Swiss Garden Kuantan

This is actually a long outstanding post. Its been almost a month since our trip to Kuantan was from 25 - 27 July. Anyway, I have been busy at work and at home (too tired to do anything at home) and didn't have time to sort out the photos.

Anyway, not going to elaborate much here (maybe just a little bit la in case some of you are keen to go) but instead will let the photos do most of the story telling :-)

This is the view of the pool, the beach and the coffee house taken from the lobby.

The lobby, the place looks a little dark as it was taken late afternoon on a rainy day. But the newly refurbished lobby is really nice. Very cosy and welcoming.

Hayley love taking photos with the trishaw, and of course her papa

A shot of us taken by Hayley

Her favourite ie playing sand and catching crabs

At the fruit farm, eat all you can (seasoned fruits only) paid for by the hotel. The tour is for 2 hours and includes transport. We only managed to eat rambutans (Hayley asked 'how come got hair one?') and of course durians. We experienced picking up the durians from the ground and then the orchard owner will open it for us. He will also pick up a couple from various trees to let us try the different types. They were delicious! Unfortunately Hayley didn't like it. She also enjoyed following the goats we saw at the farm.

More time at the beach on the 2nd day. Papa is going to kill me for exposing his 5 months belly. At certain angle, his looks bigger than mine.. hahaha

Her second favourite place ie the swimming pool. We spent most of our time either on the beach or at the pool or in the bath tub in the room.

Of course we dropped by the turtle sanctuary. It was hot and therefore we didn't stay for too long. We arrived around 1.45pm and was told that the place is closed from 1 - 2pm (lunch time probably). So we waited and snapped some photos instead at the beach nearby.

Lastly, a family photo taken at the entrance of Club Med where the beach and the sand are so much nicer. This beach is just next to the turtle sanctuary. Unfortunately we are not allowed to pop into Club Med so we only stopped for a while to snap some photos before heading home. And yes I do look very fat in the photos... I blame it on the angle and the wind blowing my hair away from my face :-(.

Here are some general comments on the hotel, food etc for those who may be keen to visit:

The hotel and the room

As you can see, I didn't take any photos of the room because it wasn't at all impressive. We booked the garden view room as per the promo package but instead we've got the car park view room. I requested for a room closest to the lift so I don't have to walk too much but ended up getting a room in the middle so I still had to do some walking to the lifts. The furnishing in the room were old and I didn't have any mood at all to snap photos (yes bad).

But I do like the lobby and the pool area. They have an adult's pool, a children's pool and a jacuzzi which unfortunately was out of order the 3 days we were there.

The check in was also quite disappointing as when we arrived there were 3 staff on duty and 2 families checking in/out and I am not sure why I still had to wait almost 20 mins to be attended to. As for the staff, most of them are not very friendly. We had to wait for 10 mins before someone (and that is after us calling many times) came to attend to us at the coffee house.

The food

On the first day when we arrived, we were too lazy to go out for food. So we had hi-tea at the hotel. The price was RM28nett per person and the food I would say was quite ok - acceptable la. We also had dinner on the 1st day at the Blossom Chinese restaurant that comes with the package. The menu were pre-selected so as expected it was nothing fancy and definitely nothing to shout about. We got 3 dishes (chicken, beancurd and vege) with 1 soup, a fruit platter and chinese tea.

On the 2nd day, we had lunch in town at one of the regular kopitiam. As for dinner, we got slaughtered at the Beserah Seafood restaurant. We ordered a steam fish (can't remember what fish), a spinach soup, fu yong egg and 2 drinks and the bill came up to RM70! So please do not go to that seafood restaurant unless you want to get slaughtered! But I have to say that the fish was really good and tasty :-)

On the 3rd day, we checked out and went straight to the turtle sanctuary. On the way back we stopped by at another Seafood restuarant located at the entrance of Legend Cherating and we ordered venison, vege, seafood fried rice and drinks and it cost us less than RM40. The price is very reasonable and the price list is displayed in the menu. So definitely no hanky panky here.

We also bought some prawn and fish crackers back for families, colleagues and neighbours.

The trip

I would say Hayley enjoyed the trip the most. She was so happy throughout the whole trip. It makes us happy to see her so happy. She kept telling us that she wanted to play sand, go to the beach and sea after we got back. She was also a darling throughout the whole journey of 5 hours (2.5 hrs each way). Although she didn't nap on the way to Kuantan, she didn't really fuss at all and remained seated in her car seat, although occasionally we need to entertain her. On the way back, she slept for 2 hrs :-).

Papa on the other hand complained about the driving. He finally admits that he was getting old and driving for 2.5 hours non stop was too taxing for him. I guess he was just tired as he didn't really sleep well both nights as we shared a king bed and 'Hayley the terror' who slept in the middle terrorised us both during the night with her kung fu kicks and punches.

To summarise it all, it was definitely a simple but memorable trip for us as it will be our last trip as a family of 3!