CNY 2015 Getaway @ Phuket!

October 7, 2014 SF

Update 13 Jan 2015 – Although school has only started for one week, Jarod has already received a few graded assignments. His schedules were hectic with few tests already lined up. CA1 will take place right after the CNY break. ZA attended the PTM today and came back with lots of timeline. It has been decided that we shall postpone our Phuket trip to June so that we can enjoy our holiday, rather than worrying about the exam during our trip.

Chinese New Year falls on 19 Feb 2015 which is a Thursday. The kids get off school early on CNY eve and thus, the idea of a 5 day holiday is simply alluring.

Since we no longer have CNY obligations unlike the past, ZA was equally excited at the idea of going away. He did not need to apply for leave. His leave entitlement had been reduced since Ashley turned 7 this year and we are saving it for our year end trip and possibly a short getaway in June.

My initial thought was to have a short getaway in either Batam or Bintan. Then, I chanced upon a great early bird fare to Surabaya and were tempted to book it. However, we did not find much review about the place where the highlight of the trip is visit to Mount Bromo.

Since it was CNY after all, I decided against it as I still wanted to have a nice reunion dinner. Then, I got an agent to work out a 3-night stay including return ferry in either Montigo, Turi Beach Resort and Holiday Inn Batam. The proposals did not appeal to us as the prices worked out to be between $1.5K to close to $2K for the four of us. No idea why Batam appeared to be a budget destination to us!

Our next preferred choice was naturally Phuket. Our last visit was back in 2006 and we kind of missed the place, or rather the food. While Singapore Airlines does not fly to Phuket, its subsidiary Silkair does. In fact, the prices of the tickets to fly on Silkair are lower than the SQ code sharing ones when booked directly with Singapore Air. We procrastinated for a few days and finally booked our flights departing on Wed 18 Feb 2015 and returning on Sun 22 Feb 2015. Our concern was Jarod woould be having his CA1 on the following week and did not want him to be too tired. Still, we were glad we booked our flights as the prices for the same flights doubled one week later. Then, news broke out that Batam immigration was enforcing the No Talking rule which made us feel we made the right decision to stay away from Batam.

ZA has a complimentary stay at Millennium Patong from his Amex card and we decided to redeem it.

We will subsequently change to Holiday Inn for our 3 night stay.

Our tentative plans besides feasting are ATV rides, Elephant Trekking, Bamboo Rafting, White Water Rafting, visiting night markets and a Hong by Starlight trip which ends with floating our own self-made flower kratongs in a Loi Kratong ceremony complete with fireflies.