Kuala Lumpur is one of those cities where you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to good hotels. There’s plenty of competition, prices can be surprisingly reasonable compared with Sydney or Singapore, and there are some genuinely great properties around KLCC.
For this trip, we checked into W Kuala Lumpur, largely because of its location and one fairly significant selling point: the Petronas Twin Towers are basically right there.
We’ve stayed at enough W Hotels to know what to expect. They’re bold, colourful and usually a little louder than your traditional five-star hotel. W Kuala Lumpur certainly follows that formula, but underneath all the design, music and mood lighting, we found a very comfortable city hotel with huge rooms, a great breakfast and one of the best pool views in Kuala Lumpur.
First Impressions
The W isn’t trying to be subtle. From the moment you arrive, there’s colour, lighting, music and plenty going on visually. It feels contemporary and energetic rather than formal, which will either be exactly what you want from a W or slightly exhausting if your ideal hotel involves beige sofas and somebody quietly playing a grand piano in the lobby.
More importantly, the hotel gets the basics right. It’s comfortable, the location is excellent and everything feels polished without taking itself too seriously. With 150 rooms and suites, it’s also relatively modest in size for a major city hotel. We liked that it didn’t feel like one of those enormous properties where getting from your room to breakfast requires Google Maps.
The Room
We stayed in a Deluxe Guest Room with Twin Towers views, and the first thing we noticed was just how much space we had.
Kuala Lumpur is generally pretty generous when it comes to hotel room sizes, but ours still felt particularly spacious for a standard room. There was plenty of room for both of us to unpack, spread out and properly settle in without constantly manoeuvring around suitcases.
The design is very W is very contemporary, colourful and playful, with enough going on to stop it feeling like a generic business hotel. Floor-to-ceiling windows make the most of the Kuala Lumpur skyline, and in our case, having the Petronas Twin Towers outside the window was absolutely worth choosing the view category.
There’s something slightly ridiculous about opening the curtains in the morning and having one of Asia’s most recognisable buildings staring straight back at you.
Rooms also include useful touches like Nespresso coffee, TWG tea and Bluetooth audio. The bed was comfortable, there was plenty of room to relax, and overall it worked really well as a base for exploring KL.
It’s one of those occasions where paying a little more for the right outlook can genuinely change the experience.
The Pool and WET Deck
This is probably the hotel’s headline act, the WET Deck outdoor pool looks directly towards the Petronas Twin Towers, and it’s one of those hotel facilities where the reality actually lives up to the photos.
During the day, it’s a great place to escape Kuala Lumpur’s heat, grab a lounger and spend a few hours doing very little, but the real appeal is the view. Floating around in the pool with the Twin Towers directly in front of you is pretty hard to beat.
As the afternoon moves into evening, the atmosphere changes. WET Deck is also a bar and regularly hosts DJs and events, so don’t necessarily expect silent, resort-style pool vibes, this is a W after all.
We’d recommend spending some time here around dusk, when the city lights start coming on and the towers light up. Even if you’re normally the type to skip the hotel pool on a city break, this one is worth making time for.
If you enjoy a lively pool, some music and a cocktail, you’ll probably love it. If you want complete silence while reading a book, timing your visit earlier in the day might be the better option.
Breakfast at FLOCK
Breakfast was another highlight of our stay. It’s served at FLOCK, the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant on Level 8, and there’s a good buffet with enough variety that you don’t end up eating exactly the same breakfast every morning.
There’s a strong mix of Western and Asian options, which is exactly what we want when staying somewhere like Kuala Lumpur. Sometimes you want eggs, pastries, fruit and coffee, other mornings it seems ridiculous to travel all the way to Malaysia and then eat the exact breakfast you’d have at home.
There are hot dishes, fresh fruit, pastries and the usual breakfast staples alongside local and regional choices, with the open-kitchen setup adding a bit more atmosphere than your standard hotel buffet.
More importantly, the quality was good. We’ve encountered plenty of enormous hotel breakfast buffets where there are 75 different things available and somehow none of them are particularly good and FLOCK didn’t feel like that. There was plenty to choose from, but it still felt like some thought had gone into what was being served.
And yes, we’re absolutely the people who judge a hotel partly on its breakfast.
This one passed.
Food and Drink
Beyond breakfast, there are several places to eat and drink within the hotel. FLOCK continues throughout the day, while YEN focuses on contemporary Chinese cuisine. There’s also the LIVING ROOM for drinks and lighter bites, plus WET Deck for cocktails and food around the pool.
That said, we wouldn’t spend every meal inside the hotel.
You’re in Kuala Lumpur, and one of the best parts of being here is eating your way around the city. From hawker-style Malaysian food through to excellent restaurants and bars, there’s far too much going on outside the hotel to stay in every night.
Still, having decent options downstairs is handy when you’ve spent the entire day walking around KL and suddenly the idea of going back outside feels like a lot of effort.
Location
For us, this was one of the biggest reasons to stay here. W Kuala Lumpur sits on Jalan Ampang in KLCC, just moments from the Petronas Twin Towers and Suria KLCC.
It means you can walk out of the hotel and immediately feel like you’re in the middle of Kuala Lumpur rather than spending the first 20 minutes of every outing sitting in a Grab.
The Twin Towers, KLCC Park, shopping, restaurants and plenty of other attractions are within easy reach. Kuala Lumpur is a sprawling city, so you’ll inevitably end up using Grab at some point, but having so much immediately around the hotel made things considerably easier.
For a first visit to KL or a shorter city break, we think the location is particularly good.
Facilities and Service
Beyond WET Deck, there’s a FIT fitness centre and AWAY Spa, so most of the facilities you’d expect from a W are covered.
The atmosphere throughout the property is fairly social. This isn’t really a hotel designed for disappearing into a quiet corner and pretending nobody else exists.
That’s not necessarily a negative, but it’s worth understanding what you’re booking. The W brand has always leaned into music, design and a younger energy, and Kuala Lumpur is no exception. For us, that made it a fun place to stay for a city break. It felt polished without being overly serious.
Points, Perks and Booking Details
W Kuala Lumpur is part of Marriott Bonvoy, so members can earn or redeem points and may receive additional benefits depending on their status and booking.
It’s worth paying attention to the room categories when booking. Our Deluxe Guest Room was already large enough that we never felt we needed a suite. Instead, if we were deciding where to put the extra money, we’d prioritise getting the Twin Towers view.
Normally we’re a bit sceptical about paying substantially more for a view when you’re going to spend most of the day outside the hotel anyway. Here, we’d make an exception.
Waking up to those towers outside the window was part of what made the stay memorable.
