Upon a friend’s recommendation, I bought a Marriott Vacation Club Holiday Package Voucher. A 3D/2N stay in Ritz Carlton Millenia for a very good price, and we extended another night at YMCA International House.

The room in Ritz Carlton is oh my, super duper nice. It’s been a while since we’d stayed in such a nice hotel as a family. The girls absolutely love it! We told them this is a five star hotel, and we can’t normally afford to stay in such a hotel.

The girls upon arrival, went to check out if there’s Carton Network on the TV.

(Before we arrived, Zara was telling me this, “Since it’s a high class hotel, maybe they won’t have Cartoon Network. They will only show all the modelling shows, arts on their TV.”)

The view, from the room and bathroom….beautiful; and what I love most is the bathroom with the big bathtub!

So what’s the catch in getting to stay in such a nice hotel for a really good price?
We have to go and listen to a 90min Marriott Vacation Club sales talk.
It’s ok. They sent a van to pick us up.
The Marriott Vacation Club office has a playroom with toys and TV for the kids to hang out, there’s even a nanny to help keep an eye on the children!
They have a small buffet of snack and drinks for us to fill our stomachs while we’re there. And best of all, there’s no hard selling.
We were absolutely tempted to purchase the membership, but hack, I can use the money to pay for the kids private school education, why spend it on a lifetime of vacation? (Gee, now to mention it again, life time vacation seems more attractive.)
And I’d prepped the girls, for us to get to stay in THIS nice hotel, we have to listen to an uncle talk, so they didn’t complain or disturb us the whole time we were there.

Besides going out to listen to this sales talk, and to do some shopping, we made plans before hand to spend most our time in the hotel during our stay in the Ritz Carlton. So we ate nearby (Marina Square / Millenia Walk are connected to the hotel), spent lots of time at the pool and in the room (and in the bath tub).

It’s good timing as well. Zaria just started swimming, and she’s so happy to show off.

Her : Did I swim well?
Me : Yes you did.
Her : A little bit well? Or very very well? (she likes to ‘quantify’ the things she do well these days)
Me : Very very well!
Her : *BIG SMILE*

What I did wrong was to stay in Ritz Carlton first than moved to YMCA. The girls have a taste of style/spaciousness then they have to downgrade to YMCA. The little one especially was complaining, “Why (do) we have to move hotel? I want to stay in the other hotel forever!”

The room in YMCA is comfortable and clean, and for Zara, she said, this is enough. She especially likes the buffet breakfast, a simple spread, but still a buffet; and there’s this thing about kids and buffet, the freedom to pick whatever they want to eat I guess.

Having spent a lot of money during the last Singapore holidays on entrance fees, rides, shows etc, this round I told myself we’ll only go for things free! So, we spent an evening at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. (We wanted to bring the girls to the Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, but sshish, it was closed on Monday, the day we were there!)

Nonetheless, the girls still have a swell time, climbing tree!

The little one has no fear, she just went ahead of her sister, where as Zara was following slowly.
(check out the couple taking their wedding shots).

This tree that they were climbing, is a 150 years old Tembusu tree. Favourite spot for wedding photos, and it’s also the tree that’s at the back of the Singapore $5 note.

Want to know how high they’d climbed?

They had so much fun on the tree, they wanted to go there again on our last day, but alas, it was raining.

Singapore is so expensive now to have a holiday there, don’t think we’ll be back so soon, but next round, I think the girls will ask us to bring them back to the Botanic Gardens for more tree climbing.

I never knew it was under such circumstance that the trip finally materialised. Daddy drove the girls down together with Jelly (my insistence) on 18th March. Luckily my dad recovered well after surgery, or I think we won’t be doing all the sight seeing.

17th March, Thursday
Girls and Daddy arrived. Girls were so happy to see me after a week. They were hugging me and kissing me, and Zaria kept telling me, “I love you very very very very very much, mum.”

Daddy was showing sour face the whole time because of the sleeping arrangement, and also his inability to get tickets to Universal Studio (as if it’s my fault!)

18th March, Friday
I cooked a hearty breakfast for everybody. Scrambled egg white for my dad, egg and bacon for the rest. I had Greek yogurt and honey instead, something I can’t find or cost too much in KL.

After instructing Jelly what to cook for lunch, Daddy, the girls and I left for the National Museum. Girls got all excited when they saw the Quest of Immortality posters in the ticketting hall. Finally, they could enjoy what we’d talked about since the newspaper reading.

Zara then pointed, “Mum, look, Hieroglyphic!”. I had no idea what it was, and had to follow her gaze. You can imagine how much interest she has in all things Egyptian.

After the Quest of Immortality, we went on to visit The Singapore History Gallery. Seriously, how much history does Singapore has? But they did it in a story telling way, with free multimedia handheld device given out which guides you around the gallery, it made the whole thing so interesting.

I left the gallery with the girls first (because my device broke down half way) and proceeded to have lunch. Daddy turned up 30mins later. He said he thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

After lunch, we went shopping at Sommerset 313 and later met up with my brother and his family, my dad and sis for dinner.

19th March, Saturday
My brother brought my dad for his check up, and left my nieces with me. Again, I made everybody a big breakfast, and I continued to have my yogurt.

We went to the zoo after breakfast. It was actually pouring, but since we didn’t have any other day to do this (my nieces were going home the following day), we just braved on, with raincoats bought from the zoo.

That’s how silly we looked.

Even in this weather, the walk around the zoo was very pleasant. So green, so much to see, so informative. We could see almost all the animals up close.

There’s the outback section where girls can pat kangaroos.

My favourite, the polar bear.

Zaria’s favourite, the baboons. She has a book about June the baboon, so she was very interested to see a baboon real life.
After that, she told everyone “Baboons have heart shaped backside!”

We left the zoo in the evening, and then straight on to dinner with the rest of the family, and off shopping again.

20th March, Sunday
We had breakfast together at Tiong Baru Market. Probably the only market we know how to go, and my dad’s favourite eating place.

After breakfast, my brother and his family, my dad and my sister left home. We had to sort out with the ‘hotel‘ on the refund we wanted since we were leaving earlier (as my dad has been given permission to leave Singapore by the doctors earlier than planned), and also moved to a new room. (When I wrote this post the refund is still in progress)

We then brought Jelly along and took a taxi and went to Suntec City. Big mistake! Nothing there, not much to shop. We made the girls walked from Suntec City to Millenia Walk, then to Marina Square, and then later to Esplanade.

We then headed back to the ‘hotel’ to rest. At night, it was another round of shopping, this time at Ion (which I think where we shopped most).

After shopping, the girls played at the water fountain at Ion, and had a lot of fun.
Luckily we brought them spare clothes.

Daddy then suggested we took the MTR to Raffles Place to look at the Merlion up close. Zara and I were so tired, we didn’t really bother, Merlion or not. Zaria was however very keen. So off we went again.

21st March, Monday
We woke up late, had a lazy morning, then went to Wisma Atria for lunch, and then headed home.