Hard Rock Hotel Penang

“Fun days on the beach”

We stayed here with friends for a week, a few days either side of Christmas.This place is great if you have young kids. The pool and water activities are excellent for them. We managed to find a quiet spot at the far end of the large lagoon pool and always managed to find a couple of sunbeds, despi… more

We stayed here with friends for a week, a few days either side of Christmas.This place is great if you have young kids. The pool and water activities are excellent for them. We managed to find a quiet spot at the far end of the large lagoon pool and always managed to find a couple of sunbeds, despite the resort being at capacity. They could possibly do with a few more sun umbrellas and the sunbeds were pretty uncomfortable, but fine for a couple of hours by the pool. Whilst the resort is on the beach, there are no sunbeds on the beach, however they advise not to swim in the sea due to stinging jellyfish. Location is great. A couple of hundred metres in either direction along the beach are decent beach club/bars.directly opposite the resort on the road are a few restaurants, convenience stores and massage places. A flat and relatively easy walk to more restaurants and other resorts as well as the night markets about 1km away. We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is their restaurant, pretty standard hard rock. We had drinks in most of the bars and by the pool. Our room had Royalty Lounge access, which gave a much quieter breakfast than the main buffet, however the afternoon the and cocktails in tiny glasses in the lounge were ok but nothing to get excited about. Food nd drinks were expensive for Malaysia but cheaper than Australia, but as I’ve said, plenty of nearby cheaper local restaurants and bars.breakfast in the main buffet was a large and busy affair. Hard to make excellent quality food for that many people in a buffet, but if was good enough. The coffee, however, was crap..luckily we had a Nespresso machine in our room. We had a Seaview suite. The room was large, great views, well appointed and we had pillows for a pillow menu. Our friends and my brother-in-law had standard room, large enough, no lounge access of coffee machine, but comfortable and lower floor sea views. We tried for a direct pool access room, but they were all booked out. Staff were friendly and helpful,although their English probably wasn’t great, but that’s ok as we are in Malaysia. I guess if you want to get in and out of Georgetown, it’s a bit of a hike in traffic and I’d probably stay there a couple of days rather than commute backwards and forwards. The Gym was ok, always busy, funnily equipped but could always work out something to do. One point, if you want quiet, this is probably not the resort for you, with music in lobby, hallways, by the pool, bars, everywhere…the rooms were quiet..except for the fireworks at 9pm and midnight every night that week, but it was seasonal and would have affected every resort. Overall, we enjoyed ourselves it was a great hotel and very reasonably priced.

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