Hotel Review-Westin Kuala Lumpur

(Photo from SPG.Com)

The other day I met some younger travelers while they were here in Singapore and we started discussing travel around the region and one of the topics was hotels. Traveling with a family has meant, in many cases, no more hostels or super cheap budget digs. Now we find ourselves looking at hotels and balancing the cost between high end and practical. While I love me a 5 star hotel, often we can do with a little less flash and save some money, but sometimes when you have points (like I do with SPG) or if you can work side trips while traveling for business, you can have the 5 star hotel for a reduced rate. My main criteria for a hotel is it must be clean, service must be good and it must be family friendly. If the pool is good, that is a bonus.

The Westin KL meets all of those needs. Really the only downside to the Westin KL is that the cost is commensurate with the location and the name brand. I admit, I am a regular at the KL Westin, it is my hotel of choice now when I travel for work and it is one of my "preferred" hotels for corporate rates. What I love about the hotel is the fact that the staff is friendly, recognize me and ask about my kids and when they are coming the next trip. Most of the staff remember my name (well after 40+ nights this year I would hope they recognized me!) and they often assist us with upgrades if room is available.

(Photo from SPG.Com)

The pros of this hotel are the location. Just off Bukit Bintang, you can walk to most of the shopping areas and the high end Pavillion Mall (with a good food court) is just across the street. The hotel is within walking distance to Jalan Alor as well as the Kraf Kompleks. The hotel pool is big, but chilly in the afternoon due to shade, so morning swims are the ticket. The Westin Workout Gym is exceptional and the Kids Club is a welcome spot for kids so mom and dad can enjoy a few minutes to themselves.

View of the Kitchenette in the Residence Rooms

The cons for this hotel are as I mentioned before the price, this hotel is five star and you pay for it. The breakfast buffet is huge with stations spreading far and wide, but at 68RM it is not a cheap eat. The kids club tends to be better for young kids (under 5) and as mentioned the pool is chilly in the afternoons. My only other complaint is that there is not a "spa" so I go next door to the Marriott for my massage when it is needed.

(My suite from my last upgrade...how cool is that!)









All in all, I do like the Westin, it is one of my favorite hotels in Kuala Lumpur. If you can score an upgrade try to get into the residences where the rooms feature a kitchenette, separate bedroom and an office. Otherwise standard rooms are what you expect, clean and roomy with the Westin Heavenly Bed as a bonus.

JW Marriott-Phuket Thailand

Hands Down- this is my Favorite Kid Friendly Hotel in Asia (so far!). How can you go wrong with a hotel that caters to family vacations, has a fantastic beach (the water is not always safe for swimming though so please take note and be careful) and has circus training for kids?


The "Blue Pool" next to the "owners" portion of the property, but open to all guests.

Sunset ceremony in the Main Lobby







First, a disclaimer this hotel is part of the Marriott Vacation club. You do not have to be a member to use the hotel, only half of it is earmarked for the Vacation Club, but there are a few hard core travelers that want nothing to do with a 'time share'.


My advice, if you want to attend the look-see and get a discounted room package, it is a great way to get a cheaper room for 90 minutes of your time. If on the other hand, you hate time shares with all of the passion reserved for those most in depth hates of your existence, don't go on the look-see.




Family Pool and Pool side bar/snack bar






The JW Marriott, one of the top end hotels in the Marriott Chain, is at the northern most part of the Phuket Island. The location is great for a private weekend break. The property has four swimming pools, a golf course is being built, a spa, over 10 F&B outlets and lots more. A few of my favorite ammenities is the "Adult" only pool so if you need a break from the kids, I highly recommend sending them and your spouse to the kids pool and you can laze by the sun with a coconut drink in hand at the adult pool!











Reading area used for Kids Beds


Our kids (at the time of writing) are still small and we try to use room size to our advantage, we try not to get roll-aways or extra beds when ever possible. Our kids at 6 and 7 and can still share a bed with each other or one of us if we get two queen size beds or two kings, but most Asian hotels do not offer that option, giving only a single king or twin beds. While the Twin room at the Marriott contains two beds, the beds, slightly larger than US size twin beds, are not really big enough to share, but the rooms are huge and have a really cool "reading" lounge with Thai style floor cushions. The kids love to sleep on this raised platform and call it the sleeping porch! We can get a king bed for ourselves and the kids are able to sleep on the cushions. The rooms also have nice little porches that are great for mom and dad enjoying a glass of wine while the kids run rough-shod in the room!

My Nephew Owen, swinging away at the Circus Class.

The kids club is great with activities for younger and older kids, movies in the afternoon and the circus training taught every day. The hotel is located on a national marine reserve so hotel has a set back from the beach, the maximum height of buildings is 3 stories and the hotel has to teach turtle awareness as part of the right to be at the site. Every year the Leatherback Turtle will nest outside on the beach and I have heard that during nesting season they close the beach unless you are accompanied by a park/hotel guide.





The food is also great, but be aware it is near US pricing for food at the restaurants on the facility and the availability of other food involves a drive off the property.




Rack Rate is US$ 250 per night but off season you can get rooms for as low as US$135.00

Phuket is a short 1.5 hour flight from Singapore and you can get budget airlines for as low as US$100 round trip.


Pros:

1. Clean Excellent rooms
2. Great Kids club and activities
3. Four pools
4. Circus Training
5. Beautiful Beach
6. Off Season Rates (May-August)
7. Close to airport
8. Huge Buffet Breakfast
9. Cafe with snacks, bakery, mini-store and coffee!

Cons:

1. Location is far from the "hot spots" and night life.
2. Food costs are more than other Thai spots

Anaheim California Trip Plans and Review

Repost from July 2008

One of the most important things about traveling with kids is being able to adjust and go with the flow. I know I struggle with this, I have certain expectations and things that I want to do, but I think Jeff has even more trouble with it. What we learned on this trip is while planning is great, and frankly made our trip more do-able, you need to be able to adjust when necessary.

I like to be a seat of the pants traveler, to go where the winds blow and be able to move around when I want. I have learned, from the school of hard knocks, that doesn’t work when you have kids. Without certain plans in place kids get grumpy, they don’t deal well with transitions and while I may be able to run an extra hour without dinner, the kids are much more difficult to keep going. My Spouse on the other hand does a fair amount of logistics planning, but forgets to plan for the little things. So before we left Singapore (in fact months before because we knew it was peak season) we booked our hotel. We were able to book through Hotel Travel.com and got a fair rate on a hotel right across the street from Disneyland. Jeff also was able to book our car from Alamo, on line. From that perspective we were set.

I set our schedule, in terms of who we would meet and when, where we would go and who we would stay with while we were in Oregon. This is crucial as managing greater family obligations is probably harder than your own direct family expectations. But the best planning and expectation management we did was to use the advice from The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland and that was….” Plan your day in the park before you get there!” While we didn’t follow the touring plans offered in the book… we did plan our day (see my upcoming post on Disneyland in a day).

So, when we got to LA, things went rather smoothly, all things considered, we didn’t sleep well on the plane, but the kids did. I am sure that without advance planning on our part, even as to our estimated dinner plans, we would have been a mess. When we landed, we got our rental car and drove to the hotel. Originally we had hoped to be at the Hotel by 7 and be able to walk over to Downtown Disney for dinner, but again, adjustment was the key. Things took longer at the rental car place and we were all super tired, so before stopping at the hotel we decided Pizza at the California Pizza kitchen just down the street from the hotel was our choice for dinner. Well, frankly, I knew the food wasn’t the best in the world, but I didn’t expect the huge line. I knew Bubba Gump’s next door would be packed and we wanted to grab something and head back to the hotel and other options were too fancy or required us eating at the restaurant. So, we thought Pizza was the answer.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. The pizza, billed as gourmet, was too expensive, the types of pizza were not young kid friendly (and our kids are great eaters) and the wait was pretty long, even for take out. Note to self: Next time, just head to the hotel and call for Domino’s. The price will be better and the food can’t be worse.

Eating a late dinner after a 16 hour direct flight and the stress involved of getting and renting cars, facing rush hour traffic and having two tired kids tends to make adults crazy and cranky as well, but all told, tempers were kept in check and after a brief mumble or two, a few slices of crappy pizza we showered and got into bed. Sleeping was easy, it was the 3am wake up that was hard. Declan woke up at 3 and fussed and fidgeted. All of us sharing one room meant that we all woke up as well. After about an hour the kids went back to sleep, but I don’t think Jeff or I did. This made our planned wake up call at 6:30 a no-go, but I let everyone rest/sleep until 7. We got up, got dressed and went to breakfast in the hotel. We were eating by 7:15 and out the door on our way to the park to get our tickets before 8am. A few notes of advice, either try to get your tickets early or get them at the hotel if possible, many hotels offer this service and it saves you lots of time and is one less line to wait in. All and all, having made plans and being willing to adjust our schedule

So, more about the day at Disney later, but as always a picture.
Notes and recommendations:

Hotel: Anaheim Plaza Hotel- 1700 Harbor Blvd.
Price- Inexpensive (we were able to book online for 115 a night)
Room 2 stars
Service 3.5 stars
Breakfast 3.5

My Notes: It was ranked 2 stars in the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland, and frankly I would have given it a bump simply because the service was pretty good. The hotel caters to big tour buses but the staff was all friendly and gave Park information as soon as you check in. While I think if given a chance we would have stayed somewhere nicer, for the price and location it was a good deal. Plus, the kids loved the breakfast buffet (which actually wasn’t bad… I have had much worse in Asia) and the hot chocolate had whip cream on top!

Rental Car: Alamo- 3.5 stars
I have rented multiple times from National (right upstairs from Alamo) and found the check in at National to be much easier. We stood in line for a long while, only to find out we could have used the computer kiosk. The plus though was the huge play structure in the Almo section which kept the kids happy.