I was a tad upset that the resort made a decision not to offer breakfast delivery for Choya to the room anymore. I only had two choices — she would either eat it at breakfast with us (out of the question), or I get it boxed to-go for the room. Of course I'd get it boxed.
When I turned up for the breakfast on the first morning, I understood why. I went at 9.15am. The crowds were so bad that it didn't make it pleasant to be around the breakfast room after 8.50am. They were terribly under-staffed and over-stretched. The breakfast at the hotel sucked. It has never been great, but this round was particularly vile.
The wifi went out on the first day for 12 hours. The engineers who came at 9pm to try to fix it, couldn't. I bit my tongue to tell them, 'of course not lah'. They're IT engineers or technicians! They need permissions to reset routers and reconfigure things. This isn't a matter of switching routers off and on, or align the television's date and time. The weak router overloaded and crashed when we tried to cast from our netflix app onto to the smart television. IT had to do some updating of software patches and shifting our suite's band to 5GHz. However, we were very appreciative that they bothered to work till 11pm before telling us that they couldn't do it, and would file an incident report for the IT team to follow up the next morning.
Also, the coffee machine at the breakfast room broke down each time it saw me. It simply couldn't extract the beans as required, or it went bonkers with its sensors. It doesn't produce good coffee to begin with. The coffee beans were middling anyway. I didn't bother with the in-room Nespresso machine or its super limited choice of capsules. After two days of shit coffee in the morning, I gave up and went elsewhere for a proper coffee. I didn't need food. I'm never a breakfast person. Eating this early sends me into IBS hell. But I need caffeine.
After two days of nonsense, I bailed out of even sitting down for breakfast/brunch at the resort. NO. Even if it comes complimentary with the suite, the experience is terrible. They don't offer anything exclusive for the villas or the suites. Everyone is expected to turn up at the breakfast room and be treated equally to lacklustre food and exhausted staff. It's chaotic. I couldn't even call it an organized chaos. The staff was at breaking point.
I simply sent the husband down to collect the floofs' box. He could grab a bite too, since he needs brekkies and protein. Nobody could screw up eggs that badly. He went between 8am to 8.20am, and had a rather pleasant time. It wasn't that packed at that window. He got his four egg whites and two eggs (with yolk). Heheheheh. He would also try out whatever dishes that didn't look like crap.
I doubt I'm staying at the hotel again, even if it's the only one that offers a full-sized fridge and freezer in its suite. It feels like they're trying to save costs and maximize room occupancy while on minimum staffing. They don't seem to bother to go the extra mile anymore. While the owners of the property and the general manager remain the same, something has shifted in the policies. They didn't even bother to send me an after-stay note or invitation to send in my feedback. Tsk tsk.
The husband brought back the boxed food that looked fine since it was catered by Wholesome Paws. The quality is still there, thankfully. However, the resort's kitchen consistently forgot to give us the miso broth along with the kiddos' Japanese breakfast option. I wasn't bothered since I had bone broth for the kiddos. BUT, it's just a matter of attention to details. Tsk tsk. They did remember my request to alternate the kiddos' menu daily.
Most staycations with/for floofs work if you're staying a night or two, or yours take dry food with cooked toppers. Mine's on raw and sous vide. I need proper storage. The usual hotel rooms don't cut it unless they offer a real fridge and not a mini bar that can't keep cooked food chilled.
This suite offers a full fridge and freezer — I maximized it by bringing my whole kitchen and plenty of food for the floofs. I like to be neat at the prep and wash area, so I brought dishwashing liquid, brushes, disinfectant spray, food storage boxes, well... everything.
My floofs ate very well on this staycation. Choya is now demanding to eat four times a day. The total volume of food remains within range. I simply divvy up into four feeds. My schedule is literally worked around hers. This Ryo has also learnt from Choya; he wonders what's so fun in her bowl. He does check it out when she's done but I didn't offer him food, so he has learnt to ask me for food. When he's over at ours, he has taken to eating thrice a day; even on Sentosa with us too. This week, I gave Ryo an extra 60g per day, and for Choya, an additional 35g would suffice. They can't be over-eating too. With the extra exercise and fun smells on Sentosa, they're both mentally and physically stimulated, and have a voracious appetite.
No comments:
Post a Comment