The Grand BlueWave in Kuala Lumpur (KL) was not our choice. Malaysia Airlines booked it for us when they cancelled a flight at short notice and we had to stop over before flying back to Heathrow.
We only knew the name of our hotel on arrival at KL. We checked the website in the taxi on route to the hotel. It sounded promising – the “full luxury of a 5-star business hotel”, “five food and beverage outlets catering to the varied palates of the local and foreign guests”.
On arrival at 1pm, we were invited to go into the buffet lunch in the ground floor restaurant. There was an impressive array of food and jugs of water were already on the tables. On looking around, my partner, started to have a sneaking suspicion it might be a ‘dry’ hotel. After salad starters with things we’d not eaten during our four weeks touring Indonesia (olives, anchovies and gherkins) we had pasta mains. In the dessert section, I discovered a huge freezer full of six large tubs of ice-cream. As our evening meal was also buffet style, I decided it would make a good treat after dinner. This was a big mistake: the ice-cream was never seen again.
Many of the tables were reserved with the names of various Asian nations: UAE, Timor-Leste and Myanmar. We discovered they were all there for what I would describe as a ‘big football competition’ but which was actually the 2014 AFF Futsal Championship. Many of the visitors were wheelchair bound, indicating this is a disabled friendly hotel.
Back at reception, we spotted a banner we’d not noticed on arrival proclaiming this was Malaysia’s first hotel awarded an Islamic Quality Standard (IQS) in the five star hotel category by Universal Crescent Standard Centre (UCSC). It was indeed a 'dry' hotel.
Our room was fine with spectacular views overlooking the Blue Mosque. It had everything we needed for one night except a well stocked mini bar. After walking to the Blue Mosque, we realised that because the hotel was situated in Shah Alam, the business district and it was a Sunday, there was nothing to do in the area. Even the pool had segregated times for men and women which meant we couldn’t swim together. There was nothing for it but to change some dollars into ringgits at the hotel’s gift shop and get a taxi to the Suria KLCC shopping mall at the Petronas Twin Tower.
We had an early start the next morning but didn’t need an alarm as the Blue Mosque call to prayer woke us at 5.30am. Waiting in reception for our cab, we noticed the yellow-shirted Brunei football team standing in a circle saying prayers. We hoped they weren’t praying to score 3 goals within the first 5 minutes.
