Ever since Jared started schooling, we can only have our holiday during school holiday. We do not like it as it is peak period for travel and everything will be more expensive and have lots of people. Since it’s UPSR school holiday in the 2nd week of Sep 12, we decided to have our family holiday during this period but Jaden has to miss his kindergarten classes.
FY has just came back from attending her friend’s wedding at Phuket. She had a great holiday there and has been promoting Phuket since then.
Initially, we were looking at 4D3N trip to Phuket. While we were browsing through MAS flights, there were promotion for cheap flights for travel in the evening (5.10 pm flight for RM2 airfare) and flight back in the morning (10.25am flight for RM1 airfare). It may not be the best travel time but for the 4 of us, it saves us RM532 (RM133 x 4 persons) per flight!
I suggested to Hubby to take the evening flight as it’s so much cheaper (Airfare RM8 + taxes and surcharges RM892 for the 4 of us) and with the savings we can fly in to Phuket a day earlier (reach Phuket 5.25pm), settle in the hotel and have the whole day for the following day. We also do not need to wake up early for the early flight at 9.30am.
For the return flight, we did not take advantage of the promotional air fare as we did not fancy waking up in the early morning, do last minute packing and rush to the airport. We used Enrich to redeem our return flight at 21,000 miles and paid taxes and surcharges of THB8,720 for the 4 of us. In total, we paid about RM2,000 inclusive of taxes for return flights to Phuket for the four of us.
The following day, we booked our hotel, Sugar Palm Resort via Agoda and paid RM285 for 2 nights with 2 breakfast. We decided to stay 2 nights near Kata beach (Sugar Palm Resort) and another 2 nights near Phuket town (Westin Siray Bay). As my cousin is working with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Group, we may enjoy the hotel’s StarFriend rate for Westin Siray Bay Hotel at Thai Baht 3,500 nett per night for Superior Sea View Room with daily buffet breakfast for two persons.
We did not have much time to plan for this holiday to Phuket. There was only a week from our planning to travel time. We were so happy that flights and hotel accommodations had been arranged.
After we’ve booked our flight and hotel, only we remembered it was Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival, which was not a good period to travel. Both of our parents did not like the idea, coupled with travel to Phuket which was hit by Tsunami and asked if we may change the travel date. Hubby and I were contemplating about it but we decided to move ahead with our plan and reminded ourselves to be careful ie no wandering around Phuket at night, no sea activities, etc.
In the morning of our travel day, Jared and Jaden were having flu and complained sore throat. Hubby brought them to clinic and get medication for them.
This time round, Jaden had the chance to ride KLIA’s aerotrain. It was also good that I remembered to bring our CIMB vouchers for the complimentary access to Plaza Premium Lounge.
KLIA Plaza Premium Lounge
Jared and Jaden were surprise and did not expect that they were able to play computer games before depart for Phuket.
Do, Re, Mi … at boarding gate
Despite the promotional fare, the aircraft was less than half full.