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| Marriott's Phuket Beach Club @ Mai Khao Phuket, Thailand |
We received an invitation from Marriott (recommended by my dad's friend) to stay in their Phuket Beach Club for 4 days 3 nights free stay. The catch is that both husband and wife are required to attend their 90 minutes presentation.
I thought it was quite a good deal for a short holiday, especially in a 5*Villa. So we took up the deal and I even extended an extra night there. They charged me USD200/night for a 2-bedroom villa.
We took Malaysian Airlines there via KUL and Fireflyz back direct from Phuket to Penang. Too bad Fireflyz only flies on alternate days, if not I would have taken Fireflyz for both ways. Gimme direct flight when it comes to travelling with kids!
My friend who just went there told me all about the room and its facilities and so I knew that it has a full kitchenette there, equipped with stove, microwave, oven and everything.
And since Mariott is a 5* accommodation, the restaurants there also serve food with 5* pricing. Haha. So I knew we couldn't eat there all the time, so I brought food there to cook!
And also Marriott is located super far away from town and everything, so we already prepared to stay in the hotel just to enjoy all its facilities and maybe eat out nearby once a day or something.
So sorry, I am not super chef, and I didn't wanna spend so much time there cooking, so I just bought instant food there. Pasta, can soup, cereals, sausages, some rice etc.
Our troop with our luggages and all. 3 medium-sized luggages with 1 handcarry.
My kids. Vern insisted to pull our handcarry all the way at the airport!
All excited to fly.....
After 1 hr of flight to KUL, 3 hrs transit and another 1 hr 20 mins of flight time, we finally reached Phuket!
It was great, They even prepared a toddler carseat for us knowing we have a toddler with us. All of us in the van all buckled up....
It took about 15-20 mins to reach Marriott and the moment we reached, the boys plopped themselves onto the lobby sofa bed. Haha.
We were all given welcome gifts, a handmade gypsy bracelet.
Khye finished up my welcome drink. Shern took a sip and didn't like it so he settled for a glass of cold water.
The next excitement was the buggy ride from the lobby to our villa. Khye was holding the resort grounds map and was telling the driver to go right or left haha.
We were at Room 1113, which was near to the pond and also the Turtle Village.
This was the living room of our villa. Very spacious indeed.
Full kitchenette, thoughtfully equipped with everything. Enough pots and pans and all kinds of dishes and plates and bowls. There were a few kinds of knives and even a pasta strainer.
They also provided the dishwashing liquid and a new sponge.
And they gave us 6 big mineral bottles of water every day, which we appreciate, so I didn't have to boil and cool down to make us drinking water to keep us hydrated.
Small little details they did gave us a good feeling.
They provided us with a little packet of tropical fruit candy the next day too, which my kids said they tasted weird.
We were at the ground floor which was perfect for us because there was huge garden just in front of our porch,
The outside patio of our villa. We got to eat breakfast outside when it was cooler in the morning and lounged in the deck chairs while the kids played water guns.
The nice thing about living on ground floor is that we just needed to take a few steps out of our patio and we had the whole garden to ourselves. haha.
Us enjoying simple breakfast I cooked out in the patio in one of the mornings.
The master bedroom which was joined to a very spacious bathroom.
Then there was the kids' room, with two big beds. Kids were ecstatic they have their own tv in their room, so they declared they were not coming out of their room.
Their adjoining toilet with a bath tub as well.
Vern was happy he was able to flush the toilet there all day long. lol.
It was really big and spacious and very comfortable for a family of 5. It can even fit 6 to 7 people comfortably.
But furnishing and design of the villa were a bit old, although it was clean.
However, the kids were really happy because of the space and that the fact that they could have the aircond on 24/7 and that they had the tv in their room made them feel soooo good and happy!
I woke up early for the 8am for the next few days to join one of the resort's activities - yoga.
It was nice doing yoga amongst the greens and cool morning air and hearing the birds chirping.
So many people joining in the early morning yoga. :)
The next day after we were all well rested, we discovered the resort more and took really nice photos of the resort.
I must say the resort is very well kept and is very beautiful.
They knew this year we are celebrating our 10th Year Wedding Anniversary, and also as this month is the month of love, we got back to our villa and found this.
Our kids were amazed and said, "wahhh....so many flowers in your bed, how to sleep?" lol
It was really lovely of them to do this lovely and romantic gesture for us.
But as my kids said, it was beautiful to look at but rather impractical as we got to clear away the petals on our bed before we sleep. Unless we want to sleep with petals flying everywhere hehe.
As for the flower bathtub, all of us jumped right into it and had a flower bath. Vern had fun scooping the flowers into buckets and cups with the toy spade I brought there for sand and water play.
So well worth the flower bath. All 5 of us got to enjoy it, but no romantic bath for us though. ;)
Another thing my kids really enjoyed was the Kids Club.
It was not a very big Kids Club, but big enough to cater for most age groups, including toddlers, kids and even teens.
Vern enjoyed the Toddler Corner which has a playhouse with a slide just the right size for him. He went up and down the slides for 100 times the few days he was there.
He didn't really play with these cooking stove / doll houses. as there were nothing inside I suppose. haha.
This is Vern trying to imitate his brother using the Wii Remote. Haha but this is where Shern usually played the Video Games.
He also enjoyed the movie screening on certain times where they had a dedicated dimmed room with bean bags for the kids to enjoy movies. They watched Big Hero 6 there. Although they had watched this movie a few times before, they enjoyed watching it again in such a nice environment and with friends. ;)
Khye on the other hand was sometimes bored there. He got bored after watching movie for too long, and he doesn't really know how to play the video games. So he also joined Vern for some slide time.
He loves it most to join all the activities provided.
I let them join whatever they like and is free (most of the activities are free though!).
They ended up making lots of art and craft things.
They did mask painting.
They made colourful gypsy bracelets, did balloon twists.
Hearts Windchime was done on V-Day.
They had special programme on Valentine's Day and my kids woke up early for the cupcakes decorating activity.
Their cupcakes creation which they tried eating it later and said it tasted yucky! lol.
Too much cream.....
On certain times of the day, they have free salty cheese popcorn for anyone outside the Kids Club. It smelled heavenly when we walked past it.
We enjoyed playing this disc game too though Khye was a tad too short to play this game properly.
We even borrowed a DVD and watch The Smurfs show back in our villa. They have DVD rentals and also books rental for free.
One of the thing we enjoyed most was the Special Valentine Family Fun Day at Marriott!
Kids had fun especially with the mini candy buffet and also the traditional popsicle cart.
The mini candy buffet...
Hubby and I joined in the games too and we managed to win a scoop of ice-cream at Siam's Deli and also a can of beer!
It was all fun!
Claiming our free ice cream.
Kisses from my 4 boyfriends on V-Day! :D
Another thing we did every single day was to go to the pool and to the beach.
What's a Phuket holiday without swimming and beach right?
So every day, my kids will walked to the beach/pool just behind our villa. There are a few pools in the resort, 3 or 4 of them but my kids will only go to the children's pool because there is a slide there! haha.
The path which led us from our villa to the Children's Pool every evening.
The Children's Pool my kids loved there. Is a beautiful pool amongst a beautiful resort full of greens.
Shern loved it there, especially the slide.
Hubby and I took turns too to take care of Vern and the other to keep an eye on the older kids.
Vern had fun sitting at the edge of the pool playing with water and buckets. After awhile he got braved and went down the water too.
It was stated there that there would be no lifeguards on duty, but we saw one or two lifeguard there keeping an eye on the children, and to warn those who played a little rough on the slides.
As for hubby and me, we got to enjoy sipping mocktails and snacking on potato chips while the kids played nearby.
After swim, we would all adjourned to the beach just nearby.
Look at the pristine beach, with soft sand and barely anyone there although it is a public beach I heard.
Beach play is an even more relaxing time for hubs and I. We would just lie on the beach towels and relax while the kids played at our feet.
Too free til we got time to take some selfies. :D
A few snaps with hubs and me.
Look at this photo. Cool or not haha (erm, pls ignore Shern's senget shades)!
Even the baby's cool with his shades on.
We took some photos while walking around the resort.
This one's over at the neighbor resort, Anantara Resort.
We went over because they offered us to listen to their 90 min presentation in exchange of a THB5000 voucher at nearby restaurants.
The voucher was too good so we went to listen, and dropped the 2 kids at their kids club.
To cut the long story short, their package wasn't really attractive to us, and also I didn't like the person who talked to us so we politely said no to them.
But then we got their THB5000 yay, which means I have less cooking to do there. So since then we ate out for lunch and dinner nearby haha!
I must say Marriott's was more attractive package compared to Anantara's and overall I like their salesperson which made it even harder to say no. He was also very convincing to sell the best of Marriott's.
And as the older kids went down to the Kid's Club (Khye came up to find us after an hour or so), but Vern stayed with us as he would surely cry if left by himself at the kids club. Even so, they has a professional babysitter and a bucket of toys for Vern. She played ball and catch with him and everything else so that the parents could focus on the presentation. Impressive indeed their service!
But in the end, we politely said no although we really enjoyed Marriott, and would love to stay with Marriott in the future.
But then we don't want to pay a lump sum of money upfront and then be tied to Marriott for the rest of our lives. I still love the flexibility of Airbnb and other hotels.
Yes, these decadent Super Shake! We had that as a treat on Valentine's Day!
The various Thai food we ate there.
And many more.....
Some of the food I cooked there as breakfast/brunch. Post it here for me to remember. haha
And so after 5 days 4 nights at Marriott, we had to say our goodbyes. They provided us the airport transfer again and we took the Firefly home, which was a direct flight! yay!
Thank you Marriott for a lovely time and great service.
Hope to see you again one day soon!
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