Beautiful hotel plagued by staffing issues.
I’ve been lucky enough to stay at 4 Shangri-La hotels around the world. London, Dubai, Singapore and now Kuala Lumpur and I have never experienced anything like this.
The hotel itself looks grand and expensive, clean and very well maintained. The lobby gives you the illusion that you’ve walked into something special.
However, the customer service is almost non-existent. I visited Shang Palace in Dubai and was shown a table, the first thing the waiter asked was if we would like any drinks, tea, coffee or even just water for the table as she presented both the food and wine / cocktail menu. A complete contrast to what I just experienced here. I sat down and the waiter disappeared for a full 15 minutes. I had to grab another member of staff just to order food which then took a further hour to arrive. The restaurant at the time was not busy, there was no lunch rush, we were seated by 12:36 and hadn’t even been acknowledged by staff until 12:51.
This seems to be consistent throughout Malaysia. They know you’re ready to order when you’re sitting there in silence with the menu closed. Eye contact is everything. Being British , we specialise in subtlety. If there is a problem, we will politely inform the nearest waiter and trust that the matter will be dealt with professionally and discreetly. The manager in Arthur’s Grill however didn’t seem to care about the quality of our food or the fact his own staff weren’t happy with him
