T&J Travels #9: Kuala Lumpur & Melaka 2017 (Part 1)

Hey a new watermark again!

+ Preparation +

I want to make it a thing for me and Reagan to always travel on my birthday. This would be the 2nd time. I would really like to go to Taiwan (cheaper air fares, colder weather, quick travel time) but it's already September and the Taiwanese embassy still have not released a final guideline for free visa for Filipinos. I've been meaning to have Reagan and I get visa for Korea or Japan (to make Taiwan visa-free) but I don't want to press him so much with all the expenses I would like to incur with all these travelling I would like to do. This is in fact, and should be, the last time we would travel as boyfriend and girlfriend. We really ought to get married next year. We are, after all getting old. And he's already planning to get us a house as well. So yeah. Visa countries or any travel plans for that matter would have to wait.

Unlike most of my peers I still have a lot of places on my checklist. One of which is Malaysia, specifically Batu Caves. I have first seen it on Amazing Race when I was younger and have not forgotten it since. There is no way i will visit KL without stepping foot there once.

So there. KL it is.

+ Shopping for Hotel +

Is extremely hard. We didn't have much problem from our previous travels unless said travels made us more picky on what we like. I love the fact that both of us have a certain budget for this type of expense but it's not too extreme to the point that we'd consider dorms or hostels just to get by. We need it accessible to transportation, possibly in a good neighborhood, must at least be 20sqm or higher, spacious clean bath, have a closet, clean bed and sheets. Any review that mentions bed bugs are already out of our short list.

Also another consideration is that starting this year hotels now require a 10MYR tax for foreigners such as we, PER ROOM, PER NIGHT. I don't know if this would apply to AirBnB too. But knowing this now it seems that if you really are tight on money you might have to adjust your budget furthermore to accommodate this. I find it really bold for them to do this but since we already booked the flights there is no turning back now.

+ Pacific Regency Hotel +

After so many sleepless nights, we finally ended up with Pacific Regency Hotel. We got each night for a Superior Suite for 2659.05PHP! What's more is we were suddenly upgraded  (we suddenly got a bath tub) which I attribute to how long we waited for our room. We liked how near we are at KL Tower and probably approx. 10 minutes to the nearest monorail (Raja Chulan station).

Everyday we notice they change the tower's colors!

There's a 7/11 on the Ground floor (if you're staying here, do yourselves a favor and remember that the Lobby is at the 7th level) but if that's not enough for you, The Weld is a multilevel shopping mall right across the block. Restaurants abound, especially the streets of Jalan Tengah and Jalan Puncak in between the monorail and the hotel. We also notice a lot of street sellers during breakfast. Regrettably we didn't get the chance to try out their food (the hotel has a kitchen and large ref to stock food) because we had to be somewhere to go to.

Other than the spacious and clean bed (seriously, we could fit in 3-4 there easy), I love the shower most remarkably the rain feature. The pressure and temperature encourages me to stay there much longer than usual.

Other that one assistant when we checked in, everyone else seemed nice. What we missed is someone actually answering the hotel phone where we were supposed to request for an additional toothbrush (well there's two of us!, also to mention there was no toothpaste included) and possibly complimentary slippers. No one even called back so we had to drop all of those requests.

Here are more photos:

Cooking has extra charge; ref is not stocked with payables

Bottom part of the right cabinet has a nifty hidden security box

It is odd that the entire time I still get confused on whether I go to the left or right side