Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Family Holiday at Pulai Springs Resort

Since 2004, the Tan clan has gone on family holidays almost annually. We went back to Pulai Springs Resort again for a 4D3N stay in a 4-bedroom apartment. It's located right between YongPeng and Singapore and that makes it very strategic for us. The other factor is that we don't want individual hotel rooms and there are not many 4-bedroom holiday homes around.

Pulai Springs has got pretty good facilities. But their service or rather, the lack of it leaves much to be desired. Their staff walk around with grumpy faces that make me feel like I'm imposing on them.


Our journey from KL was rather pleasant. We left home at about 9am and stopped at Yong Peng for lunch.


Upon arrival at Pulai Springs at 3pm, the apartment was not ready and so they parked all 15 of us inside a studio apartment.

My kids had their milk break while the bigger kids had an iPhone party.

They're all very tech-savvy or iPhone-addicted, depending how you want to look at it.


Ah Kong tried to nap while the kids all jumped on the only bed. Of course Ah Kong didn't mind at all that he probably couldn't sleep a wink.


After we finally got into our room at past 5pm (that's more than 2 hours of waiting!!!), the boys went swimming while I took Joy for a walk. I was too lazy to get into the pool.

The boys had a real blast with all the gear that Tua Um bought.


Joy checked out the Koi fish (there's a lot more than in the photo)...

...and also the peacock.

I also took her to check out the TeeTee Club which was really very pathetic. It's got potential but almost zero-maintenance.

At night we had dinner at the Qing Palace Chinese Restaurant. The service here was probably the best in the entire resort.



The boys were famished and quickly gobbled down the food as soon as it landed on the tables.


Even Mabel fed herself rice while Joy had baby cereal.


Daalin a.k.a. DBKL got to work and cleaned all the plates....




Then we took a slow walk back to the room (you've got to cross a road to a different building to get to the restaurant)...


...to see the Manager to complain about the very late check-in. I asked him for some compensation. He wanted to let us have a late check-out but I didn't want that. We wanted extra breakfast vouchers for the kids and all he gave us was 5 pieces. So it was only for 1 day that we could all go down for breakfast.


On the other 2 mornings, some of us skipped breakfast at the Cinta Terrace because it's just not worth it to pay RM32++ per adult or RM16++ per kid for that kind of breakfast.


In the apartment, the boys kept occupied playing Wii.

I also had a go playing Wii boxing and bowling. Despite my lousy scores, I'm still nursing aching arms and a aching left butt. Not very good at bowling though since Brandon (age 6) can beat me at it.

The next morning, we went to Jusco Taman Universiti which is a 5-minute drive away. Ah Kong went to Starbucks for free wifi (it's RM20 for 2 hours at the hotel) while the kids played at the indoor playground.







In the evening, the boys went swimming again.

And this time I took Joy for a dip. She clung on really tight to me most of the time.



That night (Sunday), we ate dinner in the apartment. Ah Mah was well-prepared. We had a induction hot plate which enabled cooking.



Check out the spread.... beef rendang, steamed kampung chicken, devil chicken and etc.



The kids were watching The Magic School Bus while Ah Mah did the cooking.


And after eating, they jumped around on the bed while I watched Transformers on Singapore TV.



Chubby and Chubbier



The kids enjoyed the holiday the most. And the adults enjoyed watching the kids enjoy. My kids in particular enjoyed warm bubble baths.



On Monday, we went to Jusco again for dinner. This time we had Sushi King.

Joseph was fascinated with the conveyor belt. After dinner, they played around some more while Ah Kong had his internet fix.

Back in the apartment, it was more Wii. Joseph could bowl several strikes!



Overall it was a good holiday. The hotel service was crap. On Monday, HouseKeeping only came at past 3pm after numerous calls and disrupted Daalin's nap. They ran out of towels. Breakfast was chaotic. They clearly couldn't cope with the school holiday crowd and had insufficient seating.


We'll have to look for some other place for our next holiday.

4-bedroom apartment at Pulai Springs : RM755

Dinner at Sushi King : RM232

Time with family : priceless!

4 comments:

  1. priceless!
    we're both blessed with wonderful MILs who are great cooks!

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  2. I guess all these could only be done if I'm ever in Malaysia with my family members. I could see Joy-Anne and Joseph really enjoyed themselves. It must have been fun, love the pictures of the kids!

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  3. This place looks nice... not sure if the service would be better during non-school holiday...
    Well, I totally agree!! Time with family = priceless!!!

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  4. Very nice. Thanks for the 'report'.

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