Penang Hotels Wedding Dinner - the search begins

Was away for the weekend to attend a friend's wedding in Penang and at the same time search for hotels to hold our Wedding Dinner at next year Feb 2012.

Our short listed hotels were :

Evergreen Laurel Hotel
- My Comments & Opinion : the place has a old majestic feel at the hotel lobby, staff were helpful and price (RM688++ per table) is reasonable given that they are situated along Gurney Drive. However, to my dislike was the pillars in the Ballroom that blocked the stage which in my personal opinion were a little unsightly, they do compensate that with a large projector screen that displays the stage, I believe there should be about 10 of them, which goes to show how much blockage there is.

Perhaps this is the reason why the staff were so willing to give us alot of freebies to close our deal. Such as free 2 nights stay for couple in Bridal suite, Parents also get a nights stay free. Complimentary food tasting can be used even during CNY period next year. Complimentary refreshments for the tea ceremony. And complimentary usage of one of the executive rooms for the gate crashing session in the morning to receive the bride. Oh not to forget that they even have a discount for min 25 tables at minus RM20 per table. Seems really like a very good deal.

We were shown the supposed bridal suites and I thought it was pretty alright and comfortable to stay in. However the date that we wanted was booked by another person and there isn't any confirmation that we had the slot. Hence, we proceeded to check out other hotels instead.

Traders Hotel
- One of the recommendations by my fiance's good friend was to check out the Traders hotel, known to be by Shang gri la, so we expected that the level of service would be higher in comparison to Evergreen Laurel Hotel. But to our dismay, the staff who served us wasn't really given much authority to make decisions on behalf of his manager and seemed really much like a freshie. Despite that we still decided to give the person a try to do our business. We visited the ballroom and the bridal suites, ballroom was pretty decent given the reputation of the hotel. They can accommodate if I am correct 30 tables in the first partition of the ballroom, second partition if you wish to book 35 tables it would be blocked abit by 2 pillars. The ceiling for the ballroom is pretty high, and looks grand enough.

Bridal Suites was alright and livable. However, I thought it should be better since the price per table was much higher at RM888 Nett.

Staff was not able to give us a proper proposal as to what our request was. And up till today has not replied nor called nor sent an email to update us on whether we have our requested date and our other requests can be met.

A little disappointed with the service here as I really had high hopes and was ready to say yes and make the booking here. So we proceeded for our third choice on our list of hotels.

Cititel Penang
- Our last stop on our search for wedding banquet venues in Penang was Cititel Hotel Penang. We were supposed to meet the Banquet Manager who agreed to meet us on last minute basis. Upon arrival, as he was attending to another guest, he brought us to the lounge and offered us drinks from the bar menu whilst waiting for him. I was impressed! To get this kind of service in Penang, Malaysia is amazing!

Things to note, the quoted price for Cititel is the same as Evergreen Laurel at RM688++ per table. They were adamant about giving a discount but I thought it was alright as service is the most important thing to me.

The ballroom was grand and smelled and looked really clean & bright! Same goes for the function room which would be used for the Tea ceremony and is conveniently located just beside the Perdana Ballroom. If I'm correct it fits about 50 tables. But a good 35 tables would be comfortably placed. There are NO pillars! So that's the plus point for me. I would like every guest to be able to see us from even afar.

The Bridal Suite has a beautiful seaview and it's design is modern and very suited to my taste. Absolutely love it! Yes, I would say that this hotel, although I'm being told by htb that it's not situated in a popular district like the one at gurney drive, is wonderfully perfect for me.

The food menu for the guest is also a good spread and far beats Evergreen's by alot. Just looking at the menu itself brings Cititel a notch higher. Plus point, they will waive all corkage fee for any amount of bottles for alll tables.

Hopefully all our requests gets approved by the Banquet Manager and we can proceed with booking this hotel. I believe that the Lord brought us and showed us and lead us to this and it feels restful too. As in we don't have to haggle much about stuff like we did at the previous hotels.

Grateful and thankful for this blessed journey and hope to hear good news tomorrow for the confirmation.

:)