Last weekend, I was invited to share my high school friend’s matrimony ceremony at a temple in Ipoh. The ceremony was in the morning, so I decided to stay in a hotel the night before to avoid the weekend traffic since our borders have reopened. I was looking for somewhere clean, yet not to pricey, and I stumbled across WEIL Hotel.
FYI – hotel stays qualify as a tax deduction for personal tax purposes for YA2022.
WEIL Hotel
WEIL Hotel is an upmarket 4-star hotel located at the heart of Ipoh. It is located nearby popular tourist destinations in Ipoh, just 9km away from both Lost World of Tambun theme park and the gold Buddha statue in Perak Tong Cave Temple.
The hotel is set in a sleek building located just beside a mall, Ipoh Parade, and opposite SMK Sam Tet school. The two buildings are interlinked, meaning that you can just walk into the mall right from the hotel itself. Ipoh Parade has a cinema, a bowling alley, a variety of shopping stores and restaurants. So it’s pretty convenient if you’re looking for mall-kind of food and entertainment in Ipoh.
Room-wise, WEIL hotel has a few types of rooms available, though is divided into two main categories – Standard Rooms and Concept Rooms. The latter is obviously more expensive. You can check out the types of rooms they offer here!
Parking
There are paid valet parking right outside the hotel, or dedicated free parking that is shared with Ipoh Parade. To get to the free parking, you are required to take a ticket to the mall’s parking, go up a few levels of the circular ramp, and turn into the dedicated hotel parking area. To enter that area, you are required to validate your ticket again by inserting the ticket into the machine.
Should you wish to exit the area, you are required to validate your ticket at the hotel’s concierge, and leave the parking facility within 15 minutes.
Check-In
The check-in process was pretty smooth. Guests were served rather promptly and efficiently. I arrived at WEIL hotel at about 5PM, showed my Agoda booking, and was promptly given my keycard to the room. They also requested for a deposit of RM200, to be paid in cash or credit card, which is pretty standard. The deposit will be refunded upon check-out.
The hotel lobby deco was pretty bare, with just a few chairs for people to wait whilst checking in or out. There’s also their Tiffin restaurant on the same floor. That’s where you’d have your complimentary breakfast buffet.
The Room – Premier King
I booked their Deluxe King room for RM392.94 on Agoda. However, during the check-in, I was told that the room that I booked had been fully taken up, and was given a free upgrade to their Premier King room.
I checked WEIL Hotel’s website, and the only difference I could find between the rooms was that the Premier rooms are located on a higher floor (i.e. 10th – 11th floor), whereas the Deluxe rooms are on the 7th to 9th floors. My room was on Level 11.
Fun fact: There are offices and restaurants at the lower floors. For example, Deloitte – one of the Big 4 accounting firm, has their branch office here.
The Premier King room
The room had the basic amenities that any decent hotel would provide – a complementary mini bar, a small flat-screen TV, complementary tea bags and coffee sachets, an iron and the ironing board, and a hair dryer.
They do not provide bottled water, but supply two glass bottles of filtered water instead. There is a filtered drinking water facility in the bathroom as well in case you run out of water to drink. Being in Malaysia, I was a little skeptical to whether the water that was dispensed in the bathroom was indeed filtered. But kudos to WEIL Hotel, for taking a proactive step in protecting the environment by omitting the single-use plastic bottled water bottles.
The air-cond was really cold, and the thermostat controls were a little wonky. For some reason, when I set the thermostat at a higher temperature, I felt no significant difference to the room temperature. I was left freezing the entire night!
Bathroom
For the bathroom, it was equipped with a rainfall shower and stand-alone soaking tub. They have done away with small shampoo bottles, and had fixed large bottles instead, which in my opinion is a much better move for the environment rather than those small bottles than you discard after a day’s use.
I really enjoyed the rainfall shower, though that tends to use a lot of water.
Facilities offered at WIEL Hotel
Facilities-wise, WEIL Hotel has an infinity pool at the rooftop, as well as a restaurant and bar just beside the pool. The use of the pool, however, requires registration at the reception counter, a fact that was not told to me during check-in. However, I didn’t really bother as I didn’t plan to do any swimming during my short getaway.
The Deck Gastrobar is apparently one of the tallest restaurants in town. However, I didn’t manage to fit this place into my itinerary during my short stay in Ipoh.
Complimentary Breakfast at Tiffin Restaurant
The next day, I woke up early for breakfast as I had to be at my friend’s matrimony ceremony at the temple early in the morning. Tiffin restaurant is a Halal-certified restaurant, and is located on the same floor as the hotel lobby. Breakfast starts from 6.30 AM to 10.30 AM.
The breakfast spread offered here is similar to any other hotel. It was a decent spread of your normal breakfast menu items.
What I wished WEIL hotel did better at
Bathroom cleanliness
I’m a person who really minds the cleanliness of bathrooms. Unfortunately, I have a real bone to pick with WEIL Hotel. The toilet bowl was not clean underneath at the place you sit on. It was darkish brown in color, and pretty much spoiled the mood of the stay. It was not visible if you look at the toilet bowl from the top or at a glance, but I accidentally saw it at an angle when I was walking out of the room.
This is pretty much unacceptable for a 4-star hotel.
Shared parking entrance with Ipoh Parade Mall
Another downside is that both WEIL Hotel and Ipoh Parade Mall share the same parking facility, though there are dedicated parking spots for hotel guests. The entrance to these parking spots, however, are shared.
I was there during the weekend, and Ipoh Parade is apparently the equivalent to Sunway Pyramid Mall or Midvalley Mall of KL. I had to face a mini traffic jam for about 15 minutes just to get to the dedicated parking spot for WEIL Hotel.
After validating your ticket at the hotel’s concierge, upon exiting, the mall’s ticket acceptance machine is also a little quirky. It took me several tries of inserting the ticket into the machine before it finally accepted and validated that my ticket was a free one because I was a hotel guest, and the boom gate lifted to allow me to be on my merry way.
And oh, the parking facility cleanliness isn’t one you expect out of a 4-star hotel either.
Recommendation: ★★★☆☆
Though WEIL Hotel is a pretty decent hotel, and I applaud in taking steps to reduce plastic waste and protecting the environment, the dirty toilet bowl was a deal breaker for me. I probably would not stay in this hotel again, though you may try your luck and get a cleaner one.
Book at your own risk!
Check out also:
Address
292
Jalan Sultan Idris Shah
30000 Ipoh
Perak