Name: Banana New Guesthouse
Address: 326 Chulia Street 10000 Penang,Chulia Street, George Town, George Town, George Town, 10000, Malaysia
Rating: 4

Computer

Air conditioning

Ticket assistance

Television in lobby

Terrace

General

Rooms

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Shuttle

Transfer

Tour assistance

Tourist services

Location

At the hotel

Room amenities

Penang International Airport

Banana New Guesthouse

George Town

child-bed

child-bed-fee

external-private-bathroom

private-bathroom

shared-bathroom

10-beds

11-beds

12-beds

13-beds

14-beds

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4-beds

40-beds

5-beds

6-beds

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king-bed

queen-bed

limited-time

lounge

treatment

no-window

bay-view

bosphorus-view

canal-view

city-view

courtyard-view

garden-view

golf-view

harbour-view

inland-view

lake-view

land-view

mountain-view

ocean-front

ocean-view

oceanside

panoramic-view

park-view

partial-ocean-view

partial-sea-view

partial-view

pool-view

river-view

sea-front

sea-view

street-view

sunrise-view

sunset-view

water-view

with-view

annex

basement

main-building

1-bedroom

2-bedrooms

3-bedrooms

4-bedrooms

5-bedrooms

6-bedrooms

not-guaranteed

wired-internet-access

smoking

sauna

duplex

safe

mini-bar

breakfast-for-1

breakfast-for-2

pets-allowed

wi-fi

kitchen

Second time I've used the incredibly helpful Anna at banana to help secure a new Thai visa. This lady tammy his over and above, including waiting patiently for my missing documents to be couriered across and still getting the visa on time. Will only use her on the footie, highly recommended!

Visa assistance first rate

Service is ok. Rooms are normal. Nothing special. Bath & Toilets are the same, everything looks cheap. Beds are very hard and towels costs extra... possible fpr 1 night but 50m are the same condistions and 10rm cheaper.

O.k. 

Lobby doubles as internet cafe. Guest watching porn as I walked in was bad start. I made eye contact with person behind desk on other side of the room instead. Yes they had my booking. Oh wow they have a stack of the forms I need here to apply for a Visa, so I go to pick one up. NO YOU CAN'T TOUCH THOSE. But I want to fill one out, it is just a photocopied form and you have like 100 of them. NO THESE ARE FOR GUESTS USING OUR SERVICES AND WE WILL FILL IT OUT NOT YOU. Oh but it is my visa application I have to sign it, I normally fill these out myself. DENIED.

That was my welcome. During the awkward silence that followed, guessing this person is just following orders and suffering a lack of training and not knowing where to look I noticed a sign on the wall asking for  10RM deposit for a towel. The towel I got was not a 10RM towel but better than no towel. Trust me, take the towel, you're going to need it later. ;)

I normally travel with family and hit places with a few stars, guess I want to find out what budget looks like. Budget is this, the attitude to guests is more akin to the vibe of a cow rustler herding cattle. Carry your own bags find your own room, but don't fill in your own forms, we want to charge you for that. Up the stairs and my room has a window. Not one looking out on the glorious street life below, it is an internal window adjacent to the door to give alternate access to the room when the door is locked. It takes me to an early scene in 'The Island' where the guy in the next room at the guest house disappears in the night. Place has that feel.

I get in the door and check out the room. Ok so now the Island scene is firmly locked in. There are two beds because only 'deluxe' room was available. To be fair there is an aircon and a fan and both have moving parts that do something when you switch them on. There is a dresser and a bathroom. 

When I look at the bed and think about what is in the mattress and how hard it is I realise that I am gonna have to be good and drunk before I sleep on it. Thankfully the street is packed with bars ready to get me into that state. The table is laid out with 3 little cakes of soap and three bottles of water, you will use all these items believe me.

There is wifi and it works ok for email but don't try watching tv you'll have a fit. You won't want to stick around in here anyway.

Secure your belongings as best you can as the room doesn't look real secure and get back out, straight out the door you are literally in the middle of a string of bars that are going to crank til midnight and then pull everybody inside and keep going til 4am so rather than try to block this out and sleep the best strategy is to be part of it. You won't want to spend too much time in the room or interacting with the guy guarding the forms or cruising porn downstairs. Hope you like CARLSBERG though because Carlsberg mafia seem to own all the bars in the street. 

Stumbling back later I used one set of bedding to simply insulate me from the mattress and ripped the other set off the other bed to throw on top and passed out. Make sure you set an alarm though because your visa forms have to be in before 11am and check out time is 12. If you turn left at the door and walk 100m you will find Jims Visa place, they are recommended. Banana staff were advising people that the visa I wanted was not possible whereas Jim just went and got it.

Bathroom is one room with a toilet and a sink and a shower with hot water heater on the wall, there is no shower enclosure, when you turn the shower on, everything is going to get very wet, that is the design, this is how that room gets washed I think. You will want to have paid for a towel at this point because there isn't one in the room otherwise, and once you turn on the tap it's all over.

Remember to drink all the water they give you because you will have drunk quite a lot of alcohol while you were outside.

The shower water heater was functional in my room as were the fans so that was great.

I just tried to get out after I had used the soap to wash the grimyness of the experience off me, the staff were good not to charge me an extra day as I took an extra ten minutes to get out.

Good luck.

Pay the extra for towel, you'll be glad later.

This is by far the worst value hotel we've stayed at in over three months of travel in SEA - think Fawlty Towers Malaysian style - but we were so travel-weary and sick and tired of moving when we got here, we stayed until we left Penang.

At first, the room seemed pretty nice: matching wooden furniture (bed, dresser, TV cabinet and clothing rack), clean white sheets, wooden floor, spacious. However, for MR 85 per day, this is what we actually got: a bathroom that looked like it had never been cleaned (hair in the handbasin, filthy toilet lid and seat) - and when we asked for it to be cleaned, they sent a woman up who spent 15 minutes washing the walls, leaving the toilet in the same condition as she found it; after four days - and repeated requests for our room to be cleaned - we returned to find the bins emptied (including the one full of four days' worth of dirty toilet paper, as sanitary systems here cannot handle toilet paper), but lined with dirty plastic bags from our takeaway the previous night!!; and the same old sheets folded the wrong way over the bed (see uploaded photos).

Also, upon arrival: the two small bottles of 'complimentary water' were opened and half-empty, and there was no toilet paper - both of which we had to request repeatedly, even after paying - things that wouldn't usually bother me, but for RM 85, this is really pretty terrible.

In addition to all of this: the light in the room was so dim, you couldn't even read a label on a bottle; the TAP IN THE HANDBASIN DIDN'T WORK, so we had to wash our hands and brush our teeth using the shower nozzle; the aircon - which we paid and extra RM 20 for, but had refunded - did not work at all; there was only one spare power point (after fan, TV, bedside light socket); and the icing on the cake is that its neighbours are several nightclubs that run until 5:00 am, with such great  'soundproofing' that it's like trying to sleep in the club itself.

Value for money = zero; the 'star' is for the very lovely and helpful receptionist Lea, who would do well to take her customer service skills to a more deserving establishment.

DIY Hostel at Flashpacker Prices

After travelling around asia + 7 years i found this guesthouse first on google thats why i choose it!
 105 Ringgit (MYR) you got a room with tiny smal beds and aircon! (dident really work that good)
Room was dirty and feelt like a prison cell!
After pulling out one bed the wall was covered in spider web and dust!
Wifi dident work, even on groundfloor were they had the router the internet was terrible!

The only really good thing was they got a visa service so you dont need to go to embassy and apply, they will fix everything for you for around 40 Ringgit extra!

There is alot of rooms for rent on this street, have a look around and you will end up with something cheaper and nicer!

Banana New Guesthouse

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