Avillion Port Dickson (10-11 May 2014)

I wanted a short gateway to celebrate my Birthday and Mother's Day. It was a tossed between Malacca, Cameron Highlands and PD and after an uneventful vote, PD won :) I think it is mostly due to the fact that we as family are just a bunch of beach bums which explains why we've been going to PD every year for the past 5 years heheh.

For this trip I've chosen to stay at Avillion PD. This is actually our second trip here, the first being about 4 years ago when Ryan was about 4 months old. I've always been fond of Avillion due to the many-many activities that is available within the hotel's compound. My children is easily bored and they need a lot of activity to keep them happy and I have to say our trip here does not disappoint.

THE ROOM

 Google photo
 

We stayed in the Garden Chalet. The room is spacey and the best part of the room is the day bed which Ryan ended up sleeping in. 

Another highlight is the HUGE bathroom. I love the separate loo and shower room. The kids is obviously attracted to the bath.

The kiddies chilling at our room's balcony

 

DAY 1 ACTIVITIES

Another plus point for the hotel is the private beach. There's 2 beaches available on both sides of the property called Riau and Tumasek. I find the view and the beach in Tumasek better for a quick dip and sand play. There's also boat rides available for sightseeing. 

Daddy joining in the fun :)

 

We had our dinner at the hotel restaurant called Crow's Nest. The food is not bad and there's kid's menu available. Ryan finished a huge bowl of spaghetti bolognese by himself. So that saying something about the taste :p

:) 

We made a quick stop at the kids cabin for a quick game of blocks. There's also PlayStation, Batik, Sand art activities available for the kids

Day 2 ACTIVITIES

 The Twins woke up super early so we took the morning walk by the Riau beach and stayed by the jetty to "people watch". We had our breakfast in-room to avoid the crowd and it was just so much easier for Lan and I to handle the kids there rather than the very busy dining hall :p

Right after breakfast the kiddies wanted to play at the beach some more. So we head on to Tumasek Beach again. On the way we stopped by the petting zoo and the munchkins "interacted" with the chickens and rabbits.

There's also a few peacocks roaming around freely at the gardens. One even showed off their beautiful feathers to us :)

 We dropped by the kids pool for a quick dip to wash of the sands. Since my children loved the water to the max, obviously they had fun :)

Final activity before going home? To the Kid's playground everybody :)

Alhamdullilah it was a good break. Totally loved our stay at the hotel. I'm rating my experience at Avillion 8.9/10. Don't mind staying there again, maybe with Atuk and Nenek the next time around :)

Thistle Hotel, Hello Kitty and Little Big Club, Johor (27 March 2014)

I made plans to spend a night in Johor after our 2 days Singapore Trip because we do not want to overtire the kids with continuous travel. I guess when you stubbornly insist to drag a 5 year old and 2 two year olds around the country, you have to accept the fact that "roughing in" is just not an option if you value your own sanity :p

Anyway we chose Thistle Hotel based on its location and facilities. The reviews on Trip Advisor and Booking.com was also quite good, so we decided to give it a try.

Photo from Google.

We requested queen beds but it was not available and for us to get a room with a queen would mean upgrading to a more expensive room or waiting for another hour. We settled for this room in the end, just had to improvise with the bed arrangements :p The room is quite spacey and comfortable so I'm quite satisfied.

My one big problem is with the bathroom, which is easily clogged due to the small water drainage system. It is quite annoying and dangereous because it is kinda slippery especially with little kids around

There's an outdoor swimming pool available which is a plus point but please be informed that there's no baby pool so both mummy and daddy will need to dive in if you have more than one child with you.

Space is a must in my books and the room in Thistle meet this need sufficiently :) 

I rate our experience here 7/10.

There's plenty of food stalls and restaurant around if you choose not to opt for the hotel restaurant within walking distance available for breakfast/lunch and dinner.

 Thanks to Mr Google we found out there is a choice of Steamboat Vans/Stalls (pasar malam style) @ Dataran Bandaraya Johor which is right in front of our hotel. We tried the otak-otak (very tasty), tauhu bakar and seafood kuey teow. Price wise is reasonable but a bit more expensive than say your usual pasar malam price.

The best part of the night is trying out the "Giant Bubble" which is available at the dataran (Hehe you can see the hotel in this picture, it is that close ;p)

The kids LOVED it.

Hello Kitty and Little Big Club

We decided to drop by Hello Kitty and Little Big Club the next day before we leave for Klang. We initially wanted to visit the Melaka Zoo but decided againts it because my dad did not think exposing the kiddies to the hot sun 2 days in a row would be good for them. 

There's no new rides as compared to our last trip there in 2012 but the twins managed to participate in more games/rides so it was quite ok. To tell you the truth all 3 seems a bit bored or maybe they are just tired after 3 days of traveling.

Plan your visit : Hello Kitty and Little Big Club Information 

S.E.A Aquarium Singapore (26 March 2014)

 S.E.A Aquarium Map : Courtesy of Google

 Explaining to Ryan about the fishes and other specimens in the aquarium (like real :p)

Ok this is quite scary, the steps are transparent and fishes are also swimming overhead. Literally feels like you're surrounded with water :p

 Learning new information on sea life

Ranya dazzled by the Sharks in the "Shark Seas" aquarium

 People cleaning the shark tanks. Scary job he have there :p

 Ryan is exhausted from a full day of sightseeing but his eyes totally light up when he entered the Aquarium.  Glad that we made the decision to come :)

A short video of the Sharks 

We've been to 3 different aquarium before this. The Aquaria-KLCC, Blue Coral Aquarium-KL Tower and Ocean Park-Hong Kong and I have to say  out of the 4, so far the SEA Aquarium is the best. Size wise it is HUGE, but what attracted me the most is the variety of fishes displayed and how it is displayed. Worth every penny I tell you, especially if you have little shark fans like mine :)

Do check out their websites for more ticketing info : Sea Aquarium Singapore