Vacation talk

On our last day at Phuket, we were driven by buggy to JW Marriott Resort & Spa for a 90 minute sales talk on the time-sharing concept holiday of the Marriott family group.

As the lovely girl who gave us the informative and professional talk puts it, she was trying to sell us a 'house on wings'! Well for the price quoted, it is certainly a price of a house albeit a small apartment in Malaysia!

The time-sharing concept has the following features:

- pay upfront a certain amount in USD
- pay monthly maintenance in USD
- you get a certain number of points per annum
- redeem the points for free accommodation at any of the hotels in the Marriott family group world-wide for a certain number of days per year
- membership is only for 43 years 

The scary thing that freaked me out was the monthly maintenance which I could not commit to as I had just turned 55. I could not imagine myself committing to making a monthly commitment or putting up a capital outlay for a vacation club.

Anyway the talk was informative and very professionally done.

After the talk, we went to Coffee Club at Turtle Village and had a simple lunch of Tom Yum noodle soup and rice and omelette. 

The girls were at the beach on the other side of Phuket learning how to surf from a seasoned Australian surfer who had lived many years in Phuket. 

We had a quiet swim at the beautiful pool enjoying the jacuzzi. Tim had a go at the watermelon eating race with other guests and a puzzle solving competition. All in good fun.

We then took a short walk to the Mai Khao beach. We witnessed a lovely wedding at the beach of  a Japanese couple with a small entourage, met a couple who told us that they were the organizers of the Bon Jovi concert in KL recently...took pictures for them on the beach.

Mai Khao beach is dangerous as the waves were really choppy and huge. But the powdery sand and pristine blue of the sea was beautiful to admire from a distance.

We waited for the girls to return before we adjourn for a leisurely dinner at Delights.

We bought buns (sold at half price after 6) for breakfast tomorrow.

Farewell Phuket & JW Marriott Vacation Club. You have made our trip memorable and meaningful.

THANK YOU!

Phi Phi island tour & a surprise from JW Marriott Vacation Club

At 3.2k bhat, this tour was on the pricy side but well worth it as we had a speed boat take us out to several islands.

After a good breakfast of croissants and bananas, we were shuttled in a private van to the Marina Beach.

We gathered at the Marina Beach with other tourists. There was some time of waiting wherein we spent time shopping. I bought a pair of shorts and a beautiful Phuket t-shirt plus a trendy sunglasses that could be worn over my glasses. 

I also bought fish food to feed fish out in the ocean. We were taken on a boat ride on a speed boat by a captain named Jack (really choppy) far out to sea. I had to take seasick pills as I was feeling dizzy due to the motion of the speedboat. An hour passed and we were taken to Bamboo island. 

Now as I was suffering from arthritis (but I was not going to let this affect my holidaying), I had some problem getting up and down the boat. We had to wade through shallow sea waters to reach the shore. 

Tim and the girls went to practice snorkeling. The waters were just pristine clear but we could not see any fishes. Many tourists were resting on the beaches. The sun was hot and I was afraid of getting sunstroke. Thank God I bought the sunglasses at Phuket...

Back in the boat, we had pineapples, cookies and watermelons. We also had drinks on the house such as 100 plus, cream soda and water.

After about half an hour, the speedboat took us out to the deep sea. One by one the people in the boat went down to the waters to snorkel. I just stood up at the boat and threw fish food into the sea....I could not swim you see much less snorkel!

The fishes came in so many colors to eat the food I threw them. I could admire them from the top of the boat and I could see wavey designs on the rocks. It was so clear that I could see right to the bottom of the ocean and admired the corals. 

Tim and the girls told me later that they saw Nemo....

After the snorkeling, we had a good buffet lunch at Phi Phi Natural Resort. Again we could not dock. We had to haul ourselves down at the shallow beach waters and walk across the sand to the Resort for our lunch. Lunch was delicious with tom yum, spaghetti, chicken drummets, tomato chicken, vegetables, salads.

After lunch we went to Monkey Beach. Due to the presence of monkeys on the beach, we did not dock. We just watched from the boat. One monkey was bold enough to jump up to our boat!

We then went to a lagoon. The waters were just electric blue. There the girls and Tim had the time of their life jumping from the boat! We saw people climbing up the surface of the limestones hill and jumping down!

Finally we ended up at Maya Beach, the place where apparently Leonardo Di Caprio acted in a famous movie called The Beach (no idea what this movie is about as I have never heard of it).

We reached back to our hotel about 5.30 pm.

A surprise was in store.....!

It was our youngest daughter's birthday. The Marriott housekeeping team left her a birthday message. They also made 2 cute penguins out of 2 sets of face towels that brought a big smile to her face. They later presented us a birthday cake which we hid in the fridge without her knowledge.

We went for dinner at a very pricey restaurant at Ginja at the JW Marriot Hotel Resort & Spa. Exclusive fine-dining on Thai food but the portions were O so small!

We could not get enough of the green curry, the blue crab, the vegetables, the soup, the meang kam that we had no choice but to order a steamed fish dish. The youngest daughter was mentioning that it would be great if she could have a birthday cake to celebrate her birthday - a fitting end to a great day!

The bill - a whopping 4k plus bhat that we had to share without the birthday girl's portion. 

Anyway, the thoughtful restaurant staff was so kind as to present her a birthday cake in the form of the Thai sticky rice mango dessert with a single candle! So I guess the price of the dinner was worth it......

Back in the hotel, we distracted the birthday girl as the elder sister lighted up the candle and called her out from the room. She was surprised but so happy to see the cake given by the Resort staff!

It was really the most delicious green tea cake we had ever eaten!

THANK YOU JW MARRIOTT VACATION CLUB STAFF FOR YOUR THOUGHTFULNESS!
YOU HAVE MADE OUR STAY MEMORABLE!

Free holiday to JW Marriott Vacation Club at Mai Khao - Phuket

Welcome back to the family holiday blog which blog is dedicated to updating all the delights of the travel adventure of the Lew family for good memories to leave for our children and grandchildren...

Sept 20 - 23 - Phuket

After many rejections, we finally said Yes to the JW Marriott Vacation Club Holiday at Mai Khao, Phuket.

At the invitation of a Vacation Club member (friend of Tim) we had the privilege to stay for free for 4 days and 3 nights at JW Marriott Vacation Club at Mai Khao (MK) at Phuket.

The reason why we hesitated was that we had been to Phuket a number of times (with Star Cruise) so much so that the idea of going again to visit the same places was just too boring for us.

However what clinched this was that our eldest daughter decided to join us for the trip. Since she started working, she had been so busy at work that spending time with her was just so precious.....

The awesome idea of spending time with our girls on the island holiday was so appealing that we decided that this time we will make it no matter what....

On Sunday, we took an hour plus flight to Phuket. At the airport, we were quickly taken by the resort bus to the other side of the island, about an hour's ride. We had not been to the other side of the island as the cruise ship normally docked on one side of the island. This was the part of the island that the tsunami struck. According to the staff of the JW Marriott Hotel & Spa, the waves from the sea reached up to the swimming pool!

This part of Phuket was exclusive and isolated. It was like being in the middle of nowhere with a sense of exclusivity. We later came to know that only members and members' friends were allowed to book apartment rooms in the resort.

A welcome gift was given to us with a welcome drink. The staff was polite and helpful. They took us up to our room. We were wowed! It was a 2-bedroom apartment with huge beds. The girls had a queen sized bed each while Tim and I had a king-sized bed!

The apartment had its own kitchen with cooking facilities with TV sets in every room. We quickly settled in and decided to go for lunch at Turtle Village, the only shopping complex in the enclave. This was an exclusive enclave. 

Apart from Marriot Vacation Club, there was the JW Marriott Resort & Spa and Anantara Resort. It was luxurious setting!

At Turtle Village, we went to Thai Express for lunch. The girls' first comment "Do you know that there is a Thai Express in KL?"

However we wanted to eat Thai food and that was the only restaurant that was available. We had spicy red tom yum, green curry chicken, steamed fish, omelette and a vegetable dish. It was delicious!

After lunch, we headed back for our siesta. The girls explored the beach. It turned out they also explored Anantara too...they came back telling it that the resort was really beautiful...

In the evening, we went back to Thai Express. We had delicious Thai crab curry, pandan leaf chicken (a most disappointing dish as the chicken piece was the size of a thumb or slightly bigger), taufoo and soup.

We then went shopping at Turtle Mart and bought green curry instant noodle and croissant for breakfast tomorrow in view of cooking facilities at the apartment.

We also signed up for a tour to Phi Phi island on Monday......

More to come...