My husband has a card membership for food and there is a complimentary hotel stay that is expiring. We booked a room at Orchard Hotel during the June school holidays. They wanted to upgrade us to a bigger room, but with two single beds. With 2 kids, we did not think it would make any difference.
The room was tiny, and there were workers at the windows doing some work. We drew the curtains. The first thing El and Gar did when we entered the room was to jump on the bed. Hotel beds tend to be bouncier. The doctor had told El not to jump on beds, because the dust from it might trigger breathlessness, but it only made me sneeze non-stop.
There was no free wi-fi, no free movies, and no DVD player. We should have brought a laptop along to screen videos to the children, because El demanded to watch Dinosaur Train, and we had to go back for the night. In any case, the room was too small for our family.
The bathtub looked old, and there was a spot that looked damage. Unsure of how to bathe the children there, I guess it cemented the thought of going back for the night.
We went out for tea, and settled at a nearby café. Gar refused to sit in the child’s seat, and the two were climbing up and down. Gar decided to take a plunge, and he dived head down into the table’s metal legs and base. I caught hold of his legs, but not before his head hit the metal parts and he had two big bruises. It has been nearly two weeks and the bruise is still there. He had another accident the next day when he dropped his iPad on his big toe, and it turned black.
Gar also bit himself in his lips in the process, which I had no idea until a big ulcer was discovered two days later, and the doctor said it was due to a traumatic experience.
We went to explore the hotel, but unfortunately, there was renovation work going on, so the swimming pool was not tranquil at all.
There was a gigantic chess corner. Anyway, with two kids, we did not stay there too long. We don’t go swimming because the two children seem to be allergic to chlorine or something like that. I tried bringing Gar to the pool a week later, but he was howling all the time.
After that, we found the children’s corner, where it was just a padded room with very basic equipment for playing. El wanted to watch Ben 10 on Cartoon Network (which I did not want to subscribe to, but they end up watching DVDs and youtube videos instead) so we stayed there for a while.
In the evening, we went for buffet. This was the second buffet in days, because my husband wanted to use up the vouchers, but my diet plans flew out of the window. Not a foodie in the first place, so it was just normal in my opinion. There were Peranakan cuisine, seafood, Japanese food, and dessert.
El suddenly wanted to go back, like what I had mentioned earlier, so we headed back, taking our luggage back with us. The next morning, we went back with Gar only. It was tough trying to get him to do his big business outside, and cleaning him up.
That was our first staycation as a family, and I seriously doubt how our overseas trips would fan out, if any. Kudos to many of my friends who seem to go for family trips very often and are able to cope.
