Hotel Jen, Puteri Harbour, Johor Bahru

Formerly known as Traders Hotel Puteri Harbour

Now families holidaying in Iskandar have a decent place to stay overnight.  Traders Hotel has opened a new hotel in Puteri Harbour, right next to Sanrio Hello Kitty Town.

Traders Hotel is of course the 4-star arm of the Shangri-la Group.  Being 4-star, expect modern, comfortable basics and nothing more than that.  As the main attractions nearby are theme parks (Legoland, Sanrio Hello Kitty Town), expect the guests staying here to be families with (possibly noisy) young children.

Cleanliness is suspect even though the hotel is brand new.  You can see dried up water marks on the bathroom sink.

Sound insulation is average.  Lying in bed, I can hear people talking and walking in the corridor and kids laughing.

Service is a little wonky.  For example, when I arrived at the hotel, no one helped with my luggage.  Usually, a bellhop would take care of it immediately and later send it to my room.  I lugged my luggage all the way to my room.

At the hotel restaurant Harbour Café, when I told the waitress I want to change my order to room service, she went and told another waiter.  The waiter went and told yet another waiter.  They all don’t seem to know what to do.

There is a complimentary shuttle to Legoland which is around 10 mins away.  I heard there is also a bus from the hotel to Johor Premium Outlets.

Right now, there are only a handful of negligible shops around the hotel.  There isn’t even a supermarket.  At night, the area is really dead.  As such, you are really dependent on the hotel for entertainment.  There isn’t much to do in the hotel—-there is a gym and an infinity pool.  There aren’t really that many channels on the TV, just around 20+ channels and a lot of them are free-to-air Malaysian and Singaporean channels.  The hotel offers free wifi though.

For night time entertainment, most hotel guests head to Harbour Café in the hotel and enjoy the buffet (there are a couple of restaurants as well as Sushi King outside the hotel).  When I was there, it was approaching Hari Raya and for the dinner buffet, there were a lot, A LOT of Malay dishes.  Approximately 80% were Malay dishes.  There were also a couple of Chinese dishes, a noodle soup station and sushi.  The café was packed, with hotel guests and families which drove here for the buffet.

As the hotel, the buffet and other F&B outlets in the hotel charge Singapore level of prices, I’m not sure if staying at the hotel offers any cost-savings over staying in Singapore.  I guess the real factor is deciding whether to stay here is to plan the itinerary for Iskandar area very carefully.  Sanrio Hello Kitty Town is not worth visiting.  Legoland and Johor Premium Outlets can be easily reached from Johor Bahru town or a day trip from Singapore.  In other words, it is possible to stay in Johor Bahru town or Singapore and visit the attractions.  Depending on the location of your hotel (even in Singapore), you may find extremely cheap and good food, so you may be able to save a little. 

The options get even more interesting when Legoland hotel opens in Q4 2013. 

Booking.com