Every year, I try to visit my hometown of Georgetown, Penang. Usually it’s around Cheng Beng or “tomb-sweeping day”, a day where we Chinese folks visit our ancestors’ graves to clean it up. Only, for my family, it’s a columbarium, so we don’t have to deal with the hot sun, grass or dirt and can pray and pay our respects in an air-conditioned room.

This year, I booked a few extra days to get some me-time to enjoy Georgetown fully without, er, family.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great start to my Penang trip – I ended up in a really janky hotel on my first night in Georgetown.

Usually I’d read reviews and even watch Youtube videos of the hotel before booking, but this time I skipped my usual due diligence because a) it was going for only RM97 b) its brand name. I had good time at its branch in Batu Feringghi and thought the Georgetown branch would be more or less the same. It wasn’t posh or fancy, just serviceable, and serviceable was all I needed for a “stop gap” place before heading to the beach-side Airbnb I had booked for myself and parents on Sunday.

Alas, when I finally read the reviews for the hotel, I went, “Oh boy…”

I wondered if I should just cancel my booking.

But then, I decided to just go ahead. how bad could it be, I thought?

Well, it turns out – very !

The most frequent complaint was that people end up taking hours to check in, which was ridiculous.

And indeed, the check in time was awful, but it exceeded even my lowest expectations. Reading the reviews, I knew that the check in process would be slow, so I decided to go to Gurney Plaza and Paragon to shop. I returned to the hotel at 6.00pm only to find people still queueing up! And it wasn’t a short queue either.

I only ended up in my room at 7pm. Yes, I queued for an hour! To add to the pain of it all, my back was in bad shape so I was standing with an achy back for over an hour.

But that was not all. Once I got to the room I discovered that there was a gaping hole in the ceiling and the aircond wasn’t working.

I called the reception only for the call to be disconnected four times. Finally, a maintenance man came to turn the aircond on manually and screw the aircond lid back on.

Unbelievable. Fortunately, my room didn’t have bed bugs like one of the reviewers said. Boy was I worried. But the aircond was not cold enough and the beds are too hard. I was sorely tempted to just pack my bags and move to another hotel, wasted money or not.

But alas, my aching back and tired body gave me the answer.

I cannot fault the workers who are trying their best to work under obviously bad management and lack of resources. And most were really polite despite the working conditions and grumpy guests.

I am just shocked that management have not made any effort to fix their check in problems – my bad review is hardly the first one. So, you’re just okay with copy pasta-ing the “Dear guest, I’m sorry we’ve not lived up to your expectations” messages on Google Reviews?

After a restless night of tossing and turning and hoping my shoulders would not be dislocated from the hard-as-rock mattress, I’m now in a comfortable air-conditioned cafe hoping that the Airbnb would be a better experience.

I’ve gotten increasingly wary of using Airbnbs, but my parents wanted a kitchen. So as a dutiful daughter, I delivered. But the problem with AirBnbs are the extra steps you need to do just to check in.

In Penang, many condos are hostile towards Airbnbs (the state government is even thinking of banning them), so checking in is sometimes akin to being a part of a covert operation.

Wish me luck!

PS: The name of the hotel is Bayview Hotel, Georgetown. I hope it improves but I’m not holding my breath.