spoke english which made it alot easier on us "foreign travellers"

In Kuala Lumpur we stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel and the moment we were greeted at the door from the bell boy we were offered exceptional service.

There was a lovely bunch of flowers waiting in our room on arrival.

I would highly recommend staying with this chain of hotels as the service is beyond any other hotel. It was recommended to me as a wonderful place to stay but it exceeded my expectations.

The resort in Pengang - The Golden Sands had such a friendly inviting atmosphere. Which to me is a good reason why to stay at any hotel/resort, because it makes your time there so much more enjoyable SHANGRI-LA - KUALA LUMPUR
The pure opulence of this place makes it a remarkable place in itself. The service is amazing. It is in the heart of KL and it is very easy to get around to where ever you want from here. I cannot even begin to describe on just how amazing this place is. On a honeymoon its the little things that count. They took all the little things into account. I would have to make mention of the breakfast at this place - at the Lemon Grass Cafe - More food than you can even imagine. They had everything from Sushi to food from Paris!

The rooms were beautifully decorated and very clean.

GOLDEN SANDS - PENANG
The friendly staff helped make our stay wonderful. We had a lovely room over looking the resort and the ocean. They had three pools and many restaurants within the resort

These are both top accommodations to stay with and I would highly recommend them both.

Shangri La Golden Sands resort is great

by TripAdvisor Member Tucks1956

We have just returned from a weeks stay at the Golden Sands and had a wonderful time. We stayed in Executive Sea View facing rooms and were lucky enough to be on the top floor with great views of the pools, gardens and the sea beyond. I was told that these rooms are 4th floor and above so if you book the Delxue Sea View facing rooms they will be on the 1st to 3rd floors and your view may be obscured by vegetation etc. OK, the rooms are not brand new, but ours was spotlessly clean, with an enormous bed, full tea/coffee making facilities and an empty fridge that we filled with beers and wine from the shop across the road (though the hotel do encourage you to buy from them), and all the other touches that you expect from a hotel of this class. Breakfast was included in the price and was superb. It included traditional european fare as well as Roti Chanai, dim sum, miso soup and soba noodles etc - so all tastes catered for. The pool bar, Kudu Laut was great, serving good and varied lunchtime snacks (recommend the satay) and lovely cocktails. We tended to eat outside the hotel in the evening as we are great fans of hawker food and gravitated to the Long Beach Hawker centre most nights. Sigi's restaurant had a drinks promotion after 10.30pm until they closed so we went along there for our nightcap as it was good value for money (cocktails not included but beer and house wine).

We managed to swim in the sea on several occasions despite warning signs about the possibility of jelly fish. If they're about the Parasailing guys will warn you not to go in. The beach outside the hotel has a number of stalls offering massage, reflexology etc and there is a certain amount of touting for business but we found it to be all good humoured, after all these people are only trying to make a living. The hotel has security staff so you will not be hassled by anyone while you're in the grounds. The pools are lovely so you need not venture out if you don't want to.

We did notice that the hotel got a lot busier at the weekend but this didn't make any difference to the level of service we enjoyed.

We found all the staff were charming and helpful. We had one minor problem with the plumbing in our room - the basin cold tap would not turn off properly and this caused water pressure problems and meant we couldn't shower. It did take my husband several attempts to convey the urgency of the situation and the hotel eventually gave us a key to an empty room so we could shower. These things happen, but the problem was fixed.

If we ever find ourselves in Penang again we would certainly stay at the Golden Sands.

Golden Sands, batu ferringhi

by mccrorj about Hawker food

We ate at the hawker stalls just outside the golden sands hotel everynight we were on resort. The food was excellent, efficiently delivered and unsuprisingly cheap. The most expensive component of the meal was tiger beer ar 15 ringit for a 600ml bottle. To put this into perspective we could have two plates of filling satay for the same price as one beer. Food cheap beer comparable with the UK. The service and people working the stalls were excellent. Every night I would give the hawker more money that the meal came to they would disappear off into the crowd and without exception return with the exact change. My 15yr old daughter was with us and she can be a fussy eater, I have to say that every night she ate her dinner at the hawker stalls. None of us had the slightest problems with our stomachs during our stay in Malaysia. So many. Char kwe choe, chicken and beef satay, lots of north indian curries. The curry stall in the bottom right corner as you enter the food hall was excellent. It was however the most popular and therefore was most expensive (but it's all relative still only a couple of pounds GB) and took the longest to deliver although always worth the wait.

Hawker Centres

by hundertmorgen

Teluk Bahang - Teluk Bahang Market and eating shops near the village round-a-bout, near to Penang Mutiara Hotel

Batu Ferringhi - Food Court at Ferringhi Mutiara Arcade opposite Shangri-la's Golden Sands Resort.

Tanjung Bunga - Hawker Centre opposite Mar Vista Resort (popular Malay food stalls here)

Mount Erskine - roadside hawker centre

Gurney Drive - Night Hawker Centre (famous for rojak, mee goreng, Chinese and Indian pasembor) near to MacDonald's and Pizza Hut; coffee shop hawker centres (very popular, especially at night) near Evergreen Laurel Hotel

Esplanade - beside the promenade

Georgetown - various centres: Winston at Anson Road; Macalister Road and New Lane near to Sunway Hotel; Junction of Burma Road and Macalister Lane; Food Court at Komtar, Penang Road; Kek Seng Coffee Shop at Penang Road; Macalister Road coffee shop opposite the District Education Office; Lorong Selamat Low Eng Hoo Coffee shop and roadside stalls

I enjoy golden sands

by A TripAdvisor Member

we passed three nights in the Golden sands resort, Penang, Malaysia, we arrived 4:00pm, march 25, 2006. the room was ready, but the travel agency didn't reserve a sea view room, so we stayed the first night in a hill view and change the room to a sea view the next day, rooms are comfortable enough, and the air conditioning working well, the houskeeping didn't pay attention to the details when they make up rooms, room facilities is acceptable and the sea view rooms has a nice small balcony, quiete enough for two chairs and a table, so you can enjoy watching the sunset everyday, there is a difference of 105RM additional charge for the sea view room, I think it is worthed the price, we tried two restaurants, Golden cafe and Sigi's by the sea, the quality of food is acceptable and the service is nice, you can have breakfast in golden cafe as open buffet,
the swimming pools and poolside cafe is good,
in general, you can have a calm vacation over there, don't forget to enjoy the early morning jungle walk,
Monkey beach is about one and a half hour walk from the hotel and the route passes by the national park, if you get enough time, it is a good idea to have a sea adventure visiting Langawi Islands,
and also be careful with the people in the shore inviting you for parasailing, jetsky or horseback riding, they have no relation to the hotel and rip you off, I just understood it after paying 150RM for half an hour of jetskiing

The Golden Sands is fine

by TripAdvisor Member Robertn

Stayed at the Golden Sands Shangri-La in Penang 22nd January '06 and had been concerned at some of the negative comments about the hotel - no need to worry -the only complaint I have about the hotel is that there isn't enough broadband internet access albeit if you bring your own laptop there is excellent wireless access. The rooms are fine, the food good and the grounds superb - enjoy.
Local Night Markets are very good and if you enjoy the local food you can eat like a king for pennies at the night market hawker stalls.

PS They are pushing on with the refurbishment of the Rasa Sayang next door - it looks like they are trying to make it 6* (and no doubt the prices will reflect that)- They estimate opening October '06.

nice hotel...... 25 years ago !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by A TripAdvisor Member

this hotel is not 4 1/2 *, we were shown 4 different rooms before we found a room to 3* standard. big coffee stains on the walls & carpets in the other rooms & old towels + bed sheets.the rooms look nothing like on the photos.ok is you are your average deb + daz looking for a 3* hotel, but we paid for 4 1/2* prices and wanted a 4 1/2* hotel.the manager knew the the hotel was a tip, and was very understanding.we enjoyed penang we we got out of the hotel.eat at the jewel of the north,nicer than england.

loved penang resort okay

by A TripAdvisor Member

I stayed at the Shangri-la resort early last year and was disappointed with my stay.

The negatives: The beach wasn't that great. You couldn't swim in the sea as there were multiple signs warning of jellyfish. Another thing that disturbed me about the beach were the locals on the beach who hasselled you every time you set foot on the beach re jetskying, parasailing etc. And despite saying, no thankyou politely, i and my friend (both in out early 20's) found them to be extremly rude. I found the hotel food expensive so never ate there. We only had the breakfast which was already included in our stay. I can't say anything bad about the breakfast. it was a fantastic meal. We had our other main meals outside the hotel which were cheap and nice. Drinks were also much cheaper then at the resort.
i was disappointed with the room. i found it small. I guess i expected a bigger room and alot more from the hotel considering the 4 star rating and the price that we payed for our stay there. There didn't seem to be much of a night life surrounding the resort. Entertainment provided by the hotel was boring. And me and my friend (both females) were not brave enough to head into town on our own.

Now for some positives. I loved the resort grounds. I really loved the resort grounds. There were two pools which were both great. The noise from the foyer did not bother me at all. To be honest i couldn't even hear the music from our room. I guess it depends on what floor you are on. i found our room to be very clean and remained clean throughtout our stay there. The night market is right outside the hotel. The people who worked there seemed nice and were always friendly.

I found shangri-la to be more family/couple/honeymooning kind of place. Or the kinda place you go to to just relax.
I probably would stay there again (but only if i could get a cheaper room rate then what i originally paid). Dispite being disappointed with the hotel i did enjoy my holiday and was overall happy with my stay there.

Nice, but dated

by TripAdvisor Member rb2000

We stayed at the Golden Sands for three nights in March.

The hotel is about 45 minutes drive from the airport and costs about 60 Ringitt in an airport cab.

When we checked-in, we were given a different room from what we had booked, so after some "discussion" we were told that we would be moved to the correct type of room the following day and offered a free dinner at one of the hotel restaurants (as an apology for the inconvenience). Not a great start!

The room was comfortable and clean, but the decor is a bit dated and in need of some modernisation. The pool area is great, with lots of activities happening throughout the day. There are also water sports available on the beach, but this is separate from the hotel. There was a massive choice for breakfast (the roti canai was my particular favourite!).

There is a wide choice of eateries outside of the hotel at much more affordable prices, so be sure to take a wander. The night market is also a must and you can get some good bargains. We stayed at the Golden Sands sister hotel, the Rasa-Sayang, which is siuated literally next door, a few years ago and much preferred it (although it is currently undergoing major rennovations). However, in terms of cost, the Golden Sands is a very good option.

Glenn and Philip in Malaysia

by pipng

"Arriving"

Apart from car travel in oz - this was the first Big trip Philip and I made together...
It was a long day with us departing Perth in the early afternoon and not getting into Penang till around 9.30 ish with a little time spent in KL airport. When we finally got there we were met by a man in a mini bus and feeling slightly tired and a little scattered, to finally arrive at the Shangri La Golden Sands in Batu Ferrenghi was something of a joy in itself, just the arriving that is.

When we arrived it was quiet. Only a few people lurking around and now close to 11pm. We sat and had a cigarette and drink while our bags were taken up to our room and then we finally made our way up too the room, which was nice however the smell of damp was pretty strong, who would have thought such a pungent smell would grow on me by the end of the week.