TheAugBunnies

KSL hotel and Resort is a 4 star hotel nestled right above KSL city. The latter is a vibrant shopping mall with a excellent choice of eateries and shopping options. It also serves as a good base to explore the neighborhood with the various food options and family friendly massage shops.

There are 2 main options to come to the hotel if you are coming from Singapore. A metered taxi fare from City Square shopping mall will cost you about RM10/$3.30 or you can select to take bus S1 from JB sentral.

Do be careful when booking thru online hotel booking websites which is rating the hotel at 5 stars. The lower priced options provides you with a studio apartment which has basic cooking facilities and a open concept bedroom. Checking in at the studio apartment is at a DEsplanade Residence Reception which is a different place from the main hotel block.

We booked the 27sqm superior room at the KSL hotel and we were assigned to hotel tower 2's 9th floor. During long weekends, the hotel can get quite busy during long weekends and long wait for the elevator can be encountered. Staying at a lower floor thus have the benefit of not having the elevator opening at every other floor before arriving at yours. The downside of that will be the limited view available.




The hotel rooms are spacious compared to the ones in land scarce Singapore and offers plenty of room to move around. The design of the hotel is business like and uses plenty of wood elements. A small study table and another small coffee table if offered in the room. A wooden bench seats in the middle of the room which is useful for placing your luggage.

The flat screen tv offers a good variety of local and some cable channels and was sufficient to provide some entertainment to resting guests. The downside of the TV will be the programs do not extend to the entire screen by default and there will be ugly black space at the sides. A little fiddling of the remote solve the problem but I do believe such inconvenience should be left to the hotel to figure out.


The double bed is comfortable and offers guests with a good nights rest. Sound proofing is not the best as we found out the hard way with noises from the adjoining room being heard clearly.



A safe is available for keeping your valuables and iron facilities are present directly in the room. The waderobe also provided sufficient space to hang your clothing.


Tea making facilities are pretty standard and the hotel provides 2 bottles of water daily. A small mini fridge can be used to chill any drinks that you had purchased from the Supermarket in KSL city. The in room dining menu offers an extensive selection and quite reasonably priced.






The restrooms is comfortably large and have a large mirror. The lighting at the sides make the missus happy by providing sufficient brightness to ensure she does not have a hard top applying make up. The amenities provided are plentiful and all sealed in plastic. A hygienic approached.




My favourite rain-shower is included in the package but I am sorry to disappointed fans of the handheld shower-head as that is not available. The provided shower gel and shampoo is acceptable and not stinging to the eyes. The drainage of the showering area does not work too well during our first night and we had to take intermittent stops during our shower or risk flooding the entire bathroom. We highlighted the problem to housekeeping but was not offered any immediate assistance even after saying they will send someone to check. The 2nd night, we did not face the same issue and seems the issue was resolved when the housekeeping made up the room.



View out of our room enabled us to see the swimming pool and also the  Dinosaur Alive Water Theme Park. Gym and other entertainment facilities like arcade, pool table is located at the 7th floor. A golf simulation system can also be rented by the hour to offer guests some fun. The swimming pool is popular with kids and water theme park is usually very crowded during the weekends.


We tried the buffet breakfast the previous time we are at the hotel but did not felt it was enticing to have another go. The food options provided a good variety but was a tad lacking in quality. Due to the hotel being very busy during weekends, you might have to spend some time queuing to get popular items like fried eggs. Tbe coffee was also not to my liking which was another reason why I decided to head elsewhere for breakfast.


Wifi speed is very slow and impossible to watch any videos on youtube. It was also not easy to send images on whatsapp due to the impossibly slow speeds. Housekeeping response is mediocre and they took more than half an hour to send shower gels to our room.



Final notes

Overall. the hotel's location and the large rooms make it a good stay over the weekend in Johor Bahru. Being just beside KSL city, it was very easy to just head downstairs to get snacks from the supermarket. Entertainment are aplenty in KSL city with the cinema and lots of affordably priced clothes and sporty goods. Service standards can be improved and hopefully with the opening of a new hotel next door will help to raise the bar.

Video Review:



Need ideas for your JB trip, check out the below:
JB Trip Day 1
JB Trip Day 2/3

For other hotels in JB, check out the below:
Doubletree JB (Near to Woodlands checkpoint and great for staycation)
Mutiara JB Suite room

Location:
No.33, Jalan Seladang, Taman Abad,
Johor Bahru City Center,
Johor Bahru, Malaysia 80250

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