Spices Hotel

Terrible front desk attitude

This is my second time staying at the Spices Hotel in Penang. The first time was in March this year. The first time was very good, but this time it was very bad. I encountered racial discrimination. It is unimaginable that I encountered racial discrimination in Penang, where Chinese account for 64%.

I communicated with the lady at the front desk to change the room, hoping to change to a room that is not on the road side, but she was very rude and firmly said N Nos, and did not listen to why I wanted to change the room. Then she said that I complained about the smell. I said I did not complain about the smell. Then the front desk picked on my pronunciation and said that smile and smell are not the same word (you know I am not a native English speaker). Finally, the front desk lady started to use a big move and said that Japanese people don’t like Chinese people, Taiwanese people don’t like Chinese people, and asked me to check out and go to eno if I don’t like it. But why should I check out because of her, like being kicked out, and what does it have to do with me that Taiwanese and Japanese don’t like Chinese people? Should I be treated so rudely by her just because I am Chinese? Even when I traveled to Taiwan and Japan mentioned by the front desk, I was not discriminated against.

Then a manager （name：Shahril ）came to communicate with me, communicated very friendly and helped to change the hotel (Rare Heritage The new hotel staff is also very friendly and the room is very clean, but these cannot pretend that those bad things did not happen. I just share it to let everyone know, hoping that everyone will not be treated similarly.

Don't stay here if you value sleep. There's a mosque right next door that amplifies prayer through speakers before sunrise (6am) every morning. It's as if they're in the room with you. Our room was in a separate building beside the hotel, we had a room-key but we weren't given key access to the building so we had to ask reception to let us in each time. The room was small and directly outside the door was an indoor balcony right above a Japanese restaurant that finished up at around 11:30pm each evening.

Pros are short walking distance to George Town, a local mosque and a Japanese restaurant.

!!!Could be a good hotel BUT!!!
Looks beautiful if you come in and also the interior seems nice BUT our room was not clean (hair and dirt in the bed and room). Wifi didn’t work properly and stuff on day one didn’t really want to help us. On day three other stuff provided us with different wifi. Worst thing we had MANY COCKROACHES (really big ones) in our bathroom and room. Instead of coming up with the idea to move us to another room we had to ask for it. Stuff wasn’t helpful and proactive. Also I expected a „sorry“ or a discount but we didn’t get anything besides a smaller room for the last 2 nights… Management seems to only show the beauty of the hotel and reviews instead of maintaining and caring about current customers.

A lot of on the ground, loud mosque prayers next door, bad sound proof of the property. You can hear piping noises all night. So bad, my parents have to leave after one night. If you wish for a peaceful stay, don't stay here.