Two Hotels In One Building

St. Giles Wembly Hotel and Cititel Express were opened in Penang recently. Both hotels occupied the same building. St. Giles Wembly's entrance is at Magazine Road (Jalan Magazine) and Cititel Express's entrance is at Noordin Street (Lebuh Noordin). (See map below.)

The ramp to enter St. Giles Wembly is as shown in the photo below. The ramp appeared to be steep and there is only handrail at one side of the ramp.

The ramp to enter Cititel Express are shown in the photos below.

The multi-storey car park has a few accessible car parks and one of them was located next to the lift. (Photo below.)

The accessible toilet at St. Giles Wembly was located at the lobby and could be found easily. It was big and bright and quite expensively docorated. The only thing I didn't like was the location of the basin. (See photos below.) It is not good for people who use side-transfer.

The accessible toilet of Cititel Express was quite a distance from the lobby and hidden behind a wooden door. A friendly receptionist led me all the way to the toilet. We had to go up a ramp and then past a long corridor before we could reach it. Then we found that the toilet was locked and she could not locate the person who had the key. I ended up using the one at St. Giles Wembly.

I encountered an irritating problem when I was at the hotels. The floor from one part of the building to another part are often not jointed smoothly. The small front wheels of my wheelchair got stuck a few times and I had to "reverse" (moving back to front) so that I could use the big hind wheels to overcoming the problems. Here are some photos to illustrate my point.

Conclusion: All new buildings in Penang are beginning to have facilities for wheelchair users. This is a good trend. But the designs of these facilities still have room for further improvements.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

No I wasn't referring to the famous movie by Clint Eastwood. I was referring to my impressions when I visited the new Royale Bintang Hotel of Penang on Jan 7, 2015.

The good thing about this hotel is that there were attempts to make the premise wheelchair friendly. It has a step-ramp at the main entrance. And I had no problem moving around inside the hotel. (See photos below.)

The bad thing is the hotel's accessible toilet. When I entered the toilet I was very surprised to see that the toilet floor is about 15 mm lower than the floor outside. That posed a problem when I wanted to leave the toilet. The small wheels in front of my wheelchair were unable to overcome the 15 mm height step. I had to reverse my wheelchair and exit back to front. (See photo below.)

The grab bar in the toilet was fixed in a wrong direction. I cannot understand how the designer could make such a fundamental error I really could not understand. (See photo below.) (Please refer to my post about designing an accessible toilet if you want to know how grab-bars should be fixed. The link is HERE.)

And what is the ugly thing -- keeping cleaning equipment in the accessible toilet. Imagine a foreign visitor entering the toilet. What will he or she thinks of this hotel or even Penang. Can't the hotel allocate a dedicated room for such storage and not use the accessible toilet to store such stuff.

Penaga Hotel

I really like the "lane garden" of Hotel Penaga. It was originally a side lane in between three blocks of old terrace houses. But the hotel did a wonderful job converting it into a small but lovely garden. I never expect a side lane can be made so beautiful until I visited this place. It is accessible, a bit bumpy for my wheelchair, but you should check it out if you have the opportunity.

My first impression of the hotel was not good (my first visit was more than a year ago, but this writing was based on my recent visit on Sept 30, 2013). The very steep ramp at the entrance gave me that first impression. But if you phone the hotel and tell them you are coming in a wheelchair, they will reserve a special car park right in front for you. They will also assist you to go up this steep ramp. So the service wasn't bad.

The passage way to the garden (see the arrows in the photo above) was originally the five foot way (kaki-lima) of the terrace houses that have become part the hotel. In the old days, "kaki-lima" were build in front of every terrace house to provide shelter from the tropical heat and the occasional tropical downpours.

The photo above is what you will see when you turn into the garden. You shouldn't stop there. You should go to the end of this pathway and turn right into the deeper end of the garden. The place is beautiful, shady even under mid-day sun.

If you enter the lobby of the hotel, you will see the counter shown in the above photo. Turn right if you want to go to their restaurant or the accessible toilet (located behind the lift). Yes, this small hotel has a lift!

The toilet is long and narrow. Expensively decorated. I found the lighting a bit too dim, (bad for people who has poor eyesight). It is also too narrow for wheelchair users who use "side transfer" method to go to the toilet bowl. (See photos above.)

The illustrations below explain the "side transfer" method and why wider space (not less than 600 mm) is needed beside the toilet bowl. For more details please got to my post about accessible toilet. The link is HERE.

The link to Penaga Hotel's website is HERE.

Yeng Keng Hotel

The funny thing about Yeng Keng Hotel is that it has an accessible toilet, but no wheelchair user can enter the hotel. I checked and found that there are barriers at all the entrances. (See the layout below. "X" in red represents barrier.) So what is the logic of the accessible toilet? Just to complied with the building by-laws?

Note the "MIND YOUR STEP" warning shown below.

The accessible toilet was badly designed. The door opens inwards (see photo below). I was unable to close the door when I was inside.

Wrong type of grab bars were used and they were fixed to the floor (see the yellow arrow in the photo below). They prevent users from transferring from wheelchairs to the toilet bowl. 

There is a ramp near the entrance of the restaurant (see photo below). I tested it and found it too narrow, especially at the corner. The toilet inside the restaurant is very small and completely inaccessible.

Yeng Keng Hotel is not wheelchair friendly at all. Don't go there.

(Date of visit : 26 March 2013)