3 days at The Westin Langkawi

We were all excited to get to Langkawi because we had heard it was beautiful and the girls were looking forward to doing something they would like. These four plane tickets and baggage fees were the most expensive intra-Asia flights and all in were $438.

The flight to Langkawi was uneventful but as was the case with most of our transfers, we managed to pick the worst line for immigration. We were just about the last people through, but at least our luggage was ready to go. We had a bit of confusion about where to find a cab, but eventually found the cab stand.

They have a nice system where you go to the cab stand, tell them where you are going, and there is a fixed price. You pay the people at the counter and they give you a slip you take out to the cab line. The hotel was about 30 minutes away and the cab was only $11. While Joe was getting cash from the ATM and setting up the cab, I got some snacks from a Starbucks in the terminal.

The cab was quick and easy and the drive reminded us a lot of Bali, only a bit nicer. We arrived at the Westin Langkawi at about 2:00pm but our room wasn’t ready yet so they gave us a coupon for 50% off lunch. We went to one of the restaurants and Joe said to order whatever we wanted, probably for the first time since I have known him. He ordered a filet mignon for lunch (possibly the only meal he ordered entirely for himself on the entire trip) that was only $16 after the discount and the cheap Malaysia food prices.

It was a good start to our time at the resort, and the room was ready when we finished.

Where are the pools?

10 seconds of calm

50% off tastes good

As we mentioned before, we were focusing our stays primarily with Starwood and Hyatt on this trip, so we ended up picking the Westin over the Andaman, both Starwood properties. This was a fairly expensive redemption at 16,000 points per night, for a total of 48,000 for the 3 night stay, but it was supposed to be nice and we felt there would be a good chance at an upgrade. We applied three of our Suite Night Awards to this stay and they cleared five days before check-in and booked us into the One Bedroom Suite. It has a separate living and sleeping area, big patio overlooking the Andaman Sea and nice bathroom. It was on the first floor and very close to the pools.

Welcome amenity.  They traded out the wine for 2 cans of Diet Coke!

The resort had four pools and a beach area. It was not a great beach but to our surprise, the girls LOVED being at the beach. Despite some initial fear of the waves, both wanted to be at the beach as much as possible. They loved looking for shells, playing in the sand and wading in the water. This was a complete change from their previous beach experiences which they did not like at all.

We spent most of the afternoon at the pools and beach and then came back to the room for dinner. Room service at most of the places was quite affordable (compared to US room service prices) and the kids’ meals here were especially great. For about $4 the girls could get a great meal and big glass of milk. The adult meals were also quite good and reasonably priced, so we did room for all of our non-breakfast meals.

Main pool.  Our room was to the left of the picutre

Kids pool.  Played lots of "Randall" here

The Andaman Sea was very pretty

The best part of a suite with separate living and sleeping areas is being able to put the girls down and still be able to do things without the fear of waking them up. We got a crib for Lizzy and made the couch into a bed for Annie, which she loved. We stayed in our room, ordered dinner and started watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. We quickly noted that Lizzy does many things that remind us of Gollum.

Gollum

The girls slept great throughout the entire trip. While Annie woke up a couple of nights, Lizzy slept straight through every single night. 

Getting too big for hotel cribs!

The next morning, as we did every morning of the trip, we went to the complimentary breakfast. The Asian breakfast buffets are known to be very extensive, but we found ourselves not loving them. Joe hates buffets of all types, and with the girls, it is a bit of a chore to find something they will eat, get them going, and then go back to find something for us. It’s not that they are bad, but it would have been nice to just order the one or two things we wanted and not have to go to the buffet and fight the crowds.

We spent the morning at the pools, had lunch in the room, and then napped with the girls. After lunch we went and found the kids club and playground. Our girls were too young to be left, but we were allowed to use the facilities, which they loved. The kids club was indoors near the fitness center and had coloring, cars and bikes, balls, bubbles and lots of other toys. It was great and a nice way to keep them happy and give them a break from the sun.

My coverup looks super weird and unflattering

Ball pit at the kids club

We headed to the beach on the way back to the room and let them play there for about an hour right around sunset as they filled up buckets of water and poured it on the sand for most of the time. It was a really gorgeous setting and a very different view from the beach than we had ever experienced. The multiple islands shortly across the way made for some very beautiful scenery. We swam a bit in the pools to get the sand off us and then went back to the room for dinner, some Little Mermaid, baths and bedtime. Perhaps the best part of the trip was that each night, they were so tired from the day of activities that they were oftentimes asleep within a minute of being in bed. Lizzy even fell asleep sitting at the table one night. We continued watching Lord of the Rings and called it a night pretty early.



The third day was similar and the highlight was seeing a monkey walking around near the playground area.

The next morning it was already time to start packing up and getting ready for the flight to Kuala Lumpur. It was at this point that we realized we had planned in too many changes of location and were spending too much time packing, taking airport transfers, waiting in the airport, flying, and getting through customs. We looked at trying to remove one of the upcoming legs, but since we were trying to do this trip pretty cheaply, it was going to cost too much to make the changes. We decided to leave it as is, learn from our mistakes and make our plans less ambitious in the future.

We played at the pool for a few hours before heading back to the room and getting things ready for the next adventure.

Nerd alert

Sisters

Best friends

The cab was cheap and quick to the airport and we got there with plenty of time to spare. They had a local fast food chicken restaurant in the terminal, which somehow was completely out of chicken. We got the girls some curly fries, a giant Hersey’s Symphony Bar with Toffee and went through security. In the gate area, the Westin had a lounge for guests of the hotel. This was the first time I had seen a hotel have an airport lounge anywhere but the Maldives. We checked in there and found out that because we are Platinum with Starwood, all food and drinks were complimentary, which was nice because we had not really had lunch. We had some sandwiches and drinks, grabbed some waters and boarded the cheapest flight we have ever taken.

Bye bye Langkawi.  Hope to see you again soon!