Tune Hotel - first impressions

I've just had my very first exposure to Tune Hotel.

You know, the Tune Hotel in Kuala Lumpur that belongs to Tony Fernandez and friends, and which promises guests a "no-frills" experience. Having taken the concept of "no-frills" flying with Air Asia, welcome now to "no-frills" hospitality!

Unfortunately, I went to KL without a camera so I cannot share my experience visually with you but here is a photo of the hotel's exterior, taken from their website. By the way, it's located at the junction of Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman and Jalan Sultan Ismail. That's the hotel's official address in the picture.

When I was surfing through their website before making my on-line booking for a room, I thought, hey, I don't need no telephone, television, radio, safe, mini-bar, tea or coffee making facilities in the room. I'm only going to stay in the room for nine hours. Heck, I don't even need air-conditioning the whole night through. So, a five-hour air-conditioning package will be enough for me. So be it.

I've no qualms with all that. In fact, my expectancy was set. For RM50, if I can get a good quality mattress with clean sheets to sleep on with air-conditioning on from midnight until 5am and a ceiling fan to circulate the air for the rest of my nine-hour stay, I was satisfied.

You know what? If you thought the First World Hotel at Genting Highlands was quaint, be prepared for an even more quaint experience at Tune Hotel.

First of all, their website only shows you a virtual tour of a double-occupancy room. It doesn't even give you a snapshot of about their single-occupancy rooms so you'll have to bear with me while I go into a verbal descriptive mode.

The room is quaint, all right! Bare, dark cement floor to conceal any dirt and there was dust at the foot of the bed. But what really caught my breath when I entered the room was its size. It was long and narrow. I didn't have a measuring tape but I know my footsteps are 10 inches from heel to tip of my longest toe. Convenient, eh? So the room turned out to be 19.5 long and its width 6.7 feet. The bed was placed across the width of the room and the distance from the foot of the bed to the wall was a breath-taking eight inches! Wow, to get to the window (width: 24 inches), you have several options: (a) sit on the bed and move your legs from the left side of the bed to the right side; (b) roll across the bed; (c) jump across the bed; (d) walk on top of the bed (and risk getting guillotined by the ceiling fan); or (e) carefully walk in that narrow space between the bed's foot and the wall (that's how I discovered the dirt and dust on the floor - probably not been cleaned since the first house guest in this room).

At least, the bathroom was of decent size, measuring about 9.5 feet by three feet. The bath area came with a power shower and hot water, so not bad. But the doors closed badly and water seeped from the bath enclosure to the bigger bathroom area and from there, the hotel room floor itself. No towel or soap provided, no glass or cup even but there were generous rolls of toilet paper. Ha ha!! No wardrobe but you can hang your clothes on the wall hooks. No tables to put your stuff but there's a ledge directly above the bed. You'll have to put your luggage bag on the floor.

Oh yes, next time you are there, be prepared to see advertisements in your room. There are three wall panels and advertisers only need to slip their advertisement material there.

A friend who was in another similarly quaint single-occupancy room on the fourth floor complained that the Mat Rempits were making too much noise in the dead of the night. As for me, I was too tired in my second-floor room to hear them.

Checking in was easy. I gave the sweet young lady at the front desk my identity card, she checked against the on-line booking list and issued me with a room key card after collecting a RM5 deposit from me. Checking out was equally easy. I returned the card to the front desk and the deposit was returned to me. Security was acceptable; the staff generally friendly and can be talkative. However, no parking space is provided if you drive. But people generally use the monorail or LRT service to move around.