Wonderful property with a few tiny misses

“Walking into the Blue Mansion really does take your breath away.
It’s a beautiful property with a sense of serene grandeur that photos don’t *quite* do justice. Every courtyard, corridor, staircase and room just looked beautiful. The feeling of tranquility was such a contrast to the hustle and bustle of George Town.

There is a new pool that is opening in January apparently. We could see it through a window and it looks AMAZING.

The 3 daily tours (don’t go into guest wings) gave a great historical background to the property, walking through the building afterwards you could feel the echoes of past inhabitants.

Overall
Would definitely stay here again, serene, relaxing, historical, photogenic!

Room
We stayed in a Liang room – Towkay. Liang is the base room type, but it is very big and spacious. Comfortable and appropriately decorated in keeping with the mansion. Snacks and juices were provided daily. The room was really welcoming and relaxing to come back to after a humid day of urban hiking and eating!
Some other reviews mentioned mosquitos, we didn’t have any problem. We were staying in the quiet wing, away from the hawker centre next door. That side has some decorative pools, so maybe an issue on that side, but we didn’t have any problem at all with mosquitos or noise.

Breakfast
The breakfast is served in the central courtyard and was fine. Good coffee, fruits toasts, DELICIOUS spreads. There is also an a la carte menu of around 6 choices of local and western cooked breakfasts, which were good also. Not spectacular, but good. We didn’t eat lunch or dinner there. The staff could sometimes take a looonng time to acknowledge you and the cooked breakfast could take it’s time. Coffee was good 🙂

Location
Great. Walking distance to everything you need. Close to a hop on hop off bus stop if that takes your fancy.

Service
Good by Malaysian standards. Calls to the front desk were dealt with promptly, friendly and cheerful at all times.

Tiny Misses
The wifi in the room was great on the first day and then terrible for the next day or two. Really, really frustrating when using to research things to do and book tours etc. When we asked if it was being fixed, we were offered a pocket wifi to use out and about and in the room. This may have been mentioned in the room booklet, but we didn’t notice it until our last day!

We arranged an airport transfer, and understand that this is always going to cost way more than a taxi or uber. Pick up was good, in a nice car. Return trip they put us in a taxi that I think was waiting for someone else, the driver put the meter on when we sat down and had no idea that it was paid for by the hotel and had to go back in and check. I don’t think they actually booked the return trip. We could have got a taxi ourselves and paid half the price we did.
PS. Uber is so super cheap in Penang!

Nice Touches
Juices, treats most afternoons, and some nice soaps as Christmas presents (we were there on Christmas day), friendly front desk staff.

Room Tip: Ask for rooms away from the Red Garden hawker centre. Ask for pocket wifi on arrival!”