Club Med Cherating Beach Kuantan

Hope its just a one off experience during the busy June 2006 school holiday at Club Med Cherating.

I walked, on slippers, across the field to dinner when I felt a sharp bite. I pulled a little hook out of my toe and thought it was a harmless insect bite. During dinner, I started to feel itchy all over; apparently out of some allergic reaction.

We went to the front desk and was told to wait 20 minutes for the nurse to come! After much "persuasion", and the nurse finally arrived. She looked at the bite and immediately said she had no jabs and we need to visit the town clinic. Why can't the front desk just ask us to go out in the first place? When asked about transportation, she said they will call a cab which will take 20 minutes.

Thank God my brother-in-law drove to Cherating. It took some 20 minutes to drive to clinic "IBNU SINA" which is in the state of Terengganu (--) The young doctor told us its probably a "Lipan", centipede, bite. He cautioned if I hadn't taken the two injections early, the allergy can kill blocking airways and causing too much t-cells to react ... nasty effects. He also told us to go straight to the local hospital should its a suspected snake bite.

Be prepared.

I had submited a request form for more information on honeymoon package on 19th April 2006. I receive a call from customer service on the 20th April 2006. My phone have some problems during that day and I was on my way to KL from Melaka. I requested the girl to email me the information but until today, 25th April, I have yet receive any reply from her.

I decided not to go there with this kind of customer service.

I hope this can be improve.

Thank you.

They are not flexible at all. Have to follow their policy strictly. Group or individual are treated the same. Could not check in on behalf of your group and must strictly check in at 3pm even you are half way in your meeting. No changes is allowed or else there will be a charges. Place that is only good for leisure and fun.

First of all it IS a beautiful location - one of the best and our suite overlooking the beach was beautiful. The hotel itself and the grounds are very well done in a sort of traditional Malaysian style.



BUT - as anyone knows a hotel has to be much more than pretty and at the end of the day is only as good as the people who are running it. To that extent this hotel fails badly.



Having traveled from the US with two babies we were told that our room was not ready as the former occupant "had decided to check out late." It was 11:00am and we had informed the hotel well in advance of our arrival and our needs. Nobody was aware of any of this - we would have the room at 5:00pm. I can only guess it was someone more important than us.



After much complaining we were offered a temporary room but again had to fight to get cots set up for the babies - one of whom was sick.



Another argument ensued when we asked to have our bags delivered to the temporary room. It appears this was an inconvenience so I agreed to go to the bags and just get what we needed for the babies. The bags could not be located at first but when I pushed the issue I was led across to the other end of the compound and there they were sitting unguarded in the open air. The explanation for this was that they were outside our room and would be delivered to the room when it was ready - SIX HOURS LATER. At this point I had to insist in the strongest terms that our bags be brought to the temporary room and they were. So having paid something like $700 for a suite with an attached room we spent the good part of the first day of our two day stay trying to sleep off our jetlag in a dark rather dank cramped room with questionable air-conditioning.



For all this we received a form apology from the manager and a voucher for a massage. It was dated the day after we were to check out so we decided not to avail of it.



And the problems continued throughout our stay. We were there as part of a larger group and needed three high chairs for each meal but could never prevail on the staff to help us get any. The usual response was a polite smile followed by a rather quick disappearing act so we had to hunt for them ourselves rarely finding more than two.



The hotel offers no baby-sitting service. I was told this was Club Med policy which was surprising for a hotel that is aimed at families as this one seems to be.



The only Internet access - forget about wifi - was the Business Center and that was closed for Chinese New Year.



The standard of the food in general was far below what one expects in Asia and certainly Malaysia. A lot of people find the rigid mealtimes and assembly line atmosphere off-putting but to me that would not have been a problem had the food itself been edible. Lots of hotels use this set up but the high quality of the food make it a bonus. Here it was anything but: the majority of our group had diarrhea by the end of our stay.



I could go on but in short one is left with the impression of a hotel - or perhaps and organization - that is overly bottom line driven and that bottom line has driven almost every aspect of the hotel down leading to the pervasive

irritation of frustrated guests. I say pervasive because the Front Desk seemed to be constantly thronged with weary guests, exasperated that even the smallest of problems could not be dealt with leading me to believe that the problems we faced were by no means unique.



As we left in our taxi for the airport we were treated to an interesting send off by about 10 staff members who waved and danced as if we were departing family members. It appeared to be some kind of Club Med ritual and although is was very sweet I could not help but think that their time would be better spent on the more mundane aspects of running a hotel.

it was one of d best place i've been to...the G.Os were super friendly,d facilities were good...it was awesome...i only stayed there for 4d and 3n...in my opinion,i think its too short...i would love to go back there :)

I dont agree with the club med concept of regimenting your life on holiday. This is not the place to go if you have small children, if you have elderly parents, or if you just want to hang out. This is the place to go if you are a young adult or a teenager who likes organised sports.

My family (mother, sister & family from US, sister & family from Singapore), stayed there for 2-3 nights & 3-4 days.

Firstly, for those unlucky Malaysians who think they can book online, FORGET IT. I sent in a request, waited 2 weeks, nothing, then sent in another request, waited another 2 weeks & still nothing. I think the email disappears into a black hole or something.

My sister's family - & she has twin 2 year old boys, arrived at club med to be told that their room wasnt ready. In addition, their luggage went missing. Imagine 2 tired little boys, no luggage, no room, no lunch, & no end in sight. They waited 5 hours for their room & the staff there had the cheek to tell them that it was because the previous tenant would not vacate the room.

Me, I got diarrhea from the food. There are flies. Not many, but enough to worry you on the cold stuff.

The standard rooms are really dingy, small, cramped, dark and claustaphobic. Im lucky I decided to spring for a suite (& incidentally so did my sister with the 5 hour delay), so our rooms were definitely comfortable.

Also, Im not the sort of person who enjoys a regimented lifestyle. They have scheduled time for activites, for the food, for the transport. You get the picture. My sisters 2 boys eat dinner at 6.30 pm. But they dont open the place for dinner till 7pm. What are 2 hungry boys to do?

For those of you going for seasports, dont plan on just popping by. Its quite a distance to the beach which has the activities (about 1/2 hour walk), or via their bus (which runs on schedule, once every 1/2 hour).

Good points - food was OK though boring after awhile, they have a nurse on standby (she's good, I speak from experience :-( ), suites are real nice if you are willing to splash & my teenage nephew really enjoyed himself with the organised sport for older kids.

All in I wouldnt go back to club med. Maybe its me, but I cant stand the pseudo holiday lifestyle. Give me a real holiday resort anytime!

I stayed with my wife in Club Med Cherating Beach on August 2005 for 4 night. Overall it is not bad. Food was very good and there was a wide variety but the only problem that the restaurant was very crowded.

People there were very friendly from the minute I arrived until we left.

The experience would be been better for families and children.

One drawback is the beach towels. Each person gets only one beach towel (in exchange for a ticket you get at your arrival) and if you are late, you won't get any.

This must be one of the best beach hotels in Asia location wise. It has three beautiful private beaches; one ideal for kids as it is very shallow. In off season, you may have a whole beach for yourself. The hotel rooms are in nice wooden houses in typical Malayan style in the middle of a tropical rain forest ( we experienced no problem with aircon). Rooms are nicely furnished but small. Bathrooms are very small with the shower full of mould.

The food at the restaurants is very good with daily buffets of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian and Malayan food. However, I got diarrhea even though I only ate the club ( a misfortune that seemed to have happened to earlier reviewers as well), while I did not get sick when I ate local food in other Asian countries in the preceding weeks.

For a hotel putting so much emphasis on sports, the gym is surprisingly small. No treadmills, cross-trainers or bicycles. The few weight lifting equipments are outdated with all knobs to adjust to height gone.

The restaurants and the pool area seem too small for 650 people. When it's fully booked expect to queue for food. Better to come in off-season.

Service was sometimes so slow that customers helped themselves getting bottles of wine out of the fridge. When once customers spilled a full glass of juice flooding the table and the floor below, the waiters ignored the mess and did not offer any help.

Apparently, Club Med is testing a new concept at Cherating. While Club Med in Asia in general has many western customers, who would come for a week or more, it's main customers at Cherating are now Koreans (mostly), Japanese and Taiwanese coming for 3 -5 days. Especially the daily new busloads of photo-taking Koreans create an atmosphere as if the hotel is kind of a Neuschwanstein. Western customers actually may pay almost twice as much as some Asians (Club Med is notorious for charging some customers more than others, depending in which country you book).

The Asians had supposedly their difficulty with joining strangers at big tables typical for a Club Med and so most of these tables are gone in Cherating (which we regretted).

When we were there, there were approx. 90 GOs (staff) and ~250 GMs (guests) in the Club which has capacity of 650. For the customers this did not translate in a better service. Even though the GOs should have had plenty of time, explanations of the various activities were often kept to the minimum. At the archery stands, which were, as most of the times, completely empty, we were told to come again tomorrow, as children were only allowed between 9 - 10 a.m. My wife got (unwanted) attention from male GOs, who would approach her when she was alone or whistle at her.

We tried to speak with the General Manager of the Club. To our amazement, we were told that we cannot speak with him. We were told that the Assistant Manager would revert to us, who never did.

Our final disappointments occurred on the departure day, when we learned that Club Med would not allow normal taxis on its premises and forced us to take their limousine service, which made the trip to the airport almost 50% more expensive than the cab ride from the airport (we were told, we had to walk with our baggage 500m to the front gate, if we wanted a normal taxi). To make things worse, the staff insisted that the driving time to the airport is only 30 min. while in reality its 50 min.

Yes, we agree with other reviewers about the air conditioning. It is non-existent. Sure, the ac unit make a sound like it's working but it's NOT! And then there is the design of the rooms: They sea-facing rooms have a great view which has been blocked by cupboards.

This Club Med is in serious need of a makeover. Other than that the food's great and the staff excellent.

My husband and I stayed at the Club Med Cherating Beach in May 2005 for 6 nights with 2 additional nights in Kuala Lumpar which was also booked through Club Med. Overall, the club itself has some very nice points including a recent renovation which made the place quite stylish for a club med. Many of the staff are excellent and the beaches are nice. The majority of the patrons are Asian with children. If you don't have kids, I wouldn't pick this club. That said, we experienced some problems First, no one arrived to meet us at the airport after the 8 1/2 hour flight and we were unable to contact any club med representative at the airport. All Transfers were supposed to be included but the chaffeur for the Shangri-La hotel (the club Med affiliate hotal that the club med booked us in for two nights) said that the club med drivers don't show up quite often. We had to pay the Shangri-La chauffeur to take us to the hotel because he told us we would have to fight club Med for the reimbursement. After several unpleasent phone calls to the club Med office the next day, they did agree to remove the transfer charge from our bill (reluctantly--as they tried to argue that the driver did come for us).

Once at the Club Med in Cherating, The club itself was quite nice but the air condition is a joke. Even after moving rooms, it was hopeless. The outside temp was about 97F degrees and the temp inside our room about 93F.

The food was usually tasty but both of us had mild diarrhea only when we ate the club food so I wonder??? Surprisingly, we did not get sick when we ate the local street vender food at the night market!

At the end of our stay, as we were checking out to leave, we noticed a charge for five hundred dollars for an excursion we did not ever sign up for or take. They would not remove the charge from our bill until they spoke to the excursion office, but no one was there. A bus load of people had to wait for us to go to the airport while we battled with them to remove the charge from the bill. Even the "Chief" of the village couldn't figure out what to do. Finally, they removed the charge or we would have all missed the flight.

Last, the beach has jellyfish (some venomous) and we saw many washed up every day.

In summery, If you have to go to Cherating for some reason you could probably do better but Club Med is not terrible.