Review 1.1 Tune Hotel, Kota Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

With the Australian dollar being oh-so-mighty, I bought my cheap ticket from AirAsia and booked myself 'cheap' accomodation at Tune hotel.

With Tune hotels, you basically pay for every single thing you use from usage of the TV to air-conditioning. Thereby 'saving' you money.

So if you are coming into Malaysia via AirAsia, you will arrive at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal and not the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In short, its the lousier airport.

TRANSPORT

Now from LCCT, if you are travelling alone and intend to save money you could take the Skybus (You can buy tickets just before you exit customs and walk about 200-300m to the skybus bus stand) to the KL Sentral train station, and make your way round the huge construction site to a make-shift bus station (as of October 2010-you can get directions from the Monorail station if you cant find your bearings) and then take RAPIDKL U89 bus route (bus fares are very very cheap RM2-3) which will pass by the hotel (just tell the driver). Or if you are travelling in a party of 4 then I highly recommend taking a taxi directly to the Tune hotel. Make sure you purchase a taxi ticket from the airport counter and not get jibbed by rouge taxi drivers outside the airport. I remember it was roughly about ~RM120 and if you divide that by 4 persons, that's alright considering how far you have to travel.

Remember that the mighty Australian dollar gets you RM3 (as of October 2010) so just spend a little and travel by taxi.

HOTEL RECEPTION

Once we've arrived at the hotel, it's a very colourful building, but I mistakenly thought that the entire building was the hotel but I found out that it only took up the 3rd and 4th floors of the building.

If you happen to be driving, there is underground parking with lifts that will take you up to the hotel floors. The carpark appears to be still under construction so for now I guess parking is free.

So I entered the ground floor and I can see portable banners setup up by the elevators guiding us to the 3rd floor.

Once at the 3rd floor, I saw guard at his desk doodling on his notepad. Two out of commission computers that I believe was meant for hotel guests to surf the net on but an operational wall-mounted LCD TV. Scroll below to see pictures. And lastly a nasty lady on duty at the reception. I wont comment on her rudeness and her inability to be of any assistance to me and my crew. I just hope her boyfriend/partner is proud of her. Suffice to say service is bad! PS. There is no free WIFI and no telephones in the rooms and you cannot use the telephones at the reception. The reception can organise taxis for you.

HOTEL ROOMS

The rooms are not all the same size. You may get stuffed into a smallish room or a windowless room. However, I recommend you invoke your right as a tourist and demand to change to better rooms. I certainly did..

If you scroll down the photos, you can see the room I ended up with. Twin beds with a view.

The size is decent. Beds are great. Bathroom is small. Water pressure is decent. Toilet was blocked and flooded very easily... took forever for the contents to flush away.. I recommend not to wear shoes/footwear in your room but thats just me... it gets dirty really fast. So just get a little box as your make shift shoe box :)

I paid for air conditioning and the tv. But seriously you can save money and just use the free ceiling fan (Gosh, its sad when you have to call the ceiling fan 'free'). By the way, what's use of being called a budget traveller if you cant stand a little heat? If you really want to save money, then you can sleep in the corridors LOL the corridors have air conditioners running throughout the day :)

Also I was in my room trying to get some sleep and there were other foreign guests talking in the corridors and the walls must be thin a I could hear them talking loudly and I had to go out and tell them to keep it down. So yes, thin walls!

There are wall plugs for you to charge mobile phones and cameras etc. but use an international adapter.

THINGS TO DO

The STRAND area has tons of restaurants. You can just cross the road and have lots of choices are your disposal. They open right up pass midnight. There are two mega supermarkets, Carrefour and Giant. Carrefour is on your left as soon as you walk out the hotel. Giant supermarket is straight ahead as you leave the hotel. You have to walk quite a distance to get to these supermarkets, I estimate 400m? But then again, I am a slow walker. As mentioned before, you can take the very cheap public bus transport but the bus intervals is very long, I imagine that you have to wait for hours... I waited for one to see how long the intervals were and I can tell you that the time I waited for the bus, I got married and had five children and the bus still did not arrive.

My plans were to go to KL city and again with 4 persons, Taxi fares are reasonable. You can take a Taxi to the nearby 1Utama shopping complex and IKEA (About RM30). I went right up to my favourite shopping mall, Sungei Wang in KL city about RM70 (its roughly around this mark, I wrote down the fares somewhere but lost it and this is based on memory). Remember always ask to use the meter.

FAVOURITE SHOPPING SPOTS (from most favourite to least)

1. Sungei Wang

2. 'Pasar Malams' or Night Markets set up along road at various suburbs/neighbourhoods throughout KL. Melbourne's equivalent would be Queen Vic Market... but totally cannot compare to pasar malams in Malaysia

3. 1Utama

4. Mid Valley

5. I dont like going to the high-end shopping spots like Pavillion. (Branded stuff like Coach, Gucci, etc... forget about finding gundams here)

FINAL THOUGHTS

For a budget hotel, TUNE is still pricey. I discovered a cheaper hotel that includes air-conditioning, and drinking water dispensers and free WI-FI, all for much cheaper in the STRAND shopping area. Its just down the road from Tune. Beds, toilet and bathroom facilities are on par with TUNE. My Home Hotel. I highly recommend this hotel over TUNE anyday. However, one thing that Tune hotels has an advantage is that its hotels are placed in many locations in KL, interstate and even overseas compared to the locally based MyHome Hotels.

So based solely for value for money,

TUNE hotel gets a 2 out of 5 stars for me for value and facilities.

My home hotels gets a 4 out of 5 stars for value and facilities.

Scenes on the way to the hotel.

Finally after about an hour I've reached the Mahogani Persiaran

Looks pretty groovy

The 'hotel' looks very colourful

Oh what's this, rooms for rent?

Apparently Tune hotel only takes up TWO floors.

The bus in question. Route U89, the intervals are not very frequent.

Apparently there are no bus stops just have to tell the driver where you like him to drop you off, just make sure its on his route.

The building is called Sunsuria and Tune is one of its tenants.

Upon entering the complex, you cannot turn in right just have to drive up straight.

And make a u-turn which takes you to the 'reception'

I'd like to say this was my ride but it belonged to some rich dood

Doesn't look like a hotel now does it?

Not every facility has been completed constructed.

Car parking which is underground and the lifts will take you to the Tune hotel floors. Currently its free but once construction is complete, I guess you will have to pay for parking.

Just opposite the hotel is the Strand, lots of restaurants but not much of shopping unfortunately.

If them portable banners weren't there. You wont think you're at Tune

Very ingenious to set up cheap banner. Keep the costs down. Should have nicked them banners. LOL

This office appears to be selling real estate. It just opened when we arrived.

Ugh welcome to Tune.

Mail boxes for tenants of this building not for hotel guests.

How many banners do they have?!

Chinese are superstitious when it comes to the number '4', you will notice that in most shops, buildings etc, '4' is usually replaced by '3a'

ARRRRGHGGH

Durians. Malaysians love these smelly fruits.

The reception area looks pretty fly like a G6

Internet kiosks out of order. Security guard is bored out of his mind.

The Tv at least works

The strands, lots of cafes, restaurants and more restaurants open till late into the wee hours of the night. Also has a Giant supermarket.

The view of the Strand from my room

An up and coming location, I reckon.

Not much of shopping that can be done here though.

You have to take a taxi to the nearby shopping malls such as 1Utama and Ikea

Right beyond the reception on the 3rd floor are the rooms

I like the wallpaper

More of the same

My room sounds close to 128 lol

Good news, corridors are air-conditioned! So if you want to save money on airconditioning, you can sleep in the corridors kkekeke

Secure doors.

A better room.. after complaining about my previous room to reception

Very nice room I like the decor.

This fully extends to become a mini desk.

A safe that thieves can easily carry off.

Like as they did with my luggage :|

A nice big mirror

Curtains really block out the sun

Over there is the size of the bathroom. Yes its that small

Airconditioner and TV usage can be monitor by inserting room card into the unit and the display will tell you how many hours you have left. Hours roll over to the next day.

I must like this part of the room alot... So many pics of this spot.

At least no one can see me wash my bottom :S

The bathroom doesnt look as nice as the room

The toilet has blockage problems.

Carrefour

It was a long walk to get here. 20-3omins? But I walk really slow

There is another huge supermarket on the opposite side of the hotel.