Awana Genting Highlands Golf & Country Resort

It’s been very long since i last made an entry under this heading and this is partially due to the fact that i’m over-busied of my exams for the past few months and of course there’s nothing much really worth my time reviewing but i went on a holiday with my girlfriend last week to Awana Genting Highlands and i must say, this is a place that i must give review to.

This is the infamous Pagoda-like shaped tower where Awana houses its hotel rooms and nobody can miss this because it stands tall and is visible to all people who travels to Genting Highland. Awana is located roughly half way up through the winding mountainous roads, approximately 10 ~ 15minutes drive from the Skyway Cable Car station and if you’re on your way up, you’ll have to take a U-turn because it is located on the other side of the road, which is constructed especially for that purpose and it’s practically safe because there is a bump right before the u-turn to slow oncoming traffics. Once you take the turn, you’ll see a neon light signboard signaling that Awana is only a right turn away. Once you turn in, you encounter a very steep drive downwards and it is advisable that you drive very slow especially for cars with very low bumpers, there are speed bumps on the way to make sure drivers don’t speed their way down endangering lives. As you drive downwards, you’ll notice that you’ll come across a building which are the parking lots, it has in total of 6 floors therefore ample parking space for your Trailer if you wish you drive it up there but i was told my the receptionist at the Front Office that those parking lots are for the hotel occupants as suites occupants has different parking areas because suites are located further.

Front Office
For those of you who didn’t know, front office is another name for Reception, you know those places in hotel where you check in or check out. There’s nothing much i can say about this area because i didn’t purposely traveled so far just to see whether they have an international quality receptionist. All i can say is that they are efficient in what they are supposed to do, it took us less than 15minutes before we were given the keys to our suites. One thing that i particularly like is that they took the initiative in asking us do we know where our suites are instead of waiting for us to ask them where is it and the other which i didn’t like is the fact that they require the customers to actually pay a deposit of RM200.00, i’m guessing this is standard in the event you consumed their drinks provided in the room’s refrigerator but i thought this is only applicable to hotel rooms and not suites because our room didn’t have such alcohol bottled drinks placed in the refrigerator like all other hotel rooms, this is really unnecessary. In conclusion, they know what they are doing.

Environment
Judging from its decoration and outward appearance, i’m guessing that the theme is rainforest type because i can see many trees and natural resources being utilized. At the lobby, there’s this huge and tall tree which extends to the open roof top surrounded by assorted plants right underneath and just nearby there’s a miniature Japanese garden like area with benches. It also gives you that feeling like you’re in a ‘kampung’ with the rattan chairs and tables hence the name “Country Resort” at the end.

It also has a golf course, how good is it i do not know because i haven’t been there and probably will not because i can so cannot imagine me playing golf. Maybe driving the buggy car racing with other people, that sounds like pure fun but somehow to me, Awana seems like more to a golfer’s paradise than an ideal family vacation home.

Hospitality/Facilities/Services
We got a suite which is somewhat like an apartment room and apparently they do not do housekeeping for suites because right before we went out, i purposely went out to the front office and requested for our room to be cleaned and when i’m back, nothing has changed except for the waste paper basket is no longer full. The bed is not made up, the items in the toilet has not been replenished, the used towels has not been replaced and used plates were not washed. NOTHING has changed or could it be this is the new age form of housekeeping?

There isn’t much difference in terms of facilities provided, you get your usual 4 stars hotel facilities such as swimming pool, a gym, an arcade center and etc. I didn’t managed to go to the gym or any other places because of the lack of time but i did tried out the swimming pool area which has a jacuzzi too ^^

Other than the jacuzzi, they also have the kiddies pool and i my girlfriend said we could try the kiddies pool first since i’m afraid of entering the adults pool, felt challenged i entered the adults pool T_____T The adults pool were segregated to several depths and the deepest is 1.7 meters while the shallowest is 1.1meters. The plus points of this pool is that it has small holes located around the pool which sprays warm water. They also provide fresh clean towels provided that you need to sign in your name and return them to the place where you get them.

On our second night, we officially ran out of bath towels and so i called up the housekeeping department and requested 2 clean bath towels at 0000hrs, it took quite a while before someone picked up the phone but i was nevertheless being attended to politely. The towels arrived in about 15minutes time which i don’t know what caused the delay.

Since Awana is also managed by Genting, it is essential that all the occupants in Awana have easy access to Genting Highlands. Other than providing free cable car tickets like what we got, i don’t know whether is it Awana or Genting who provides the free shuttle bus services from Awana to the Skyway Cable Car station and the bus comes every hour. From Awana to Skyway, it starts its service at 0800hrs and the last bus is at 2200hrs whereas from Skyway to Awana, the last bus leaves at 2315hrs. Refer to the first picture, it was taken at the station where the shuttle bus would stop.

They also have a little playground located uphill that has a wooden slides with huge gigantic trees all around it and a park located far behind our suites which we didn’t get to visit, it’s all about time management.

Room
This is most anticipating part i’ve been waiting for, the ROOM. No matter where you go, it’s all about the room. We got a Two Bedroom Suite which costs about RM280.00 per night off peak season and probably much more on peak seasons but it was waived because we got the room for free from my girlfriend’s aunty who got the privilege from a credit card’s fringe benefits.

The good thing about the suite is that you can directly in front of it but the weird thing is that our suite is actually located ‘underground’, as you can see from the picture, that is what you see when you exit the suite. It is 3 floors down so it’s kinda creepy walking to our suite at night because there isn’t much light and our building is pretty much the ones at the most end already.

The funny thing is that despite the front entrance which looks like you’re underground, the room of the suite actually gives you a view as if you’re on the top floor and gives you excellent ventilation of the cool air with the sliding doors open. You get 2 layers of the sliding doors, the outside layer are steel doors with square cubicles equipped with mosquito nets and the inner layer is just your normal conventional glass sliding doors AND of course window blinds.

This is the first thing that you’ll see when you enter the suite, i don’t know what’s the purpose but it has mirrors attached to it so probably for the occupants to check themselves out one last time before leaving the room.

This is one of the 2 bedrooms that’s in our suite, this room is less desirable because the windows are facing the entrance of the suite door meaning you’ll see the things we saw on our way down including “THE WALL” =OO and the ceiling fan is spoiled so there’s a standing fan provided.

Next on the way would be the kitchen overlooking the dining table, the living hall and out the sliding doors out the balcony. Since it’s an apartment, you have the basic utensils but one thing must be noted is that the knife that was provided… it’s useless, it can’t even cut through my finger when i tried slicing it Sushi style. You have a refrigerator that is not cold at all or in other words, practically useless. You have an electric cooker hood which has everything rubbed off the operating switch so there’s nothing telling you which is on and which is off, the more miraculous thing is that the switch, it’s turnable 360 degrees whichever way you like it be it clockwise or anti clockwise. Oh and one more thing, it takes FOREVER to heat up but once it heats up, it’s alright =) but there’s one single thing i don’t understand, the tap actually has hot water option. I find it convenient to wash oily plates but i’m sure the purpose of it there is not that, the fucky thing about that hot water tap is that i’ve been scorched by it many times, bitch! But.. it’s a cool miniature kitchen though =D

This is the living room and as you can see the couch there can be transformed and made into a bed and the king sized bed on the right side is actually another bedroom, if you realized that the bedroom can be separated from the living room via a series of sliding doors but because we’re the only occupants in the suite, there’s really no point covering everything up and that would make the room a lot bigger and brighter. Nothing much to be elaborated unless you want me to tell you how to use the dining table =/

This is another view of the suite. Here you can see that there are actually 3 sliding doors that would enable and complete the separation of the room mentioned above from the living room.

This is the master bathroom, is there such thing as a master bathroom o_O? eitherway, doesn’t matter. This is the biggest bathroom in the suite, it has an unworkable jacuzzi and the 2 large windows opens up to the 2nd bedroom that was shown above for purposes not known to us, maybe it’s for the wife to seduce the husband while the husband is in bed watching the wife bathing OR it could be otherwise :giggles:

Of course, the people who designed the bathroom is not that stupid until the extend to ask the occupants to bath in a jacuzzi, a shower room is provided. The water was excellent as it was strong but somehow there was a little problem in determining how to activate the hot water, during my stay there i’m bathing with a mixture of sudden cold and hot water at the same time. An emo water heater machine =/

And finally, the balcony, it’s not really big but enough for at least 15 people to stand out comfortably and this is also where we did our failed barbeque T______T the table and chairs are unusable because it’s absolutely filthy.

Conclusion
If you ask me would i come here again it would be a resouding YES but if you ask me would i pay the price for the room then it would be a definite NO because for the price i’m paying, i’m actually expecting for something better but on and all this is a great place to escape to. Remember to bring your own utensils if you planned to cook there.