Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour – great price, great food, great location

If you are looking for an alternative to staying in Legoland Hotel, and simply want to stay near Legoland, Sanrio Hello Kitty Town or The Little Big Club, then Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour is a top recommendation for you.

Legoland is about a 5 min drive away from the hotel, and next to Hotel Jen are Hello Kitty Town and The Little Big Club.

With its proximity to Singapore, Hotel Jen is a 15-minute drive from the Malaysia-Singapore Second Link , i.e., without JAM!

Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour, being a 4 star hotel with good standard hotel rooms and great hotel facilities, plus an impressive breakfast spread, the price of Malaysian Ringgit $455 per night for a Deluxe Harbour View room (SGD150++) is super affordable!

You might have known that Hotel Jen is a rebranding of Shangri-La’s Traders Hotel. The new branding introduces a refreshing, relax and friendly virtual persona, Jen,  to welcome guests. Jen is from the word “Jeneration” aimed to cater to a new generation of leisure travellers.

Let’s take a look at what I love about the rooms and facilities, after that, I will bring you to the amazingly wide spread of breakfast buffet, probably the best in JB and some say Batam, ha!

Checking in

I like the design of the reception area. Since Hotel Jen is located at Puteri Harbour, the waves-like interior design is no coincidence. The staff wears a less formal uniform which gives the guests an informal and relax welcome no matter if you are here for business or for fun. Check-in process was fast and hassle-free, although we had to wait quite long on our day of check-in due to full hotel occupancy.

There is even a welcome complimentary fruit-infused waters and signature iced teas for guests waiting at the reception area. I told to the hubby that the only hotel that we have been to that serves such complimentary drinks at reception area is Ritz Carlton. Even though this is no big deal, but we already feel guests’ comfort and needs are highly valued here and fine details are not overlooked too, in many areas, as you will see later.

Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour has 3 low-storey blocks. As we walked towards our room in Block 3 which is also where the sky bar and infinity pool is, we admired the Puteri Harbour view and enjoyed the tranquillity of the hotel.

This corridor is specially designed to open up to the fresh air (if no one is smoking) and fresh view of the Puteri Harbour.

Rooms and Facilities

We stayed 2 nights in the Premier Room and to be frank, after the double room staycation earlier in Village Hotel Changi, the kids were expecting their own beds and own room. However, if you ask me, I would still love to squeeze everyone in the same room as how we had done in all staycations and hotel stays overseas. After all, how long will this kind of “squeezing” last before no kids would want to sleep with Papa and Mummy anymore.

If you were wondering how we slept in this room, there is an extra bed which was facing the entrance and the hub didn’t like that. You know, in terms of Feng Shui, a bed should not be facing the door directly. So, we rearranged and moved the mattress over to the window and had the staff set up a “sofa bed” which wasn’t exactly a pull out sofa bed that we had in Festive Hotel RWS. It is more like putting a bedsheet tucked into the sofa bed plus a blanket and ta-da, you have one bed good for a kid. My Missy 10 slept on the “sofa bed” and my Master 8 slept on the mattress on the floor by the window. The toddler had his comfortable cot.

Below picture shows how the elder kids slept. They had slept in all kinds of configurations in the past. They had even slept on the floor with comforters, towels, blankets, shift of sofas, furnitures and all pillows protection beside. So, this arrangement to them, was considered a good level of comfort.

This was how the sleeping space looked in the day time. I wouldn’t mind sleeping next to the window with such great view 🙂 There were 2 TVs in this Premier room.

Apart from the somewhat squeezy sleeping space we had, the rest of the experience was great.

Here is how the bathroom looks like and check out the cleansing function of the toilet bowl, just like the toilet bowls in Japan! And this toilet bowl has a warm seat too! There is a bath tub and separate shower area with rain shower head. One thing that I didn’t like very much is sharing the toilet in the same bathroom. I would prefer to have a non-glass door for the toilet cubicle to do my business privately while the kids had their shower and bath soak.

Similar to the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott Hotels, this one has a day and night curtain remote control switches. There is a nice alarm clock that feels like home and of course, the usual electronic safe box, luggage area, ironing board and hanging area.

The mini bar area had a hot water boiler that saved me some screams and time to make fast night feeds for my toddler. Although, he is already 3, he still loves night feeds. Many times, I needed to sing songs and put on replay mode of “Wait wait”, “Coming”, while I boiled some water for his milk in the middle of the night during our hotel stays.

We had a welcome fruit cup too.

Hotel Facilities – Gym and Swimming Pool

Gym

The hotel gym has an awesome harbour view. I never knew my kids were fascinated by treadmills, toning stations and weights in the gym room until we reached here. When we were all changed and headed to the gym, barely 5 minutes had we started working out, we were told that gym usage was for 18 years old and above. I was not aware of such age limit, but I was sure the rules were necessary to protect little bodies knowing how kids treat the machines as playgrounds.

Infinity Pool

Infinity pools seem to be the “must-haves” in hotels. My kids are crazy for pools and bringing them on staycations is sufficient to satisfy their “pool-crave”. The unblocked view without skyscrapers was beautiful. We could see Singapore on the right side of the picture. This is how near Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour is from Singapore. The pool is divided into 3 areas: the infinity pool area, a jacuzzi pool and a toddler wading pool. Towels are provided and Sky bar is available for drinks.

Now, the awesome Breakfast Buffet that I must rave about here…

Breakfast Buffet at Cafe Harbour

This picture is the entrance of the Cafe Harbour where guests have their breakfast buffet. The coffee machine and pastries at this entrance is complimentary for guests who are on the go. Very thoughtful indeed!

The breakfast buffet simply serves up a wide variety of food. It has a milk and cereal spread, a spoilt for choice yogurt and toppings table, freshly prepared smoothie of the day and even herbal tea, health juice blends and Teh Tarik!

I had to show the awesome tasting sashimi to you. Probably the best Salmon Sashimi I have ever tasted before! Juicy and tangy and fresh!

There are a few things I like about Hotel Jen which are proof of their focus on service and fine details for their guests. Take a look at these amazing services!

Handphone charging station – You can leave your handphone or tablet in one of these small cubicles with locks and collect them once you are done with your meal. Save time and save the day for those who forgot to charge their handphones to full battery. This can also be found in the gym too.

Convenience meal cards – for letting the waiters/waitresses to know if you are done with your food!

Reading glasses!! – with various degrees! Can you even believe such fine service exist? I think this is what I call a good service and I am sure guests who need to use glasses to read the morning newspapers will appreciate this very much.

For dinner, if you are not so keen on eating hotel food, you may consider eating at the Chua Kee Restaurant at Gelang Patah which is about a 15 minutes drive from the hotel. We had our dinner there on our first night. The hubby was so happy with the zi char prices in Ringgit (SGD to MYR nowadays is approx. 1 to 3) that he ordered a whole table of food good for 10 pax! Mind you, we actually finished all the food and it was just Kel, me and the 3 kids! This dinner cost us only SGD70. Pretty good price for a dinner with steam fish and black pepper crab!

So, if you are thinking of a short holiday getaway, Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour would be a great place to stay in terms of location, food and proximity to all the major kids attractions in Johor.

More information about Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour:

Address: Persiaran Puteri Selatan, Puteri Harbour, 79000 Nusajaya, Johor Darul Takzim, Malaysia

Tel: 607 560 8857

Website: https://www.hoteljen.com/johor/puteriharbour/about/

Parking: Complimentary parking regardless if you are guests or not. This carpark is also for those heading to Hello Kitty Town and The Little Big Club.

Internet: Free Wifi

Rates: Starting from MYR 410 per night. Combo Theme park packages available.

For dinner at Gelang Petah:

Address: 17 & 19, Jalan Nusaria 3, Taman Nusantara, Bandar Nusajaya, 81550 Gelang Patah, Johor

Internet: There is free WiFi in Chua Kee Restaurant too! The owner must be a tech savvy and caring boss to throw in free WiFi for staff and guests.

Disclosure: We received a one night complimentary stay in Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour and paid for our 2nd night stay at discounted rate. All opinions are mine and I hope if you do stay in this hotel, you will enjoy it as much as we did.