Yesterday is the day that Hubby & I are all excited about this long waited "stay-cation" at the hyped Marina Bay Sands Hotel. This hotel has 2,561 rooms and suites in all. I have always been impressed by how grand the lobby is and been quite sure that it is indeed the jewel of Singapore.
So we booked 4 rooms with the help of Li San. When we reached there, it really looked at Macau Venetian, but instead of Chinese tourists, we are welcomed by a lot of uncouth Singaporeans.
They sat everywhere on the polished marble floor, gorging their tabaos of chicken rice, playing PSP, iPhones. They do not carry luggage, one family could have up to 10 recycle bags holding their belongings. Very tak-glam. Cannot resist to use Singlish to describe.
Then it hit me that there is a super long queue to check into the hotel. Try to locate me if you can! And that colour wall behind the counter is hideous.
We started queueing at about 2.50pm and when it's finally our turn, it's already near 5pm. 2 hours of queueing. We were so glad to be serve by this Brandon, who tried very very hard to put all the 4 rooms together, or at least in the same tower. His face grew into a worried frown. I joked with him saying that he can put us in the suites. He said he actually checked all the suites that is available and he is afraid that they are fully booked for the day. Total can't find any available rooms. I asked him if there are no rooms, what about the 50 - 80 people behind us, still hopefully thinking that they will be check in, somehow.
He have to grab every room that comes available. There at about 15 check in counters and all have to grab whatever that is coming up, it reminds me of stock market. Finally he got us 3 rooms at 45th floor of Tower 1 and another at 28th floor of the same tower. That took us about 30 mins. Brandon said that all the rooms are available but dirty. We will have to come back for the room key later.
We proceed to lunch at the most affordable place -- The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, as the temporary food court is packed. Again we queue to get in. That took about 10 mins. We ordered food in lighting speed but lunch takes forever to come. They served us a tea which we did not order. Hubby and sis-in-law's food came quite quickly except for my Penne de Roast Chicken. I gave a little chase and it came. I gobbled up everything in 10 mins. I'm totally famished. My lil' one needs to be fed. Not to mention I have remained standing for 2.5 hrs.
As we are kinda eager to get to the Skypark for a good spot for fireworks, Erbao gave his card to one blur chap to skip asking for bill. Guess what? The guy lost his credit card in a matter of seconds and unprofessionally looked for it in our table and the next table that he went to before losing the card. He asked us twice if we handed him a credit card, we said yes. all 3 pairs of eyes staring at him. He must be intimidated. Then we asked for the manager to tell her what happened, as different guy came and flashed the card in his hand. We were relieved and disgusted. I told that manager that this is unacceptable and we must be compensated. So we got a 10% discount off the bill. I don't really care about the absolute discount but this unpleasant incident just made their food & service not worth a single cent.
We got back at the hotel lobby to get our key cards, without which we cannot gain access to the Skypark. We approached one staff who issued 6 empty room cards to us. 1 card can bring 1 guest. Perhaps the rooms are ready so we tried asking our actual room keys from the check-in counters. True enough, all 3 rooms at the 45th floor are ready. We went up to our rooms to find that it faces the highway, not the city view. Nonetheless we are grateful for the high floor.
Without further ado, NDP rehearsal will start soon so we hurried to the Skypark. The park is packed, real packed. Once again, disgusted. More crowd than any public pool that I have been to. Rowdy kids running around, tak-glam grandparents stay behind shades to enjoy their tabaos. On the other hand, the view is indeed breathtaking.
The pool is facing the west and the sun is quite strong that day. There are sunscreens that separate the park and the pool. A family friend pulled up the screen, getting ready to watch the fireworks. An angry and rude security guard come around to pull the screen back down and say that we cannot do this. Erbao asked him why we can't have the screens up as we are all here to watch the fireworks from the most ideal spot in the whole island. He did not explain but say "No" sharply and rudely.
He did not manage to pull all the screens back down and the first round of fireworks started. The public is standing in his way to work. He wanted us to back off so that he can pull the screens down. Erbao didn't let him and reason with him. He insisted than I finally swing into action saying "We respect that you have a job here and you are trying to do your job. But we could have let you do your job if you are more courteous. You have been very rude which made us very unhappy and we will not let you do you job." Moments later more guards came, we don't care. But they are here to let up all the screens. Haha... we won the battle. :)
The fireworks are really specular from the Skypark and it ended in a grand finale. Making our way down is again another queue. While queueing, a VVVIP appear. MM Lee aka 老李, surrounded by his own fleet of guards emerged from the lift lobby. We only experience silence and people murmuring "Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Kuan Yew"...
Then we get back into our queue to wait for lift. The security guards started their shouting again asking the public to back off from dunno what?!?
[to be continued, the worst haven't come!]
