Once again we are away from the comfort of our home. This weekend (starting on Friday afternoon), we are off to Pulai Desaru Beach Resort, Johor. Before I proceed further, let me inform that this is not another vacation. This is another tour of duty (job trip) of my wife. She has some kind of work related to her research alliance. Never mind with that. Luckily all participants or may I refer to as researcher was given a room. That’s so cool. She can bring all of us (the family).

We’ve never been to Pulai Desaru Beach Resort before. So, personally, I was anxious to see how good is this hotel. Let’s check it out…

General First Impression

My first impression… This hotel looks cool. It has a very huge hotel lobby. The roof is high and thus provide great ventilation. Wind from the sea is enough to provide the cool breeze at the hotel surrounding. There seems to be plenty of room available. Our room is in the second floor. We need to walk, perhaps 2-3 minutes to reach our room from the hotel reception counter.

This is the hotel – Pulai Desaru Resort, Johor. I missed to take the photo of the front gate where the hotel logo is clearly visible.

This is our room. The room is quite spacious with no carpets. Instead the floor is decorated with a 2′ x 2′ light brown tile. It’s very cold when we step onto it. Maybe the reason for that is because the hotel is at the beach! We have 2 double beds here, not that big for the 5 of us, but hey, we can squeeze in. Not bad. We requested for additional pillow since there are only 4 pillows. We need the extra one because there are 5 of us.

This is a different view of the room. There is a desk for work and also some comfortable looking double sofa to relax. The sliding doors are quite huge and provide more than sufficient sun light into the room. I consider the room spacious enough for all of us and it is larger than a typical average hotel room. This room is by far larger than the hotel room that we stayed in Shanghai (we’ll be covering that soon).

Another angle of the hotel room. I think this picture completes all the angle needed for you to imagine how this hotel room looks like. The TV is a 25″ Samsung bulb tube flat screen TV. Works fine but the remote control cover is missing!!!

This is the favourite place of my kids – the bath tub. Pretty simple. However, to our surprize, only 2 towels are provided. No hand towel, no medium size towel, not other towels. Only 2 bath towels!!! What the hack! So, we called the receptionist and ask. We assumed the room service guys may have forgotten to place those extra white towels. But, in actual fact after I asked the boy that delivered our towels, one room with two beds are only entitled 2 big bath towels, 1 hand towel and one medium size towel for the floor. That’s it!!! OMG, that is too stingy, I think. Common guys, give your guess more towels. That won’t make you bankrupt.

This is the view at our balcony. No see view, no pool view. We got the football field view…haha…No prob. It is ok. Those lucky one will get the sea or pool views which are nicer paranomically. But as you can see, the plastic table and chairs look to old that it need to be replaced.

This is the view of the landscape of the hotel. It is well maintained, clean and peaceful. I have no complains on this one.

A simple playground is available for kids excitement. However, my kids are not interested at all because they already set their destiny… which is to the swimming fool pool.

The swimming pool of this hotel is fantastic. I like! Thumbs up!!! Superb. It’s huge and creatively designed. There are shallow section for the smaller kids and deeper ones for the big boys. There is also one short slide which is sufficient to make us and the kids happy!!! This hotel knows how to please it’s guess when it comes to getting wet!

Another angle of the swimming pool. This section looks like the beach but it is actually covered with tiny pebbles. No sand what so ever so it maintains clean. However, I can smell some chlorine. Yeah… you cannot escape from that. The swimming pool needs it.

Some entertainment such as the pool tables are made available for those who want to test their sharp shooting skills. Some carom tables are also available. A ping pong table is also prepared for the guess as well as some arcade game which you need to insert some coins. Not sure which coins – old Malaysia coins or new Malaysia coins…haha…

The beach. Looks quite nasty with fierce wave stamping its edge. This beach may not be suitable for my kids to play. Oh, I would like to bring them to a crystal clear sea water and a white sandy beach… but not now. Soon… Maybe Tahiti, Hawaai… Any suggestions?

The view of Pulai Desaru Beach Resort from the beach. This was taken at about 6pm. The sun was ready to set…

Another good indirect view of the ocean from the swimming pool area. The hammock that you can see on the far right corner of the above photo is very comfortable and peaceful for relaxing. I need that in our new house. It will be a good way to seek for serenity. But I will need to find out where to buy that hammock? Any idea?

The Most Important Facility – Internet / Wifi

Regarding the internet, it is a pity that this hotel charged RM5 per hour for the internet. There is no free internet or wifi even in the hotel lobby area. That is very disappointing.

I was very close to securing my daily celcom broadband to get access to the internet. “Fortunately”, it failed. I don’t know why it failed but that’s good because soon after that my wife get an internet pin from her workshop. However, she have to share the same pin with another 8 person. That’s fine, at least we can use the internet for a while using that pin.

To my surprize the internet speed is quite poor and not constantly stable. Luckily I did not purchase the RM5 per hour internet facility. Yes, I did not intend to buy the internet service but it will be a frustrating experience to those who purchase it.

Early Remarks

In overall the Resort environment was clean. I did not interacted directly with the staffs so I cannot assess that part. AS this post is written I have no idea yet what the room rate was. I’ll make Part 2, a follow up for this to conclude my overall experience here. Hence, the Cyza Sector Hotel Rating will come later.

Nevertheless, if you are interested to check out further on this resort, which is a family member of Pulai Spring Resort, near my house, you can google it yourself or go straight to:

The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort
PO Box 29, Bandar Penawar, 81900 Kota Tinggi, Johor, Malaysia.
Tel: +60-7-822-2222 • Fax: +60-7-822-2223
Email: reservation@thepulai.com.my

Read Pulai Desaru Beach Resort Part 2.

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As promise, here is the continuation of photos taken from our trip to Kota Kinabalu. We stayed at Novotel Hotel, which is not located in the heart of Kota Kinabalu (I mean not in the city center). Novotel hotel is located in 1Borneo, in the area of Alam Mesra. It is very near to Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). The hotel is integrated with 1Borneo Shopping Mall, hence it’s very convenient to eat and shop.

Novotel hotel is very nice and comfortable. It has very large window wall for us to enjoy the view outside.

It also has see through windows to the bathroom/shower. So, we can see others taking shower…hahah…

View from inside the bathroom. We can see the beds directly.

Cute circular washing sink.

The pool is located at the 7th floor of the hotel.

We brought our kids 2 times to this floating pool and my kids enjoyed it very much…

For other of my recent Kota Kinabalu trip report, please read:

>Kota Kinabalu trip photos
>Kota Kinabalu, We’re on our way…
>Life mini report from Kota Kinabalu
>JB home sweet home
>Our Kota Kinabalu Expenses

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I’m venturing into a new off-line business. I’m trying my luck venturing in homestay business and partnered with a colleague from work. We are in the process of setting up a new homestay in Johor Bahru. Yes, you can call it JB homestay. So, if you happen to visit Johor Bahru for any reason and need accommodation and don’t fell like staying in a hotel, feel free to contact me. The homestay is a better alternative for family of 3 to 6 or even up to 8 because getting 2 to 3 hotel rooms will be far more expansive.

Homestay Mutiara, the name given, is a 2 storey corner lot house and have 3 bedrooms and newly furnished. It will be openeed at the end of July. The prices are reasonable and it is strategically located. For more information, feel free to visit jb-homestay.blogspot.com.

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Kota Tinggi Water Fall (Air Terjun Kota Tinggi) is really cool and cool (temperature wise)

Last time I went here, that thing wasn’t there yet… Now Air Terjun Kota Tinggi is like wet world!

This was new as well. You have to rent the huge tyre or float (RM5) and use it to slide. But the water flow rate is not that great, it’s too damn slow.

That’s the upstream of the new slide.

This is the surau and I found it comfortable although it does not look that gorgeous in this photo. I think the surau is new building as well. I cannot recall seing this surau around when I came here before. I forgot when was the last time I visited this water fall.

You park your car and walk to the water fall.

You need this if you are lost… GET LOST!!!

My wife snapped this for me… Very good natural massage from the falling water. Thanks to gravitational force.

Like father like son   Ikhwan is freezing!!!

So, that signify the time for my home cook nasi lemak power ranger. Tambah 4x bebbb delicious and sejuk punya pasal.

Nasi lemak (coconut rice) with water fall background, where else can you get this?

Resting after eating

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My wife went to Paris recently for a week attending a conference, leaving me and my kids back here in Malaysia (suffering). It was her second time in Paris. The first time she was there was in 1998 traveling with some friends from UK via Euro Tunnel. I have also been in Paris for 5 days 4 nights back there in 1998 as well. However, I flew to Paris instead of commuting by bas and train.

This is her hotel room at Du Park Hotel which is located at Montparnasse, Paris. A room in that hotel cost about Euro 90 – 110 per night (RM450 – 550 per night). Du Park Hotel is rated 2 star (Here, with that kind of money, we can stay in a super 5 star hotel). A 5 star hotel in Paris will cost more than Euro 250++ per night (RM1,250 per night). She spent 5 nights in this hotel which is within walking distance to Hotel Holiday Inn, where the conference took place.

We surveyed the hotels in Montparnasse area like crazy before she flew to Paris. From the review in the internet, Du Park Hotel seems to be a reasonably good 2 star rated hotel. So, my wife decided to book a room there. Luckily upon arriving to the hotel she was very glad because the room was very nice and comfortable. The room was just renovated and refurbished. However, the only thing that did not look right is the bright red curtain covering the window.

My wife managed to steal some time to visit Disneyland Paris. She didn’t have the time to visit this very famous theme park 10 years ago. In the other hand, I had visited this park a decade ago and I love it very much. Soon, the time will come when we’ll bring our kids to Disneyland, any Disneyland will do…

She wanted to snap a photo with Minnie Mouse. However, the crowd went insane upon seing Minnie Mouse and other Disney characters. So, she only snapped a photo from a distance…

The Hollywood Tower Hotel in Disneyland…

Hmmm… not sure about all this sculpture. I’ll let my wife describe it tomorrow morning

This is a view from the trademark of Paris – Eiffel Tower.

Another spectacular view from Eiffel Tower

Another different angle of view from Eiffel Tower

This is … which is seen from Eiffel Tower as well.

Also, another georgeous view from Eiffel Tower.

The river view from Eiffel tower as well.

The Louvre Museum inside, with the Pyramid displayed at center. This is the place where famous portraits are displayed.

Original potrait of Monalisa hanged on the wall. I haven’t seen this live. My wife has seen it twice. It is well kept and protected at the Louvre. Visitors generally spend about 15 seconds viewing the Mona Lisa.

A view of Eiffel Tower from the bottom of it. I have been here 10 years ago and was on the first level of it. There are all together 3 levels. We have to use a lift to go on top of it. There are 4 lifts available for us but we need to que to buy the ticket as well as enter the lift. It was really a long que.

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