Impiana KLCC

I recently stayed at the 4 star Impiana KLCC in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a group of us were going there for the weekend and wanted to stay in the same hotel. I'd read a number of reviews before hand and it seemed ok although I have to admit that afterwards it won't be a hotel that I'll be revisiting and here's why ....


....I guess I should start off with the room itself. I stayed in the junior suite and I have to admit that the room was pretty good. Spacious and well laid out with a decent sized bathroom and good amenities. For me that was the really the only good thing about the hotel.

The swimming pool was under renovation which had I been informed about beforehand would have had me looking for a different hotel. Although the hotel have made arrangements for guests to use a pool at a nearby hotel, if I wanted to use a swimming pool in a different hotel I would have stayed there. I really think the hotel should have warned people about this while making their booking and been honest about their available services upfront on their website.

They should also have warned their guests about the renovation to the building next door that had jack hammers going at 8am in the morning. Those of our group unlucky to be in rooms nearest to these sound effects where later moved, but the fact that a hotel thinks its ok for guests to be placed in those rooms in the first place, knowing that they will not have a good experience is simply bad service.

Next we'll move onto their internet service. For me that's an absolute must for any hotel and I don't even mind paying for it. But I must have internet service. Luckily the hotel does provide that, and free, but its probably the worst service I've encountered in a hotel. The first day it was painfully slow but bearable. The second it was out of action as their technical staff made some changes server side. When I rang down to check when the internet would be back online I got an "I don't know because our technical team haven't told us".

No gold stars for service there.

I politely informed them that as the guest service department don't they think they should know and that they should probably call their technical team and push them for an answer since I would probably not be the only guest calling. Anyway 12 hours later the internet was back although for some reason my room connection wasn't working. Many visits to my room later by people not really qualified to address the problem and after they failed to find their technical person to help (he was on the other side of the city trapped by traffic apparently) I was moved to a different room. I had asked them to be sure the internet was working in that room before I moved. Despite assurances that is was needless to say once I moved I found it wasn't. In this day and age a hotel with crap internet is just simply not acceptable.

Now to the food. There was plenty of variety it has to be said, a wide selection. The problem was that it just wasn't any good. It was "ok" food, not good, not great and as far away from delicious as it could possibly be. On the first morning for breakfast one of the items took me totally by surprise. Instant mashed potatoes. Now what 4 star hotel in the world would even think that serving instant mashed potatoes is an good option. The very fact that this was on offer totally shocked me. I expect that type of food from your local cheap burger joint but NOT from a 4 star hotel. If there was nothing else wrong with our stay that item alone on the menu would be enough for me never to visit this hotel again. That item alone tells me everything I need to know about what this hotel thinks about catering for its guests.

So bottom line, if you're only criteria is a nice room in a good location (both of which get a thumbs up from me) then this is a good choice. If you have any additional criteria then this hotel may well just disappoint you as it did us.

Solar Flares or Worse to come?

It seems that NASA has taken steps to give out a warning in relation to solar flares. In a direct quote "Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation space storm, Nasa has warned". And these warning are being taken seriously since its an almost certainty that solar flares are coming although at this stage no one can say how bad they may be.

But there's something much worse about to happen ......



....... assuming of course you believe in all the natter around the web. There is a comet fast approaching our region of space called Elenin. It's not going to hit planet earth so no fears there but it's magnetic influence on our sun is being blamed for the increase in solar activity.

And of course there's more. Behind that planet by approx 1 year or more is another planet on a similar trajectory, a planet referred to as Nibrui. And this is the one that we all need to worry about. Again its not going to hit us but the effect of its magentic field on our planet is going to be disastrous. We can expect earthquakes and Tsunami's on a scale not before seen, wide spread climate changes, shift in the poles and the axis of the earth itself. It's going to be so bad that 2/3 of the world's population will not survive, assuming you believe of course.

Of course it may all be rubbish and you can make up your own mind on that score. As for me I'll be watching this one closely to see what happens. And "if" we start to see Solar Flares in August as predicted, things could get very interesting.