JB Review on Thistle Hotel

Hello readers! Im back to updating my recent stay at Thistle hotel @ Johor Bahru. Michelle and I wanted to do our hairs and nails in JB and decided to stayover a night, we wanted a cheap hotel but decent enough to rest since it's pretty easy to get one at S$50-60 per night. So after searching several hotels, i saw this Thistle hotel photos looking not bad based on website, and it's about $60 per night, they had a 5 star rating, so i thought it wouldn't go too bad right?

The location wise, it's not exactly near city square or KSL like Amari or holiday villa that we used to stay but we thought it wouldn't be an issue since we will be taking the grab around. So we took a grab, upon arriving, Michelle was complaining that we got a sucky hotel, why? Because their glass window already look pretty run-down as the car drove inside the lobby.

Before i start giving my review, here's my disclaimer, please note that this is reviewed based on our experience, everybody standard are different, as we have stay in many different type of hotels before, we have certain expectations so we tend to compare but i will try to be as factual as possible.

Before we book the hotel, i didn't check the reviews as it was a impromptu decision to stayover one night at JB. So after our bad experience when we came back did i realised there were many negative reviews on tripadvisor. Most of the complaints are almost the same as us if not worse. 

When we first step in the lobby, there was a kind of smell that comes probably only from old hotel, so we didn't really have high expectations when we took the key and check out our room. True enough, it was far from our expectations.

There was no do not disturb signage outside the door, before we even went in, there was a chip on their main door, when we went in, while you may thought it looks pretty decent, but it's not to us.

We can see most of their furnitures are old, chipped. 

 Despite that they have this white window that you can slide open if you want to see the bathtub in the bathroom, but it was so old that i couldn't slide it open easily, i try to push but give up because it was so hard to slide it back.

 Needless to say their bed frame seems like it was used for 20 over years and their 5 star rating i guess was 20 years ago too.

The bathroom wasn't that fantastic, the bathtub was chipped so i didnt even bother to use the bathtub because it look dirty too.

We didn't want to hang out longer over here, so after putting down our stuff, we decided to take grab to holiday plaza to do our hair. Since we are not planning to spend our time at the hotel, we went for massage at Bangkok spa after doing our hair and went to KTV after that until 2am before we returned back to the hotel.

Ordered some supper during our ktv session!

In summary, i wouldn't recommend staying at Thistle hotel because the location is not very convenient whereby you can walk to shopping mall within 5-10min walk, we only saw a KFC outlet opposite the hotel and nothing else, it doesn't fit the criteria of being a holiday resort too. The price is considered cheap, but i rather pay abit more to stay a better hotel.

I would still prefer staying at Amari, or hotels that has plenty of amenities nearby. 

As we check out early next morning, we went back holiday plaza again to do our nails!

Ice-cream after our late lunch before we returned back to sg! Shall end for now.

Till then!

JB - Hotel Ciq @ Jalan Trus

Hello readers! It has been sometime since i last update my blog again. 

We decided to went in JB to do some sourcing of furniture for our new house and to do some comparison of pricing regarding all the fittings and fixtures. We choose to stay one night so we don't have to rush to clear the customs at night. 

After clearing the customs, we were hungry and we went for amphawa boat noodles which was as good as the last time i went there!

After the late lunch, olm bf dropped us near this hotel that we will be staying, i saw this hotel before when we was staying at Amari previously, the grab driver will pass by this hotel as it is located along the same stretch with Amari hotel. It was a new and budget hotel, it was a last min booking so we pay around S$60 otherwise usually its about S$30-40 per night.

The interior of the room was not bad, since it was a new hotel, so the decor are more modern and chic. It fits perfectly for two. Overall the stay was not bad except the sound proofing was really bad, i was awake by 7am because i could hear other guests slamming the door sound or footsteps of others, it interrupt my sleep and i couldn't go back to sleep after that, so it is probably the last time i will ever stay in this hotel despite the cheap price.

After settling down our stuffs, we grab to one of the furniture store which has received many positive reviews online, Teck seng furniture' However the location from Jb to reaching this place is about 30 mins, the showflat has a very comfortable atmosphere for you to look around their different type of furnitures. I have been doing some research so i roughly know what i want to buy for our house next time, but all these got to wait till we got our keys which is coming to us pretty soon by next year!


We had KFC the next day before we leave JB, i have heard friends telling me that KFC is nicer in JB compare to Singapore but i can't tell the difference except this time they have this new korean bbq sauce and it was really good to dip in!

Shall end this post for now.
Till then!