Shangris La Golden Sands Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

We booked this hotel because we had stayed at various Shangri La hotels before. Normally the standard is excellent and the hotel photos looked great. We booked with Kuoni who normally do not havve sub standard hotels in their brochure. We were not notified that the hotel was on a busy road where traffic noise kept you awake all night, there was a building site opposite too that we were not informed of and it started work at 7.30pm. On checking in we realised the hotel was very dirty and the decor shabby and dated. The bed linen, bathrooms were filthy. Electrical sockets were hanging off the wall. Next morning we had breakfast and found a cockroach on the breakfast buffet, we realise outdoor eating areas will have insects but we were not expecting the cook to take it back into the kitchen! We waited for the Tour East Rep to arrive at the hotels and told him we wanted to move hotels, we had booked 11 nights
there and could not eat in the hotel due to the unsafe hygiene practices. He could not do anything and said we would have to wait for Kuoni to open at 9am (5pm local time) we spoke to Kuoni at a large cost to ourselves as you have to ring the UK and are on the phone at least 15 minutes, we told them we wanted to be moved to another hotel anywhere in Malaysia we would be prepared to apy the difference in the brochure prices,or be flown home. Kuoni said they would sort something out as to us moving to the Rasa Sayang next door and would inform Tour East. The following morning the rep arrived again and had no news about us moving, we were not prepared to waste another whole day waiting for Kuoni as they had done nothing for us and demanded to see the manager. When we told him the problem (that none of the staff had told him) he was very apologetic and withing one hour we were moved to the Rasa Sayang. Kuoni still did not call us at 5pm we had to call them (total calls to them totalled £50) the customer services women was rude and told us we would have to pay for another holiday as we had moved on our own and would not transfer the booking, we told her we would not be paying the bill as the Manager had already told us he would transfer the booking and she was given the option the day before to move us to a cheaper hotel or fly us home and she had done nothing at all. We said we wanted to come home and we would not pay the bill. She then telephoned us and said out tickets were non transferrable and if we paid another £126 each £252) as a gesture of goodwill she would transfer the booking. We ended up paying the exact amount we would of paid if we had booked the Rasa Sayang in the first place. We were disgusted with Kuoni for holding us to ransom knowing we were in a hotel we could not pay for, and furthermore I have been a customer of Kuoni's for over 2 years and spent a fortune with them.
The Tour East rep wants Golden Sands to be removed from the Kuoni brochure as he gets on average 20 complaints a week about it.
The Manager at the Rasa who was also the Manager of Golden Sands was excellent and
made the 9 days enjoyable.
I wold never book with Kuoni again and Shangri La & Kuoni need to show the real
photographs of the rooms and condition of this hotel. They make it hard for you to
complain by having a UK only telephone number to call when you have an 8 hour time difference take the money and run.