Saturday, January 23, 2016

Quincy Hotel - Birthday Celebration

Hello! I am here to blog my staycation last week at Quincy hotel!
 I got this super cute macaroons for my boyfriend to surprise him before our staycation at Quincy hotel with a seller that was selling this cute macaroons via instagram so i whatsapp her and managed to order 2 different design which is the pikachu and charmander.
its actually 10 for $29 for 1 design so i paid $58 for 2 different cartoon design,and i choose the chocolate and strawberry flavour.
I would prefer chocolate over strawberry flavour  but because bf love strawberry more than  chocolate so i got strawberry flavour too.

I hate the strawberry aftertaste. the strawberry flavour is not that nice in my own view, but the dark chocolate flavour was so good!
The downside to order from this seller would be that you have to accomodate her time, self collection at her place only and she was not very flexible because when i told her the date that i can go collect and she told me the date is available only for mass collection which was luckily one day before my bf birthday and the time was only 15min grace from 6.15pm to 6.30pm.
 I ended work early as it was a friday on tt day so i was rushing from west to her place which was at serangoon.
i don't really like to take cab and my workplace is too ulu to even hail a cab which you have to call for cab instead, so i took the public transportation, taking the shuttle bus out to the mrt, changing at buona vista to take circle line before alighting at lorong chuan and walk to her house.

I managed to reach her unit during the collection time, but it might also be the last time that i would ever order from her again because the timing is not very flexible. i think she is a student so unless she actually stretch her self collection day to be on weekends or longer timing instead from 6.15pm, to stretch from 6 to probably 9pm or something, its hard for others to accommodate her time, and she don't do delivery which is troublesome because everyone have to go pick up their order at her place. literally outside her unit.

This is so cute that alot of my friends actually asked where i bought it.
more photo of this pikachu and charmander! i specifically asked for the charmander to have this big big mouth design.



This was the surprise part 1 when i present to le boyfriend this cute box of macaroons when he came later at serangoon to pick me up after my meetup with my friend.
For his birthday celebration this year, i actually put in more effort in celebrating because i just got the mood to. haha
since im officially already working, so i could afford to buy for him more expensive stuff even though its nothing compared to what he had spend on me la.
 I got him a gold necklace for his birthday this year!
we went to this ban cheong jewellery shop at their bedok outlet when my heart go be-dok bedok as he choose one that he like. Hahahaha, we are practical person so gold is valuable to us even though we does not belong to the old generation. If there's ever one day i had no money, i can still pawn those jewellery in exchange for some cash ley!

If the ban cheong company can improve their marketing, packaging, they might just be able to attract more younger generation target audience to purchase because they need to have the visual appeal to attract the audience attention to want to purchase gold instead of diamonds. But of course, they might have to consider the extra cost and the extra cost might be imposed to customers, and i probably wont get so much discount la. This is why majority of people know that if you want to purchase gold accesories, never ever shop in shopping malls, it tend to be more pricey and the staff are all employed so they can't make the  decision of reducing the price for you.
But it still depend on the outlet that you went outside the malls because MTLW told me that when she purchase ban cheong at their amk outlet,there was no discount etc.
This was originally at $595, but i asked if the price can be reduced further, so they give me $560 or something, but i think when i handed my card to the staff and the staff know that its me who is paying and probably buying as a gift to the boyfriend, he actually reduced to $520. Woot*
and to be honest, i was glad that he give me further discount and i didn't even know 520 also means 
" I love you" at that moment, its only after i was having a conversation with Jieying and told her that i got a good deal because the price was reduced to $520 and she told me "520 also mean i love you eh!"
and thats when i realised. "oh ya!" haha

The birthday present was settled and i move on to plan for his birthday celebration, i think it has become a routine for us to have staycation every year. We have been to different hotels in singapore if you read my archived posts.
I love to explore new hotel that offer different facilities and my friend, xavial actually told me about Quincy hotel before i heard of this hotel attractive package so when i went to check on the rm rate, it was around $465++ per night if i am not wrong,it was over my budget so i didnt book it at that time but as i was deciding the place to celebrate bf birthday i went to check again the rm rate and i think they was having a promotion price of $365+ per night, i just know that i paid in total of $389 for this entire staycation and i think it was quite a worthwhile staycation!
it was another brand new experience staying with Quincy, last year i emailed the person because i saw that the promotion ends in dec so i enquire with their reservation staff that i am interested to book their room because they have this Qool weekend package which i would strongly recommend couples to try Quincy if you have a habit of having staycation within singapore region and does not want to travel too far because for our case, we don't even have to step out of the hotel at all as our meals are also all well taken care of in the hotel.

The staff get back to me that she will go and check and later on, she told me they are extending their promotion, if you check their website, i think they still have the Qool weekend package, i think it should be an on-going promotion because for those who does not check for this package, when i saw at the check in counter, the rate was $500++
so i told the staff that i would like to make a reservation for the room to celebrate my bf's birthday.

i have become smarter to bring my small luggage during staycation so that i don't have to squeeze so much stuff to my big LV bag that i only used it whenever we have staycation because it was the biggest size and i dont really bring such a big bag out anymore. Since i bought this small luggage that comes with wheels, i am able to pull it without having to carry on my shoulders.
this was us on our way from my home to the hotel!

selfie time!





The hotel is located at central, which is very near to orchard road. their carpark is shared with the Elizabeth hotel that is just beside Quincy hotel. So do remember to get the complimentary carpark ticket before you check out of the hotel the next day.
We just parked the car and only drive it out upon our checkout.
upon checking in, i spotted my friend, madeline! apparently she has been working there for 3 yr and we havent met since we graduated from poly.
This was their hotel lobby, i took it when we check out the next morning as it was pretty crowded when we first check in.

I think my fondness of staying in hotel started when i used to work in a hotel too and there was times when i wish i was relaxing and chilling like the guests during their stay in the hotel when i was checking the rooms.

This is still the first time that i went to check in a hotel and there was welcome drink provided for us, usually i know that only overseas hotel do that, but it was quite surprising to know that Quincy hotel do that for their guests too!

We received our bottle of complimentary red wine upon check in too.
this was included in the Qool weekend package.



Other perks of taking this Qool weekend package would be they have the all day refreshments for their guests and its free for their guests! just help yourself with the light snack that they have in the afternoon.
Free-flow all day!
by right if we actually check in at 12pm, they have some meals,such as pasta or salad for their guests, but when we check in, it was already 2pm, so we went to check out our room first before heading down to their lobby to have some refreshments.
we stayed in room 1002. they have 14 storeys in total so we got a pretty high rise floor!
our room!
I love the high ceiling of the room, and the long bench


I love that they have the ipod dock in the room, which is pretty easy to use and i brought my ipod so i can play the song from the dock, i guess it was just relaxing to have our own space, away from our home to enjoy this special day that i have planned for the boyfriend.
i love it so much that i think i want to get an ipod dock to put in our future house next time!


you can actually see far east plaza from the hotel view, nothing scenic but it was nice to just stay in the room and chill.
We was figuring out how to pull the night curtain down, because there should be a way for you to turn the night curtain down, in the end we figured out that there was a switch by the bedside for you to turn it to get the night curtain rolling down.
some cpl-fie while in the room!








on the other side of the room, you thought it would be just a mirror but from the bathroom area, you can look out to the bed. its a open concept bathroom. 





bf chilling at the side while i was busy snapping photos away because it has become a natural routine for me to review hotels that i have stayed before.

The bathroom. it was very well maintained.
It's sparkling clean!


The vanity counter, even though i feel that the design of the sink is quite flawed because the water would get to the floor whenever you run the tap
if they have messy guests, the whole bathroom floor might get really wet.



They used the molton brown bathroom amenities! i cannot remember if other hotel uses the same but i love the fragrance of their body wash! they placed the shampoo as well as the body wash in their changing room at the swimming pool level which was located at level 12 for guests who would like to shower after the gym or swimming session to be able to use it too!



I love to soak in bathtubs whenever i stay in hotel that le bf was asking if we should have a bathtub installed in our future house.
For now i think we are definitely going to install the heavenly shower system for our future house.

 The section where they placed their towels and hand towels.









They provided complimentary minibar snacks too! which means those that what you see in the fridge right now, you can drink at no charge at all!

the snacks, coffee,tea etc.

The standard bathrobes, iron,iron board hairdryer and elf safe etc



I regret not bringing my slippers because i only wore my shoes so i ended up using one pair of the slippers to make myself more comfortable in the room.
there was in fact alot of stuffs that i forgot to pack because we was rushing and i only realised when we was in the hotel.
did a short videography within the room! and one more for the bathroom.

After we have put our stuff in the room, we went up to check out the swimming pool because i know it was a infinity pool and it was raining when we check in so i thought we won't be able to swim in the pool, but later on when we went up to take a look, it was actually an indoor pool so even when its raining heavily, it doesn't affect anyone who want to take a dip in the pool!
this was the door which u have to press a switch to get the door open to enter the bathroom area as well as the gym area, sauna and steambath!



Their facilities are available 24/7! so you can actually workout or chill at the pool in the middle of the night, even though i don't recommend because the pool is quite cold and they probably need to improve on their swimming pool facilities.
i think you can bring your own float, i am not sure if the date that we went was rather non-peak because it was not crowded and you get to enjoy the privacy of swimming in the pool without feeling the pool is so crowded with lots of people swimming in the pool even though its quite small and the view are just buildings.







We went to check out their sauna and steambath! i love that their steambath is just beside the steambath and its quite rare to have sauna and steambath together in their bathroom area, they are not separated so couples can actually have sauna or steambath together! which was what we do too!
i prefer steambath over sauna so we went in to on the steambath before staying inside the steambath room.
this was the steambath room!
After we explored the entire hotel, i think it was already 240pm before we decided to head down to see what are the snacks that are available,
we had fruit tarts which i didn't take a photo of, there was some juices available such as orange juice, fruit punch etc, coffee & tea. cookies etc
even though there was light snacks around, but we was not greedy,so i took one slice to share with bf, i am not a fan of rainbow cake, in fact i don't really like to eat rainbow cake but this rainbow cake provided by the restaurant at Quincy is so good!
 each colour has a different flavour when you eat this rainbow cake! It is so soft and flavourful.
i love the purple one because it has a very sweet aroma taste when you try each layer and you would get addicted to this rainbow cake that you will grow to love this cake!
even for this cookie!
This is so addictive and even when i am blogging it right now, how i wish i could take more of this the other time! hahaha.
i think you are also allowed to bring back to your room but we was quite full after having this and we went back to the swimming pool area to start our art jamming session which was 3 to 4pm.
you have to pre-register beforehand if you want to join their art jamming session, which is inclusive in their Qool weekend package and at no additional charges,
you get to paint a sample picture that you have chosen with your loved ones and you get to bring it  back home too!
i was sure it was low occupancy rate for that hotel last week because there was only us and another couple who attended this art jamming session. Even at the restaurant when we was having our tarts, it was not crowded too.

We was not sure what to paint and the instructor give us a few sample for us to choose, so i choose a design but modify it slightly for eg: instead of having a blue sky, we change it to a red sky.
this was us taking a selfie when the instructor was attending to the other couple.

The other couple have their own idea of painting what they want and didn't really want to take the sample that the instructor provided them.
we choose one of the sample and we finished slightly early than the other couple.
it actually took more than 1 hour for us to complete the painting.
it was so fun trying art jamming with the bf!
i was surprised we didn't quarrel, because we can't really work together and i was just wondering if we would ended up quarreling. haha but it was all good and well.
we was told to paint about 1 quarter of the entire artwork red first, following the instruction carefully.



artist at work!
and we take turns in painting the different colour,
this was when we was almost done, 


This was the sample that we change the sky colour.

and then we added the coconut tree and stones. haha
we was impressed with our artwork even though the instructor did help us touchup our painting.


this was almost done except adding the seagull!
and finally adding the finishing touch!
the instructor help us add the seagulls because we was tired after that already and was worried we might destroy the entire paint if we are not careful.
we even wrote our name at the bottom end of this artwork with the date, 
definitely hanging at our house which is coming soon next year!
on the other hand, i went to take a photo of the other couple's art work. hurhur
it was quite cute too with three dog but i think the instructor help them with the drawing of the dogs and it took quite sometime and i feel that it defeat the purpose of having the chance for couple to spend time together to finish a painting if you choose something that is too difficult that require others to help you complete the artwork though.
our painting was left at the poolside to let it dried first and we was told that we would be able to collect it when we check out the next day.

It was already close to 5pm when we finished our art jamming session so we went down for some drinks before getting change into our swimwear to swim in the pool!





The pool was so cold that we actually got out of the pool after probably 20mins, and we went to try the sauna and steambath room aftertat.
I didn't usdthe gym as i didnt brought my sports attire.
so after that we get changed etc and heads down to the restaurant again for the cocktail reception that is inclusive of meals too.

I thought it would be even better if they can have more of the chinese movie channels beside the normal tv channel in singapore because Lloyd inn have and i remember staying up super late during staycation just to watch those movies or Capri at changi city point even allows you to borrow dvds to view back in the smart tv that they have in the room.
the rice was good and bf had the second serving so much that he fall asleep after we had our dinner. haha
I had some prawn twisters. almost similar as the one that bf had.
some cheese to go with the wine!
I didn't dare to take too much of the cheese because back in our school when we used to learn how to savour the different type of cheese pairing with wine, blue cheese was horrible.
but some people love to eat blue cheese. eew.
if you love to drink, this is quite a good value for money because its free flow, which means you can order red wine, white wine, beer, cocktail and so on, as long as you can drink, you can order it as much as you want.
le bf ordered the white wine and i don't really like but he ordered for me and he ended up drinking two glasses of white wine while i ordered myself a mocktail which was good.
we didnt managed to order more because i was so full with the dinner.
my mocktail! even though i wanted to try cocktail too!
mango pudding and some fruits!
the honeydew and papaya was so sweet that i had extra servings.
I missed the food already while i am blogging about it. times flies really fast when you stay in Quincy! haha
The restaurant staff came to double confirm with us if we are from room 1002 before they came over and i rmb the front office agent, lynn came over to pass a birthday card with chocolates and sweets for the boyfriend, she help us to take a polaroid shot for us, it was nice of the front office staff to do something special for my bf upon knowing we was celebrating his birthday on that day.
Thank you!

our Qool experience at Quincy! the polaroid shot was given to us the next day upon checkout.
After that we returned to our room to rest for awhile and that was when i decided my surprise part 2.
i told the bf not to peek as i was busy doing the setup.
but i think he waited for too long before he dozed off eventually!
haha i think i was supposed to do it early but by the time i was ready, it was already close to 9pm!
i brought with me all these candles, rose petals, and cups that i bought as a package set from taobao to surprise the bf! and this was also partly the reason why i left out packing some extra clothes because he offered to help me pack into the luggage when i was getting prepared and i didn't want him to saw all those candles that i had prepacked inside the luggage!

I forgot that it would took me damm long to finish the entire setup by myself too!
I arrange the candles with the small plastic cup so i don't ended up burning the hotel room before lighting up all the candles.
i brought more than 150 candles to form this wording!
i almost freaked out when i thought he would have saw all those stuff
but i think,well guys are guys.. you know they don't think too much out of it, so he didn't know i brought all these to surprise him.
and i make the "I love you" wording too!


initially it couldnt fit the camera so i tried to adjust it and rearrange it nicely again.
and this is was slightly better after the rearranging.






after arranging it nicely, i started to light up the candles one by one with the long lighter that i brought along.
which i think it was kinda of stupid of me to assume the mini one will have enough gas to light up all the candles because halfway when i was still lighting up the candles, i have used up all the gas, and the only way for me to lit up would be using one candle to lit up the other candles.
its quite beautiful after you have lit up all the candles!

i woke the bf up after he dozed off after being blindfolded by me to show him the pretty candles!


he look slightly blur because he dozed off earlier. You can see he obviously just wake up look in his face. Hahaha




We was careful to blow out all the candles before we left our room to head back to the pool side for the movie night by the pool at 9pm, but we went up like 930pm after all this setup that was overrun.haha
I even brought this LED lights that i bought from taobao to decorate the entire place!


We thought that there was going to be alot of people at the pool because its movie night by the pool.
and we only went up like 9.30pm, was wondering if we even have a seat because the reservation staff told me that i don't have to pre-register for movie night when i registered fr the art jamming as she told me that i just need to be at the pool side by 9pm.

when we reached the swimming pool, we was shocked because there was no one at the movie filming area. 
they will turn around the chairs to face the projector, the movie was being screened but no one was there at all except us.
just behind us is the swimming pool.

it just feel like as though we own the entire place.


I was getting fascinated that no one was here that i didnt pay much attention to the movie, haha i even went back to our room to get the snacks up to munch while watching the movie, really as though it was back in our own comfort home!

Our painting that was placed nicely at the rack near the poolside.
since i went back to our room, i brought down my camera so the photos below looks much more nicer.
watching a movie by the pool among all the tall buildings in town area, you will feel like you are watching movie under the stars just that this is sheltered and 100% more cosy and comfortable.
if only they changed to bean bags! that is gonna be so much awesome!
The ambience is really good, maybe if its crowded it will be different, but because its just the two of us on that night. i love it so much!




We only realised the movie is peter pan at the end of the movie, which i wanted to watch last time but we missed it when the cinema was showing, but i still missed the first half which i think i need to watch it myself again. haha


They have this area where you can make your own coffee or tea or help yourselves with the beverages in the fridge!
the hotel provides isotonic drink and plain water that allow the guests to take as and when they like.
superb service!

We thought of trying to play another movie when the movie ended, but the ipad was locked with password so we had no choice but to return back to our room afterthat,
it just happen that there was another movie playing on the tv, so we watch till it was almost 12am before we went to sleep.
a day filled with activities at Quincy that you don't have to step out of the hotel.
and you ended up feeling that its quite a short staycation.
the next day we woke up and had our breakfast downstairs
 it was quite a decent spread!
the breakfast is so much better than the one that i had just one week ago before my staycation at phuket.
you don't have to travel too far to enjoy an experience that is so much better than going overseas!
A glance of some of the breakfast food provided the next morning.

our breakfast, hahaha we are not big eaters, bf took lesser servings than mine because he was still feeling full from last night's dinner.
After our breakfast. we went back to rest again before getting prepared to check out of the hotel.
weekends flies.


Overall we enjoyed our stay at Quincy, i would love to go back and stay again if they have other additional new activities, they actually have a cupcake baking session on sunday from 3 to 4pm so i think for those who are looking to stay for 3d2n can actually join their art jamming on sat and cupcake baking on sunday.

Some selfies before we was going to check out, each time i stay in a new hotel, it inspired me to have more idea of how to design our own house next time! our house is going to be ready for collection of keys soon next year!
so this summarise our entire staycation at Quincy and our next holiday trip would be in march!
KL and exploring their big capri one bed room apartment room! its gonna be awesome i guess.
i going to get more busy and would have lesser time to blog even though i do tried to update my blog as often as i can!
shall end this post with some selfies of my own.
i am so tired already.
till then! Bye!