Pullman Putrajaya

Last Christmas weekend, hubby & I stayed in Pullman Putrajaya using the free night stay voucher he got. Based on the name, I was expecting an ultra modern / minimalist / all straight lines & muted colours type of hotel. Boy was I way off the mark!

Not tht it wasn't beautiful. Far from it... It's majestic (in size) with traditional themes. It has several blocks named after different types of flowers... Let's see if I can remember most if not all of them...
1. Lotus (this is where the lobby, swimming pool, ballrooms, gym other than rooms are located) - in Chinese / Japanese theme
2. Raflesia (this is where we stayed) - in Sabah / Sarawak style with traditional motives on the pillars
3. Bunga Tanjung (this is where the 24-hour restaurant & also where we have breakfast is located. Of course it has rooms too) - Malay themed
4. Jasmine - Indian themed
These blocks surrounds a beautiful pillared clock tower, with a fountain at its base & overlooking a beautiful lake where a restaurant on stilts can be found. Beside the lake, there's an open air "amphitheatre", game rooms, children play room, bicycles for rent etc. There's also a Maritime centre next door (don't know wht's in a Maritime Centre; it's still empty at the moment).

It was a peaceful place to be in (but probably attributed to low number of occupants / the grounds is so big tht we didn't bump into many ppl). I think I see more cleaners & maintenance folks than guests; but it's no wonder considering the size of the hotel. It certainly needs an army to run / upkeep the place. The most surprising thing I found? dumbbells & yoga mats in the room's cupboard (no I didn't take them home... behave guys...).

Several down sides though:
1. I remembered I commented in Krabi tht Malaysian tourism's most successful area (better than our neighbours) is tht our staff has good command of English. The staff here (especially the night shift... Morning shift is much better) proved me wrong... They either take time to understand us / understand us but don't know how to reply / give us the wrong information (e.g. we wanted to know the room rates if we're a member of their chain of hotels & was told it's RM100++ but when we asked again in the morning, we were told tht it's actually abt RM250++!! Jeezz....)
2. It's a new hotel, yet the room had faulty security lock / things needing repair
3. Food is generally too salty. Other than tht, it's normal hotel fare with nothing to rave about. But hubby praised tht it's the first hotel he'd been so far tht managed to produce a proper half-boiled egg on the 2nd try! (other hotels keep giving him hard-boiled eggs because the chefs insisted the right time to cook a half-boiled egg is 3 mins & refuses to change the timing despite producing hard-boiled eggs everytime they cook it for 3 mins)
4. There's nowhere to go out for good food in Putajaya! Or maybe we don't know where to find them. We went to Alamanda Putrajaya mall & had our dinner there instead.

Overall it was a good & relaxing retreat. If you can afford the price, it's a good place to relax & do nothing! :-)