5 Heeren

We booked this hotel so we wouldn’t have to drive in Melaka, which is a headache. You can see the river cruise and walk to cafes, restaurants, and the night market. The only real downside was a noisy pub across the way blaring music. We paid RM321 a night for a balcony room on the highest floor, the third, for two adults and two kids, with one large bed and one single. It was quite expensive, but really worth it. My kids loved it, even my fussy husband was happy, and we’re planning to come back in a few months and book this room again. It is an old hotel, yes, but it has vintage vibes. ❤️

The advertised room looked very different from what I was given, which felt misleading. The place is on Jonker Street, but the room was in a dilapidated state and the hotel seems to be suffering from a complete lack of maintenance. There was mold in the toilet, mosquitoes everywhere, and an obvious water leak with just a bucket underneath it. Broken furniture had been crudely patched with tape. This failure to maintain the property, despite its prime location, shows a lack of professional ethics.

[Edit: Response to the hotel's reply] Yes, the mistake could have been 50/50 between the hotel and AGODA. That’s why my review was about customer care at your hotel. If a more reliable representative had been onsite to explain the situation in person, we wouldn’t have been so upset. You could also have spoken to Agoda to get it sorted out. A simple, sincere apology and a promise to improve and prevent this inconvenience from happening again would have been decent damage control. I recommend having more qualified, well-trained staff at reception. We understand things can get complicated, and with some humility and sincerity, a proper explanation could have helped us accept what happened. Please also pass on my apologies to the KID, who did try to find clues and calm us down. I’ll send Agoda the same feedback. Thanks. We booked two rooms for two married couples through Agoda. Payment went through and the booking was confirmed. Before we arrived, we got an email saying the rooms weren’t available and they were replacing them with one family room. Were we supposed to sleep together? When we arrived on a very sunny day, staff said Agoda had taken our booking even though the hotel had closed its reservations in the system. That didn’t sound convincing. Wouldn’t there be a proper system to manage the day’s quota with third-party apps? Our best guess was that the hotel accepted walk-ins after already offering its quota to Agoda. The worst part was dealing at reception with a school kid, literally a KID, who said he was in high school. Communication was poor. He stayed on the phone with someone, perhaps a senior colleague, while we were left waiting at the counter, confused and grumpy. It didn’t feel fair to take our frustration out on a school kid. We deserved a proper explanation, better alternatives, and a mature discussion. Thankfully, Agoda was helpful and relocated us to better accommodation. This review is about terrible customer service and a clear lack of customer focus.

Great location, but I’d call this the MR DIY Hotel because there’s no service unless you call the mobile number posted at reception. One day I got a towel with a dark brown stain and went looking for someone. A woman took me upstairs to get another from a cabinet, but she wasn’t sure which stack had been cleaned. She smelled the towels before eventually giving me one. How can clean and dirty towels be kept together in the same cabinet and on the same rack? I also had a broken chair and bed. Maybe I was just unlucky with that corner room on the first floor.