Lexis Hibiscus Port Dickson Resort Review

Dates of Stay:

2 - 3 Jan 2016

Address: 12th mile jalan pantai, 5, Jalan Pantai, 71250 Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
Phone:+60 6-660 2626
Website: http://www.lexishibiscuspd.com/
Email: reservations@lexishibiscuspd.com

sunrise on the beach

We travelled to Port Dickson over the weekend to attend a friend's wedding in the resort. We took Golden Coach Express from City Plaza (Paya Lebar) straight to the resort. It was hassle free as it was direct all the way! No need to figure out how to get to the resort from airport or bus terminals!

Our bus departed at 8.30am from City Plaza and arrived at about 2.30pm at Lexis Hibiscus. There's a large lobby, but only one word to describe it. Chaos.



hotel lobby

This photo above was taken in the evening after dinner when it was less crowded. When we arrived, there were hordes of people waiting in line and all around the lobby. People waiting for family, people waiting to check in, people lounging on the limited sofas. Luckily, our friend has already checked in for the wedding entourage and all we needed to do was look for him and take our keys from him.

additional lounge area in the lobby.

After getting our keys, we waited in line for a buggy to bring us to our villa! Although the line may seem long, the wait was fast. The buggy line may seem like an eyesore in a resort (where serenity and bliss is essence), it does keep all the guests in an orderly fashion and the staff will be able to serve guests base on first come first serve basis. Once on the buggies, the drivers will actually note down which villa numbers you're going to! It always seems like there's a long line waiting for buggies always and I really want to applaud the drivers for doing such a fantastic job!

queue for buggies!

ROOM

Finally! We're at our villa! We got Villa 21 which is near enough to walk to the lobby, but not facing the walkway or lobby area. Our villa faces the private beach where you can see families playing in the water.

Apparently all villas comes with 2 king sized beds fit for 4 persons. Too bad we were only two and had the whole villa to ourselves!

two king beds

writing table and TV

I was excited to find that items in the minibar are complimentary... until I opened it. Considering that Lexis Hibiscus is a newly opened property, there's visible signs of wear and tear.

Two complimentary bottles of water in the mini bar.

items in the mini bar

Here comes the most exciting part of the villa! The bathroom! There's a square glass in the middle of the toilet floor to allow you to see what is beneath your villa! Too bad the waters aren't that clear or we might have seen fishes swimming. Also, it will be very hard to clean the glass in a few years time. The cleaners will have to row boats out under the villas to clean it! We already spotted 3 spiders spinning their webs on the corners underneath the glass. Usually, I'm quite squeamish when it comes to insects and their many-legged friends, but the glass was so thick and stable, that I just enjoyed sitting on the toilet floor and watching the spiders spin their webs.

look! seaview!

The bathroom has a rainshower and the hand-held shower head. Sadly, the shower kept flooding to the point where the water overflowed the shower area and into the toilet. We had to keep in mind not to shower too long and had to use the bath towels to soak up the flooded water.

closet

The bathroom is large and spacious with potentially a good view! Too bad, we were facing the beach instead of the sea. The counter tops were stained though, with old water marks and were not as clean as I liked. I had to use face towels to lay on the counter tops, next to the sink and lay my stuff out. Too bad.

Sauna

Walking through the bathroom, there's a sauna located outside next to the plunge pool. It's a nice touch, considering that not a lot of resort rooms come with your own personal sauna! However, just above the sauna, there'a an aircon unit. The cage that contains the aircon unit is wide open and even the cover of the aircon unit itself is not covered! That's so dangerous! Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the aircon unit.

In room amenities

Mini bar and tea bags come complimentary, but it's so sad looking right? 1 green tea bag, 1 packet of white sugar and 2 english breakfast teas.

In the morning, we realized we could open the blinds at the top to allow natural sunlight to filter into our room. I felt that it was a nice touch and it's so beautiful to see the colours of sunrise while still in your own privacy.

F&B

IN-ROOM DINING

I'm sorry I don't have any photos of my In-room dining meal, but let me tell you about my experience. I pressed the in-room dining button about three times, and all three times the phone rang and rang and no one answered.

I called Operator and spoke to a very lovely lady. I told her I'm trying to make an order but no one is picking up. So, she tried to contact me with the department, to no avail too. She took my order (finally...) and told me she will relay the message to IRD. 15 mins later, someone from IRD called to reconfirm my order and told me the order will take 1 hour or less. At this point, I was irritated and hungry. I was HANGRY.

The food came 1 hour 15 mins later and it was lukewarm. You can't imagine my disappointment.

We ordered Oxtail soup and chicken wings. The oxtail soup is delicious, if only it was hotter. There's generous chunks of oxtail and the broth is so flavourful. Chicken wings was a generous portion as well about 6 pcs of both wings and drumstick. The chicken wings were well seasoned on the outside but it was quite bland on the inside.

ROSELLE COFFEE HOUSE

roselle coffee house

roselle dining area

After our IRD meal, we were still quite hungry and were deciding between Roselle Coffee House or the Japanese Restaurant. Both were serving buffet dinner and we couldn't really decide. We scoured TripAdvisor and decided that Roselle had more and better reviews as compared to the Japanese restaurant.

beef wellington

Roselle Coffee House served grilled meat and other types of local and international cuisines. Grilled platter consisted of roasted lamb, beef, chicken, you name it. They had all kinds of salads, vegetables, satay and even beef wellington. 

The meats were cold, tough and just simply quite a nightmare to eat. The satay was tough, the bread was stale and the mushrooms were salty.

Not to mention, we were consistently attacked by houseflies. We were ushered to a table for 2 covered in about 30 houseflies. I kid you not. We didn't want to sit at the table allocated to us, so we requested to sit at an area where there's more people and less houseflies. We even had to take our own insect repellent that they were burning from another table who had left.

insect repellent

The only saving grace of this restaurant was the dessert buffet. The desserts were delicious and the pastry chef was outside often enough to explain to us what the desserts where! You could see the passion of the chef and how proud he was when we told him the desserts were fantastic!

dessert buffet

You have to try the bread pudding and the tarts!

dessert

We paid RM196 for 2 persons. That is a lot of money for a grill that serves cold hard meat. We should have ordered In-room dining for dinner. At least the food will come lukewarm (not cold) and we could have saved the money.

HOUSEKEEPING

So before we went out for dinner, I called housekeeping to come in and change the towels and bathrobes (due to the flooded shower) and clear our IRD dishes that we placed outside while we are out for dinner. When we came back.... nothing was moved. I left specific instructions to enter the room and change the towels and even clear the tray. Of course, I had to call and wait for about 30 mins again.

SUMMARY

I would rate the whole experience 2/5 stars. The 3 stars which I took away is because of the bad dining experience, bad housekeeping experience and the bloody flooded shower.

And the only reason there's even a 2 stars is because the staff are so friendly and nice! The pastry chef, the buggy drivers, staff controlling the buggy queue. They're all so wonderful and friendly and Lexis Hibiscus really need to buck up their game or else, it's such a shame to have such wonderful staff, but their own basic products are lacking.

I actually emailed the hotel regarding the shortfalls, like the flooded shower, the bad food at the restaurant and even how long IRD takes. No one bothered to reply me even after about 2 weeks. It just goes to show much commitment and how much they value their guest's feedback.

Will I come back here again? Probably not.

Ha Long Bay - Oriental Sails

We visited Hanoi, Vietnam for a short 4 days, 3 nights trip. We missed our ex-classmate's wedding and we had to clear some of our annual leave. Might as well use this opportunity to visit and bring some gifts over!

Dates of travel: 10-13 October 2015

This post will be broken up to two parts: Hanoi & Ha Long Bay.

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Oriental Sails

Since we were in Hanoi, we didn't want to miss out visiting Ha Long Bay. I'm damn sure I didn't regret going to Ha Long Bay for a 2 day 1 night cruise.

First, we shopped online for an affordable cruise that we liked on https://www.bestpricevn.com/halongbaycruises/. We managed to find one we liked and suited to our budget. I emailed them directly for a good price. Of course, what the online travel agent quoted to us is different from what the operator quotes us. Whichever one you book with, make sure that the final price includes the transfer from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay.

Oriental Sails is the lowest category out of 3 other cruises they have. It suited our needs just fine and we didn't need a super luxurious cruise anyway.

Price: USD150 (converted and paid in Vietnam Dong)
Includes: Accommodation, Food (lunch, dinner, breakfast & lunch), entrance fees, kayaking, squid fishing

Since we were staying out of the Hanoi Old Quarters, we had to take a taxi from our friend's place to Oriental Sails office. The pick up time was at 7.45am and then we boarded the mini bus and embarked on our 3 hour long journey from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. After 1.5 hours of bus ride through padi fields and Northern scenery, we stopped for a short break to stretch our legs, some coffee and to send some postcards out.

Finally, we arrived at the port where we boarded a small speed boat to ferry us to the cruise ship. The ship is what they claim to be a traditional wooden junk boat converted to a cruise ship. to me, it was luxurious enough to be considered NOT a junk boat.

safety first

 On board, we were ushered to the dining room where we were given welcome refreshments and our rooms keys. The dining room boasts full length windows which allows natural sunlight to filter into the spacious cabin.

on board

 The welcome refreshment was mango juice and a hot towel to wipe away my sleep and to re-energize me for the cruise!

Welcome drink and warm towel

Roll calls and room keys were quickly given out. I must say we were quite lucky. The cruise is suited for about 36 pax, but there were only 17 of us!

Room

In the room, there are large windows in which we can open to allow some breeze and sunlight into the room. The beds were comfortable


our cabin room

Welcome fruits were placed inside the room as well! The platter consisted of bananas, a mango, rambutans, grapes (which were not sweet) and an odd green fruit which we never got round to eating. We suspect it's an orange or lime of some sort.

welcome fruits

 The cruise ship was recently renovated, thus everything looked new and clean! The bathroom is spacious! They even provided bath soap and shampoo!

toilet

There's a window in the toilet for you to enjoy the view while showering. That's provided there's no one else outside watching you! Both of us would have preferred if there were curtains to cover the windows as during the night when we're docked for the night, there's other cruise ships around the bay. You never know who may just be looking in!

bathroom 

Deck

The cruise has a total of 3 levels. The rooms were located on the 1st and 2nd levels. The dining room and bar on the 2nd level, and the sun deck and a nice al fresco siting area on the 3rd level! It was too cold for us to sun bathe though. Even though the cruise was recently renovated, the deck chairs were obviously not replaced. Most of the chairs had holes right in the middle of the chair and luckily there were not many people on board fighting for a deck chair.

deck chairs

 Because we're traveling in a bay, there's not much waves. Suitable for people who's prone to sea-sickness!

ha long bay!

Food

Activities

Hiking

The cruise includes several activities such as exploring a cave! Our guide brought us "hiking" where shoes were recommended. However, we left all our shoes back in Hanoi! We managed well in just slippers though. This is a dry activity, though all the climbing drenches you in sweat.

If you follow your guide closely enough, she'll explain things like how the sea level was so high millions of years ago that it causes the wave like patterns on the roof of the cave.

cave

more climbing

After all the climbing up the stairs and through the cave, you'll reach the peak of the... island?

view of the bay

 All that climbing really paid off! What a view!



panoramic view of the bay!

Squid Fishing

In the evening, after dinner there's also a KTV session and squid fishing! We totally skipped the KTV and were out to the tender boat in hopes of catching some squid!

squid fishing!

 I caught a crab instead!

Tai Chi

tai chi

If you're able to wake up early enough, there's tai chi classes in the morning at 6.30am.

 Kayaking

On the second day, we went kayaking in the bay!