Centara West Sands Phuket

We finally had a family holiday! This was the first trip abroad for Liam.

In all, the trip went better than expected.

We took a noon flight on Air asia on the way there, and a late afternoon flight back on Jetstar. Despite being budget airlines, the flights were surprisingly smooth and hassle free.

Madison and Annika had a really good time.. they were so excited and were able to participate throughout the trip. 3.5 years and above is a good time to go away on holiday!

Liam was the tricky one. He's almost 5 months now, less sleepy and becoming more aware of his surroundings. Of course he refused to breastfeed on the way up and down, and of course he wound up being the screaming baby as the plane took off. I think it was a combination of being super tired and overexcited. Thankfully once the plane was in the air, he suddenly fell asleep. The girls slept for most of the plane ride. Easy peasy.

When we got to Phuket, we had a pre-arranged hotel transfer so that took care of transport. (thank goodness, we had an entourage : 2 families who had 3 kids and 2-3 helpers EACH)

The resort was close to the airport so the transfer took 25minutes ( short by Phuket standards, other hotels take 1 to 1.5 hours to get to ) Of course this also meant we could hear the planes throughout the day and night, but when you have kids anyway you don't really notice it that much.

We chose this place primarily because it is located next to a waterpark. Plus we get free entry to the park. The resort had a fairly nice pool and was right next to the beach as well.

Since we were such a large group we booked the Penthouse suite which is basically like a serviced apartment with 4 bedrooms. The suite was a huge duplex and the kids were literally running up and down the stairs the entire time we were there. The rooms were large too with ensuites and it wasn't a problem fitting 2 extra mattresses for the kids.

Breakfast was included in the tariff and was a generous spread. The kids loved the automatic pancake machine and the juice dispensers. They had all their meals in the resort, either in room dining or at the watersplash park. Phuket is troublesome in the sense that getting to a restaurant outside means an extra 20-60minute taxi ride each way. I couldn't imagine trying to wrangle 3 kids there for every meal.

The resort also had a kids club, which is essentially a large indoor playroom that also had a flatscreen TV and game consoles. There were also organised activities for the kids but we didn't try them out. The 4 kids were happy playing with the toys in the room .

In the evenings after we'd spent the day in the pool and sun, we'd leave the kids and helpers at the apartment, and take a cab out to dinner. Phuket is still quite reasonably priced for visitors coming from Singapore.

The only thing we didn't manage to do was to get our massage and go to cocktail hour at the lounge. As we had booked the penthouse suite we were entitled to free drinks every day from 5-7pm at the club lounge. Of course that falls smack in the middle of dinner time for the kids. By the time we sorted dinner out it was usually too late. Baby steps..

Overall... a good relaxing trip that everyone enjoyed.. looks like we might be headed for more regional travel!