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LOCATION:
Heritage Hotel is located on Jalan Raja Dihilir just outside downtown Ipoh. If you are driving from either Kuala Lumpur or Penang on the North South Expressway (NSE), take the Ipoh Selatan exit at Kinta City that goes southbound into into Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah. There will be a right-hand turn into Jalan Tambun and eventually Jalan Raja Dihilir. You will be able to located the hotel building to your left.

DESCRIPTION:
This is probably one of the latest business-class hotels in Ipoh. Even so, the hotel has been operational for almost 10 years if memory serves me right. That tells us about the dearth of new hotels in the city of Ipoh.

I quite liked the lobby area, with an open-air concept at the atrium level from which you can gawk upwards to the indoor balconies of the higher floors. Even the two of the four hotel elevators are installed with glass walls that give view to the open-air atrium. A rather thrilling ride too when the elevators hastily ascend tens of feet above ground. Quite unique I must say.

Heritage Hotel offers 265 rooms and suites in an eleven-storey building. I booked myself into a Superior room which is the second lowest room category that is being offered at the hotel. The room choices according to the ascending order of categories are Standard, Superior, Deluxe, Executive, Junior Suite, Executive Junior Suite, Executive Suite and Heritage Suite.

The Superior room was acceptable with nothing extraordinary. It was somewhat disappointing as I was rather impressed with the external look of the hotel in a modern and glassy design, as well as the unique open-air atrium. The room size was average and was expected for a Superior or Deluxe room class. I was not too thrilled with the bedsheet cover with colourful stripes that was too 1980s for me. The room also felt too empty with only two antiquated bedside tables to fill up the space. The room had a fairly large window that opened out the view to the famous Ipoh Polo & Turf Club as well as the dazzling limestone landscapes of the city. In the morning, you can watch a number of horse racers practicing on the race course.

By the large window is a two-seater sofa that creates a small living area for the room. The sofa fabric is acceptably nice but the room carpeting of pink colour truly throws everything out the large window, pun intended. Perhaps it is time for the hotel management to rethink about using the dull carpeting for this new millennium. Other than that, the room facilities are quite standard, namely, IDD phone, centralised air-conditioning, complimentary coffee-making facility, colour TV, attached bathroom with hot shower, hairdryer, mini bar, etc. The bathroom is adequately sized with a full-length vanity with marble-top dressing counter, a water closet and a bath-cum-shower tub. The bathroom kits provided are rather classy and refreshingly modern. At least, the hotel gets it right when it comes to the toiletry items.

Surprisingly. the hotel does not have a swimming pool. I was looking for a pool all over the building, just in case it was located some floors up in a secret garden somewhere. Nonetheless, there is a great and well-equipped health centre with spa services, sauna and jacuzzi. Otherwise, the hotel is not too great in term of facilities that are offered for its patrons.

The hotel hosts two main restaurants, namely Polo Café at the open-air atrium offering buffet and a la cartè meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as Tai Thong Restaurant which is a popular restaurant chain for Chinese delicacies with eating outlets scattered throughout Malaysia. For lighter snacks, Heritage Kopitiam offers the much-acclaimed Ipoh white coffee with delicious pastries on the side. Finally, for relaxing cocktail hours, the newly-opened Garden Lounge at the atrium serves a variety of beverages in a relatively nice setting of the sky roof, man-made fountains and a centre-piece piano.

The published rack rates are RM260 for Standard room, RM300 for Superior room, RM340 (Deluxe room), RM380 (Executive room), RM500 (Junior Suite), RM550 (Executive Junior Suite), RM880 (Executive Suite) and RM1,900 (Heritage Suite).

REVIEWED ON:
April 2007

MY VERDICT:
Probably the best hotel in Ipoh. Actually, that is not a compliment.

MY RATING: