My Favorite Places #3- Genting Highlands, Malaysia

Genting Highlands of Malaysia is known to be the " City of Entertainment". It has a big outdoor and indoor theme park, hotels, casinos , shopping centers, a wide variety of restaurants and a lot more.

This is one of my favorite places. Not actually a great place to rest since you'll be so busy trying out all the rides and going around to see the whole place. BUt, it's truly a great place to be entertained and the kids will surely love the place.

Since it's high on the mountain top, the weather is cool and nice.

One of the reason why I place this in one of my favorite places is because it's very affordable .. We've been here 3 times already and the last two, we were supposed to go somewhere else but because we were on a tight budget, we still ended up here. Imagine, they have a 2 nights/3days package for only 108 RM. That was last year's rate. The 108 RM included 2 nights stay in the hotel, buffet breakfast for two ( for two days) and 2 tickets for an international magic/acrobat show. Though the hotel ( First World Hotel) we stayed in was really cramped, It was really a great bargain since the show's ticket itself already cost 50RM each if you buy it without the package. I've just checked the rates now and it has gone a bit high but I would still say it's worth it. The show is just excellent and the breakfast is HUGE! We always ended up eating BRUNCH since the buffet is just overflowing. Well, that would be great savings right? No need to spend for lunch. :)

The highlights we had for this place would be their outdoor and indoor parks. The rides are just exciting and gives you that adrenalin rush. Below is the SUper Shot, that made me heart stopped a beat when we were going down at such a speed!! Whew!



We also enjoyed the going hotel hopping..since all the hotels are interconnected to each other. So you get to see all the hotels and shops in between. They also have a cable car , if you don't have transport going on top.

For all the faint hearted and don't want to have any adrenalin rush ( or you might end up in the hospital) for theme rides or cable car rides then I suggest you stay in the hotels down below where there are nice places to retreat and relax.

Our Phuket Trip Part 2

This is a continuation from the previous post...

3) Rawaii Beach - There's nothing much to do in Rawaii beach but do a bit ofsightseeing and eat at the Seafood shops lined up along the road near the seaside. My Hubby ate in one of the shops here several years back and remembered that their crab used to be 10 baht per kilo but times have changed and it's now 80 Baht per kilo. But I'm sure this is reasonable since they make tasty crab curry...haaa,,crab curry..I suddenly got hungry..:)

Back to the beach, I also remembered that this is the beach where the speedboats dock and it's a starting point for a 30-45 mins. speedboat ride to the other islands surrounding Phuket.

4) Patong Beach - This is one of the famous beaches in Phuket (with Kata and Karon Beach) where most of the westerners hang out. Just a few meters from the seaside is a road and right next to it are all the shops, bars , resorts, hotels and restaurants line up. We're not into barhopping and night life..we'd rather stay in the hotel and enjoy a quiet time with family, so we find this place a bit messy. When we were passing by, there was even this lady who was calmly sitting in a bar, topless!! Yeah, not a wholesome sight at all! But on the other hand, I like looking at the hotel and restaurant designs here, some are just beautiful. If you're into food trip, you'll also find all kind of restaurant here, Irish, German, Swedish , Indian and etc.

When we were there, we had dinner at Tamarind Restaurant which is connected to the Seaview Hotel. I just love the place! It's situated at the far end of the beach, so it's far from the messy nightlife area and thus it's quiet and peaceful.

The hotel is well-designed, cozy and I think a good place to just relax. In the morning, you can have a spectacular view of the sea. I checked through their site and I found a lot of good reviews from their customers. Hmmm..I'm dreaming to stay there for a holiday. It's quite pricey of course but they have this package where you'll get to see a free show called "Fantasea". I heard that's a great show for the kids too.

Okay, this is all for our Phuket Trip! We'll have another trip to Malaysia next week and I'm surely going to update this blog again.

Our Phuket Trip Part 1

We arrived from Phuket just a few days ago and we had a great trip! Though we were not really able to go around but at least I've got to see a bit of it. Here are the highlights of our trip.

1) Our Hotel - We stayed in Grand Thavorn Plaza Hotel and we didn't have a very pleasant experience in our stay there. Before we went ther , I check their website and it looked so nice from the site. It looked grand and luxurious. But in reality?? It's an old hotel, poorly maintained with poor service. I'm sure this hotel had its 'grandoise' years. They hang a big picture on their wall announcing that Ricky Martin stayed there way back 2005. But I guess as the years went by, they tried to cut cost by hiring few people and not maintaining it properly that's why their hotel ended up bad. Even their lobby isn't airconditioned now and they defended this by putting up a sign that it's because of global warming..or is it?

One of the statues at the entrance of the hotel. In the morning, this looks like a great piece of art but in the evenings it looks quite eerie because of the lighting..hehehe!

We had two major disappoinments from our hotel. Never mind the poor service, the dilapidated chairs and etc. Our first disappointment was the bath tub. I planned to give my Hubby a nightly spa, but it turned out that our bath tub doesn't work ( I mean it drains the water even when we put the cover). So, the first night we had to 'borrow' someone's bathtub..hahaha! I was so desperate to let my Hubby have a spa and not to mention we had additional luggage coz I brought all the spa ingredients like oranges, oats, honey and etc. whew!! But anyways, my Hubby was already so happy with the Orange Spa I made for him. ;)

The second disappointment was the swimming pool. Before the trip, I was already envisioning my kids having fun in the pool. We even bought a cute swimming trunks for my baby boy. hahaha! ( He looks real cute with his 'elephant trunks' :) But it turned out that their pool was 'under repair'. Poor Tricia! She was so disappointed and was convincing me that the pool is not closed. Good we checked the pool first before getting ready with our things. Our friends immediately went to the pool with their swimsuits, towels and etc just to find out it's closed. When we asked the hotel staff, they said that it's under repair and it'll be done in a week (after we check out). But by the look of it, it seems that the pool has been abandoned for quite a long time and I'm not sure if they really do have plans of repairing it..haaayy!!

2) Phromtehp Cape - Yes we were able to go for sight seeing in Promptehp Cape where you can see the beautiful sea and some islands surrounding Phuket. We went there in the morning so we never get to see the Sunset. The view itself in the morning is spectacular and I'm sure it'll be more breathtaking during the sunset.

please don't mind the Little Big Mermaid on the the rock..LOL!

When we where there, it made me wish that we could go to one of the islands again. The sand is whiter and finer, the beach is more beautiful and the view is more refreshing in the islands. I remember 5 years ago, when my Hubby and I was able to go to Koh Raya Noi (one of the Islands) and it was very beautiful (I can write another post on that :))

That's all for now..this post is getting longer and I'm babbling more than I should..

To be continued .................