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.

Anyway, this post is not about how busy I am, but the trip we made to Singapore during the school holidays.

Before the trip, I asked Daddy to get us a GPS, as I could foresee navigating with a map in Singapore, there’ll be lots of stress in the car. The El-Cheapo He went to Daiso and bought a compass instead; he thought a compass would at least tell us which direction we’re going without a GPS. o.O” Thank goodness I shared this joke with my neighbour, and she loaned us her GPS for the trip!

4th June, Saturday
To keep up with Daddy’s (dilly dallying) track record, we left the house after 11am (we’d never left the house earlier than 11am on any driving holiday trips we made), and got stuck on the North–South Expressway.

It seems everybody was heading towards Melaka for the weekend. It took us more than 4hrs to get passed Melaka. By the time we reached our hotel in Singapore, it was 6pm.

We stayed in V Hotel Lavender, a newly opened hotel located in Lavender housing area. We got very good rate for a room with 1 queen and 1 single beds. Although the room is a little small, it is comfortable, and best of all, its location is super. The Lavender MRT station is on the basement of the building, and around the hotel, there are lots of small eateries, and also a few small HDB food courts.

Not wasting any time, after checking in, we headed straight to Orchard Road to shop, as well as to have dinner (at the Ion Food Court). With the exchange rate of S$1 to RM2.50, every thing seemed extremely expensive even during the Great Singapore Sales.

5th June, Sunday
The original plan was to go to Singapore Zoo, but it was pouring in the morning, and we have to change our plans, it was to Singapore Science Centre instead. Tickets were : $9 for adult, $6 for children (3~16yrs)

I prefer Petrosains, as there are more things for kids to ‘try’ out there. Still, we spent a 4hrs there, *yawn* watched 2 shows, The Tesla Coil Show and World of Insect Show.

In the evening, after a rest/nap in the room, we took a taxi to Marina Sands Bay, to watch iD by Cirque Eloize at the Grand Theatre. It’s a colourful Hip-Hop Circus act from Montreal, with lots of music and dancing. Girls of course loved it.

What more, we met our neighbour and her girls, who are the girls’ age and their best friends, visiting Singapore and watching the same circus!

They played together during intermission, and also after the show, went to explore Marina Sands Bay and had supper together.

6th June, Monday
Girls said they had already been to the Singapore Zoo on our last trip, so they wanted to go somewhere else instead. Sentosa Island was the somewhere else we chose.

We took the MRT to Harbour Front, and took the cable car ride (Tickets were : $26 for adult, $15 for children round trip), there was a promo going on where Malaysian tourists only need to pay half price, but because we didn’t bring along our passports, we had to pay the hefty full price.

We took the cable car to Mount Faber first, spent some time there.

Then took the cable car to Sentosa Island.

If you are going to Sentosa Island, plan your trip well so you can save some money buying combi tickets or play passes. We only went on 3 activites, and spent quite a fair bit because we didn’t know about this.

We watched the 4D Magix (girls screamed and shouted, and they said they didn’t like it at all because the ‘visual effect’ was too real) and went on the Extreme Log Ride (a ‘roller coaster’ rides with high-definition wide-screen projection, which the girls loved but I didn’t like it at all). (Combi Tickets were : $29.90 for adult, $17.90 for children)

We had dinner at Sentosa so that we could catch the Song of the Sea show (Tickets were $10 per person), a show which uses fountains, lasers, projection to tell a story. Now seriously, I don’t think Song of the Sea is worth the money, as you can get a similar show in Marina Bay Sands for free (read on).

After the show, we walked back to the cable car station, as there were long queues for the free monorial and bus ride.

We didn’t go to Universal Studio this round as there are lots of rides Zaria cannot go on due to her height. We’ll do that the next visit.

7th June, Tuesday
Girls pleaded with Daddy to stay in the hotel with them, as they wanted to spend time in the pool. So, the first half of the day, Daddy spent time with the girls at the hotel pool, and I went shopping on my own.

In the evening, we went to Marina Bay Sands (MBS). We took the MRT to Promenade Station, and then took a 10min walk via the Double Helix Bridge to MBS. It is a very scenic and pleasant walk, there were some local joggers jogging, but mainly foreigners enjoying the view as well as to take photos.

Daddy spent so much time there snapping photos, the girls got pretty impatient and in the end, I had to bring them into MBS first while he continued shooting away.

We have dinner there at the food court (we had almost all our dinners in the food court this trip, so sad), did some shopping, and then headed to watch the show at the Promenade. It’s a similar fountain and laser show like the Song of The Sea, except this is free, and we find more entertaining (no cheesy dialogues).

We then walked back to the Promenade MRT station the same way. The night view from the double helix bridge (and from the Promenade at Marina Bay Sands) was spectacular.

8th June, Wednesday
The last day of our trip, we only did shopping around Orchard area, and then it was home.

Zaria asked if she could stay in Singapore forever on our way back. And when we asked the girls which event/activity they liked best, they both claimed the morning they spent in the pool was the best. o.O”

Their holiday, we probably should just book a hotel nearby with a pool for them.