Aloft Hotel, Kualar Lumpur was only opened recently and being under the Starwood group, this boutique hotel is very similar to the W chain of Hotel. The chic setting of the hotel and simplistic designs coincide with the hotel’s goal of encouraging interaction between guests. Guests can expect a very lively environment and an uncomplicated living space there.

Date of stay: September 2013

Address

No 5, Jalan Stesen Sentral, Kuala Lumpur Sentral

50470 Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ‎

+60 3-2723 1188

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Hotel Rating

3.5 Star

 

    

Loft Room

Prices start from MYR 410.02 when you book directly from the hotel website. Prices are from MYR 378.1 when you book through hotel booking websites.

Aloft hotel outside

Picture courtesy of http://www.latestays.com/aloft-kuala-lumpur-sentral/

My trip toKuala Lumpur brought me to Aloft KL, a modern boutique hotel which is owned by the global luxury hotel group, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, thus making Aloft KL cousins with the increasingly popular chain of W Hotels. Aloft KL was opened not too long ago in year 2008, so it boasts a modern architecture and design style on the outside and on the inside as well.

Location

The hotel is situated conveniently at KL Sentral, and is directly opposite to luxury hotels La Meridien and Hilton Hotel. At its location, Aloft has much to offer to its guests. For instance, the hotel is proximate to the new Kuala Lumpur CBD -which is a mere 1.5km away-  and numerous malls such as Sungei Wang Plaza, Fahrenheit 88, Pavilion Kuala Lumpur and Mid Valley Mega Mall. To add on, the hotel is very near to the KL LRT, which provides an affordable and convenient mode of transport to nearby places of interest such as KLCC Park.

Hotel Lobby

Picture courtesy of http://www.starwoodhotels.com/alofthotels/property/photos/index.html?propertyID=3758

Check In

Stepping into the main lobby of the hotel, you will be greeted by a bright and modern design that would not fail to make you feel welcomed. Everything in this hotel is specially designed to look and feel young and chic and I find this an appealing point, as would most youngsters, I assume. One of my favourite points of this hotel is that it is a totally smoke free hotel, meaning, smoking is strictly prohibited in all rooms and all public areas such as the lobby, restaurant, bar and fitness centre at all times. This ensures that the environment within the hotel is clean and fresh at all times. Another point worth mentioning is the free wifi that is available in the entire hotel including the rooms. This would make it convenient for businessmen to complete work in their rooms and also for the adventurous to head online without cost to search for nearby attraction and lifestyle options.

Room

During my stay in Aloft KL, I was allocated a room on the 19th floor, which did not have any spectacular views, as my room was facing the Hilton Hotel and Le Meridien. My room was very small sized. In fact, it was one of the smallest that I have been to. Even though all the room amenities were inconspicuously concealed, the room still seemed small to me. However, I must still compliment the effort made to make the room seem simple, clean and uncongested. The room reinforced the uniqueness of the hotel, with a  different layout as compared to most of the other hotels I have been to. Another noteworthy point is that the hotel has placed stickers around the room to inform you on how to fully and correctly make use of all the amenities available. So gone are the times when you walk into a hotel room and discover weird buttons and switches that no one knows what it operates.

As seen from the photos above, the layout of the room is not as what we usually see in other hotels, where the windows face the side of the bed and the room amenities like the TV are placed against a flat wall. In the Aloft KL, this distinctive design of the room allows for copious amounts of natural sunlight to brighten the room up. In fact, this also creates an effect that makes the small room seem larger than what it really is. However, in trying to be contra-distinct, the room last some of its practicality. For instance, the sunlight is blindingly bright for many a times just as you can see from the picture below.

This is very irritating to the eyes if one is seated on the bed and trying to do some simple reading. Also, the direct sunlight will fall on a significant portion of the work desk, possibly causing uneasiness or discomfort to a guest trying to get some work done. Furthermore, the placement of the sofa is rather impractical as it is “squashed” between two working desks and is only facing the bed. As most would feel, the primary use of the sofa would be for one to sit comfortably and enjoy the TV or the scenery but such an arrangement would basically render the sofa useless.

The bathroom is very new, clean and rather spacious, and with just one look, you will definitely be able to tell that tremendous effort have been put in to maintain this high standard. Aloft tries to bring out the same modern, unique feel in the bathroom as well but I found such differences a little not to my liking.

img_5240

Firstly, the pantry area is found in the bathroom beside the sink as shown in the above picture. Personally, I did not enjoy this idea as the pantry area should be associated with hygiene and cleanliness. Even though the bathroom was sparkling clean, it just isn’t nice to be placing your cups, glasses and electric kettle in the bathroom.

Another shocking discovery I made was that the mini bar was empty! Just like you would expect from all hotels, the mini bar should at least be stocked with some drinks or food, not left bare. This is probably one of the initiatives that Aloft KL has taken to discourage guests from spending superfluous amounts of time in the room. Thankfully, there is a sticker on the mini bar that informs guests to proceed to re:fuel, which is like a convenience store in order to purchase items for the mini bar.

Bathroom

The shower was a pleasure to use as the water temperature was extremely easy to control using just one tap. There were nice pump bottles by the side of the shower containing body gel and shampoo. This way, guests would not have to worry about forgetting to bring in their toiletries as complimentary ones are readily available in the shower. A reason for such an allocation is part of Aloft’s efforts to be environmentally friendly and to reduce the waste generated (i.e. the empty plastic bottles of complimentary toiletries). However, the idea of using pump bottles for the complimentary shampoo and body gel might strike some as being ‘cheap’ or ‘budget’. Furthermore, I couldn’t help but wonder how long the shampoo and bath gel have been lying in the bottle for. Perhaps Aloft should try to package these basic toilet amenities into biodegradable packaging so as to reinforce the sense of class and quality, and yet reducing their harmful waste contributions.

Next page for more on the hotel!

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