First of all, I can’t believe MS has my home base here!
As the title suggests, this is my home base. I live in one of their serviced apartments for the past five years. If you notice any bias due to this, please let me know :-)
Location:
This resort is tucked away in Malaysia’s ICT capital named Cyberjaya which is half way between the KLIA airport (30km) and Kuala Lumpur (45 km). Cyberjaya itself is named one of the most beautifully built cities in Malaysia other than the neighboring Putrajaya. There is a massive well maintained lake (no swimming is not allowed neither is fishing) on one side of the city and well maintained gardens all over the place. The city itself has nothing to offer a tourist though. But excellent location if you have anything to do with Malaysian government affairs. If you are planning to visit KL and on a short vacation, you shouldn’t even be thinking of staying here because you will lose almost a hour traveling to and from KL.
The Resort: It is built with traditional Malaysian architecture in mind I suppose. The lobby looks more like an extravagant thatched hut. There are two pools, a spa, a gym, 3 restaurants, 1 lounge, 1 reck room, 1 karaoke lounge, a couple of huge ball rooms, some office blocks (monster.com is in one of those blocks) which can’t be seen or accessed by guests. The resort’s landscape tilts towards making it look more like a tropical forest which I personally love. There are I think 67 rooms for the taking. Rooms range from bachelor suites to honeymoon suites. The price range is between USD 100 to USD 350 a night, which is fairly reasonable for a 5 star resort.
The Serviced Apartments: Their serviced apartments is called Cyberview Gardens Villa and it’s located right across the street from the the resort. The apartments are approximately 3500 sq. feet on average for the 3 bedroom units. they do have 2 bedroom units which are roughly half the size. Note that the apartments are fully furnished including the kitchen. The place has it’s own pool, 2 restaurants, lounge chairs and laundry. If you wish to stay here, you have to book at least 6 months in advance. Yep the serviced apartments are always full and most of the units are taken by companies on very long rental agreements to provide pleasurable living for expats like me. The monthly rent excluding water, telephone and electricity bills for 2 bedroom units in blocks 4, 6, 7 and 8 is MYR 2400. 3 bedroom units in blocks 4, 6, 7 and 8 is MYR 2800. 2 and 3 bedroom units in blocks 1, 2 and 3 are MYR 3500. Note that you will be expected to do a safety deposit of MYR 7000 before you can rent a place here.
The Service: Honestly, it is not one of the best places in Malaysia, but they do try to make up for their incompetence and most of the time, they succeed. Most staff can’t really speak good English, but that’s not a problem since I can very well understand them and they can understand me perfectly. Malaysians always smile! That’s one thing I like about this place. A lot of refreshing smiles any time of the day or night. The room service usually takes anywhere between 30 mins to an hour or more depending on the crowd in the restaurants. House keeping is perfect most of the time and nothing to rant about except that they never touch my stuff like arranging my books and the likes. Yes I know I am asking for too much and I can’t complain. Security is simply one of the better kind. If you lose anything inside the resort, you can be guaranteed you will get it back within 24 hours. The other staff actually fear these guys!
The Restaurants: There are 3 restaurants inside the resort. One Pan-Asian named Verandah, a chinese restaurant named Xing Zu and an Italian one named Bistro Cascata.
Verandah: This place serves up some quality south east asian and continental delicacies. I personally am a fan of their nasi lemak, firecracker fried rice, fish and chips (which I am having now as a midnight snack), teh tarik, mee goreng mamak and their desserts (yep all of them). The chef here knows his desserts. One of the best chocolate mousse I have had is from this place. This is the biggest restaurant in the resort and has outdoor seating as well. Note that this place is pretty much packed during lunch (12PM-2PM) and dinner (7:30PM-9PM) . This place is open 24 hours a day, but not everything on the menu is available between 10 PM and 6 AM. Since it is always crowded when I am hungry, room service takes a good hour and a half to bring the food and dining-in usually takes 30 to 45 mins for the food to arrive. Oh on a side note, these guys don’t know how to grill a steak. If you order one, be ready for an over grilled piece of low grade meat.
Zing Xu: If you like "real" Chinese cuisine, this is the place. It used to be a big restaurant till the end of 2010, but now they made it pretty small with just 5 tables. My personal favorites here are their steam boat (when I am with buddies), young chow fried rice, braised beef rice, braised ostrich(yep you read it right) rice and jasmine tea.
Bistro Cascata: This place looks like a miniature Italian chateau. Believe me when I say their pizza is one of the best in Malaysia. If you don’t like the food here, then you wouldn’t like anything in Italy. My personal favorites here are their pizzas(of course), lamb casserole, pumpkin ravioli and their wine. Mmm yes the real italian vintage wine!. They have outdoor dining too as well as a hammock. This place is not crowded most of the time.
The Karma lounge: This is my favorite hangout after a days work. The place has indoor seating as well as a terrace style seating with purple lighting which I usually change to green or red(if I am flirtatious for the night). The bar is fully stocked with everything you can imagine from Hoegaarden beer to mexican tequila and liqueurs. They usually have a happy hour from 12PM to 10PM (i get happy hour rates every time). The happy hour offer is buy one get one free or some months all you can drink for 2 hours for MYR 78. The bartender is one of the friendliest guys ever. He’s always up for a nice conversation and has magic in his fingers when asked for one of his signature cocktails. The music is lounge or trance which I love the most. Yep this is a lounge not a night club to play that silly hippy hoppy crap. The DJ is quite talented. I remember him from the time he used to play 16 straight hours in Bali in 2006. He’s a nice chap and we hang together once in a while. This place is never crowded. On most days it only has half a dozen people and that makes it one of the best places for me to relax and enjoy the finer things in life :-) .
I never used their spa. I am guy, I don’t need a facial or aromatherapy massage! it affects my macho-ness ya know. It should be good I assume because I hear from the lobby that they have veteran masseurs with abundant skills.
Overall, this is a very quite place and excellent for honeymoons, couples, families and generally people who don’t prefer to stay in the heart of KL on their vacations. But it is definitely not on par with other 5 star hotels like Le Meridian, Marriot, Shangri-La or Hilton. I mean they usually don’t show that superficial exaggerated respect thingy done at the other places, but they do show it in their attention to detail. Maybe they do it on purpose.
P.S If you come here, ask for my name at the lounge and they will get me there. Drinks are on me :-)