Phuket November 2016 - Holiday Inn Resort and Patong Beach.

Why, hello, Blogpsphere! It's been some time since I last posted.

I've been so busy with Adam's primary school shenanigans and also with our parrots. The only times I come in here is to search for past posts of our kids/ memories.

You can catch more of us on my Instagram account, @mumzillaveron.

Anyway, here's one post about our recent weekend Phuket trip.

Vacationing with your children on a weekend is doable!

You don't need annual leave or a lot of $$ to have some family fun.

We're booked to go to Korea in December, but due to some spontaeneous decision, we ended up going to Phuket with my in-laws first. We've visited Phuket with the kids last year (2015) and stayed at Clubmed, and this time we gave Holiday Inn a try.

To my pleasant surprise, Holiday Inn far exceeded my expectations in terms of being kid-friendly, family-centred and clean. My in-laws also enjoyed their stay. Thumbs up! :)

HOLIDAY INN RESORT

Family room with a kids room costs SGD$300 per night.
A normal room with 1 King sized bed or 2 Twin beds costs SGD$160/night.

Our spawns have a joining room connecting to ours so we can be left to our own (adult) devices.

I can finally take use the bathroom without an audience!

KIDS ROOM

Are my kids' room awesome or what! I wanna bunk with them!
Just kidding. Please leave me alone.

There's even a treasure chest with toys. Very pirate-themed to the max.

Kiddy toiletries - they really pay attention to the details :)

Adam's favourite Big Boy activity - gaming.

KIDS CLUB

At Kids Club, where you can park your children, from 9am - 5pm daily.
There are extended hours on certain days, so you can plan your adult activities.

Children below 5 need an accompanying adult, which is the only disadvantage if you are planning some snorkelling/ diving trip and you have a child below 5yo.

SWIMMING POOLS 

There are 2 children pools beside the Kids Club and 1 adult pool.

PATONG BEACH

 is just a stone's throwaway from Holiday Inn.

In contrast with Singapore's erratic, mostly wet weather, Phuket is just heavenly.

  Don't spend your weekdays waiting for the weekends, because your time is now.

There is no better time than now to be silly, be crazy, be yourself, and be happy!

Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Will upload the rest when I have time :)

[Travel Tuesday] Clubmed Phuket December 2015: Day 3

I We survived the first day of school on Monday, it was a first of many things for us.

New school, new environment, new learning journey, and first time Adam will be away from home for the whole day.

We enrolled him into a Student care, as I seriously doubt my helper will be able to cope with her chores plus supervise Adam in his school work.

She's a domestic worker, not a teacher, so I shouldn't even be thinking of this as an option too.

With Adam in Student Care, it will also mean no more couple dates out after work for us, we have to cheong back to the East to fetch the kids! (Not looking forward to that.)

Anyway, it is off to school Day 2 and parents are not allowed to hover around from Day 2 onwards so here is my last instalment of our December Phuket trip.

Arranged a dinner date with my cousins and uncle on one of the nights while we were all still in Phuket.

It's a small world after all :P

Horror faces on my boys #whytheysolikethat

My Ashton doesn't like water but every time go pool also must full body kit including goggles. As if his head ever goes under water LOL.

We didn't stay in Clubmed on the last day.

We checked out and booked a day tour around the area, which includes Go-Karting.

We took the double-seaters so the kids could play too.

We also went to the Tiger Zoo.

It was expensive, and not really worth it if you ask me.

The tigers were all kept in enclosures alike cages, unlike the Tiger Temple ones, and we had to queue very long just to go into the enclosure for a mere 10 minutes.

The tigers did nothing but lounge around looking pretty.

And soon the little ones got bored, including the furry one as you can see below:

A sleepyhead who was oblivious to everything going on. It just slept and slept!

We even suspected it was sedated on purpose! though the zoo claimed otherwise. Hmmmmm,

It was a teeny tiny zoo, with only a handful of tigers which visitors can take photos with.

But still, there were other cages with "off limits" tigers like the Siberian tigers.

I kinda felt duped because I had expected a free-range safari-like experience akin to the famous Tiger Temple.

Anyway, I think it is better to take your tourism dollar elsewhere.

We then went to take the buggy rides from the foot of a hill all the way up to the Big Buddha temple.

My virgin experience operating this machine and it was fun!

Andy took Adam while I took Ashton.

When we finally rode back down, the kids wanted to buy a basket of bananas to feed this young elephant.

The elephant roped the Birthday Boy in for a kiss!

Happy Birthday Hon!

Thank you for always being there for the boys and me.

We have been through so many years of ups and downs, challenges and celebrations, failures and victories, and I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you.

We make a great team if I may say so myself :)

Merry Christmas from the Tan-meisters!

Bye bye Clubmed and Phuket! The kids enjoyed their vacation :)

Phuket trip Day 1 and Day 2 are also up :)