Kuala Lumpur – Arte+ Airbnb

After the adventures in Bangkok we were a little bit better prepared when we arrived to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. We bought our sim card at the airport, took some cash from ATM there and ordered Grab taxi instead of those waiting already at the airport. This part was surprisingly easy. Getting to our Airbnb not so much… again. I don’t know what is wrong with those directions on Airbnb that every time we show the address driver has no idea how to get there? Anyway we finally got there but our problems didn’t end there.

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The main entrance to Arte+ at first glance looks like parking entrance. That confused us a bit but we decided to go inside anyway. We passed by a security room on our right and reception on the left. We didn’t go to the reception room right away because we didn’t think it is the reception. It looks like a pub or night club more than anything else. We noticed signs on the wall ” Key pickup” so that’s where we were going. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what we thought it would be. In the end, we asked some security guy where we should go and he took us back to that “night club”.

Redish walls, few sofas with round tables, huge lavish chandelier and three stands in the shape of a head that apparently were reception desks. I’d never thought it’s a reception room. Yes, there were people with luggage sitting by those tables, but they could just be relaxing there, not, as we found out soon, waiting for their keys. Basically, I think I should start with the fact that we didn’t expect to be booked in some sort of hotel. It was Airbnb booking after all, and those are rarely hotels like that. We got our key and access card, a short description of how to get to our apartment and a map of the building. Nothing made sense at first to us. We’re not stupid or anything (although don’t take my word for that!), simply moving around the building was really complicated. Looking a bit closer at the map provided could help a bit, but only loozers use maps in the building… right?! Arte+ has 3 separate towers. Each tower has a differently styled lobby. All lobbies are sort of connected by “R” floor, where you can also find a swimming pool and floating fantasy garden. To get to R floor you need to find an appropriate “Bomba” lift. To use lifts as well as get to some facilities you need to use your access card. We tried it with bomba lift for another tower than our own apartment and the lift didn’t budge.

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Our apartment was on 10th floor but after a week for some reason, we were moved to exactly the same one but on 41st floor. Both places looked literally the same and the view was great too. If only windows were cleaner… You need to keep in mind that it’s 10th or 41st floor from R floor and below it was about 7 maybe 8 floors of parking spaces. The apartment was really big, with kitchenette, living space and two bedrooms with double bed and two bathrooms. Everything looked great at first glance, but we stayed there for a month so more and more things started to annoy us. It’s a definitely nice and comfortable place to stay for a few days or a week, not so much for a longer stay. You will find an electric stove, kettle and microwave in the kitchen. You are provided with one frying pan and plates and cutlery for 4 people. There is no proper knife though and food sticks easily to the pan no matter what you do, so cooking is out of the table. There is also a washing/drying machine which was great for us because we travel with very few clothing items and need to wash it regularly. You also have your own and fast wifi and flat screen TV. There is cleaning service paid separately but if you decide to do it yourself, there’s no broom nor a mop… we ended up buying the cheapest ones since we were staying there for a month and tried to be as much budget friendly as possible. Anyway seeing a state of lobbies and other places I doubt that paid cleaning service is worth the money anyway.

Arte+ building is picture perfect. Everything looks amazing… on pictures. When you look closer though you start noticing a lack of proper maintenance and cleaning. Windows everywhere are really dirty outside and inside. Our lobby featured huge and thick spiderweb in the corner and nobody cleaned it for a whole month we’ve been there. Swedish garden featured a few broken chairs, lazy spa broken and dirty decorations and sauna was out of service. Navigation in the building is annoying and sometimes takes ages. Bomba lift that is the only lift that can take you to facilities like gym or lazy spa is constantly used by builders and other staff and it takes ages to get to it. Not mentioning that it’s always dirty and wet. There’s only one lift from your lobby that can take you to the ground floor, so it’s often overcrowded and you need to wait sometimes quite a long time to finally get out of the building. Arte+ is very secure heavy. There’s a lot of security guards everywhere, cameras all over the place, especially common places, plus obviously access cards that won’t let you anywhere else but to common places and your own apartment floor.

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Around Arte+ building are construction sites and many flats in the building itself are still renovated (as for March 2019) so during the day noise is horrible. There is no way to stay all day inside not mentioning staying in bed late. Constant drilling, banging and crane noises are not nice no matter you’re there for holiday or longer stay.

Not far from the building are local street food restaurants and big grocery store. We found ourselves often going to nearby shopping mall. It was about 10 minutes walk from the place but we found nearly everything we needed there. If you want to visit city centre though you need to take about 30 minute drive by taxi (or a bus, but we were not adventures enough to try it).

I am not sure should I recommend the place or not. I have very mixed feelings about it. Basically if it’s finished and all other buildings around are finished it might be a nice place to stay in… but I bet it will take few more months if not years as one building just started constructions. I’d say if you find a price deal and you don’t plan to stay there too long it’s worth it. If you want to take some cool pictures for your instagram or other social media – it’s definitely worth it.