Hotel Review: Avillion Admiral Cove, Port Dickson

Port Dickson may not be the cleanest and nicest beach around, but it is close to home. And kids love the beach!

Choosing a hotel in Port Dickson can be a tricky affair. Most of the hotels are not very well maintained. We finally settled for Avillion Admiral Cove as it is a fairly new hotel and the rooms on the website looked quite promising.

We turned up at the hotel without any reservation, but managed to get a room easily. However, I have to say I was really disappointed with the front desk service, the employees were actually very rude and not helpful at all. You know what they say about first impressions? First impressions do count, and I was not impressed. Personally, I think the people you put in reception should be warm and friendly, and make the guests feel welcomed.

The reception area is incredibly tiny, however decor is quite tasteful.

Avillion Admiral Cove is very much like a hotel-in-the-city but with a view of the sea. I say sea because, this hotel is actually located next to the Admiral Marina & Leisure Club and not by the beach. So, if you want to bring your kids to the beach, then this is not the hotel for you. Your best option would be Avillion Port Dickson, which actually has a beach.

The marina

So how are the rooms here? For PD standards, I would say it is good. But don't compare it with 4 and 5-star hotels in KL. The decor is contemporary. We went for the top of the range, Straits Studio and paid RM350.75. For a newly opened hotel, I was surprised to find that a lot of the furniture was already showing wear and tear.

The king sized beds were pretty comfy

Pangkin daybed

The sea view from our room

Million dollar houses in view

Sunset

The pool area was shaded by tall trees, so it was nice to play in it with the children.

Breakfast in Trader's Food Shop.

I was very disappointed with the quality of the buffet. The eggs were watery and the selection was pretty poor.

There were 2 things which really annoyed me during our stay here. Firstly, our room is located quite close to the lifts and I suspect that there is no soundproofing to the room walls. Everytime the lift is utilised, we can hear the doors opening "ding". It is even more noticable when you are trying hard to fall asleep at night. Secondly, when we were trying to relax by the pool between 8am-9am, we were interrupted the whole time by the loud buzzing noise from the grass cutter! Can't they cut the grass when there is less people by the pool, perhaps when it is a little hotter? Talk about common sense!

Overall, I wasn't very impressed with the service at this hotel/resort. Rooms were okay. Not really some place I would return to.

Room rate: RM350.75 for Straits Studio.

Website: http://www.avillionadmiralcove.com/

Location: Avillion Admiral Cove, 5 1/2th mile, Jalan Pantai, 71050 SiRusa, Port Dickson, Malaysia.

Tel: 06-6470888

Chinoz, The Gardens

After a long morning of shopping at Robinson's, we were tired and in dire need of feeding. Chinoz, which happens to be right next door to Robinson's seem like a good place to sit down, rest our feet and fill our stomachs. Besides, the 3-course set lunch at RM30++ per person looked like a pretty good deal to me.

chinoz at The Gardens

The gorgeous view from below

There were 2 menus to choose from; finally, we decided to try both since Hubby wanted the starter from one menu and the main from another and vice versa.

A choice of soft drink or Ice Lemon Tea with the set lunch - we both settled for the ILT. The ILT here is refreshing and not too sweet.

My starter was a clam chowder with a foccacia crisp - the chowder was very rich and velvety and really delicious to eat, and to my pleasant surprise there were quite a few bits of clam in there. (Sometimes you order a soup and it's just soup although the name suggests that it might have bits in it)

Hubby had the Aragula, dried tomato, olive and feta cheese salad. I am not a big fan of salads, but Hubby said the salad was good - light and healthy!

For the main course, I secretly wanted Hubby's Beef Wellington served with mashed potato, steamed vegetables and a peppercorn sauce but I let him have it instead since he patiently spent all morning shopping with me (and cos I love him :-P) .

The beef wellington was really good - the pastry was buttery, light and flaky. The beef was tender and complimented well by the peppery sauce.

I had the Penne with chicken meatballs and aubergine in a light creamy tomato sauce. I found the tomato sauce too tangy for my liking.

Both menus offered the same dessert, Baked apple and dates crumble with almond vanilla ice cream. The warm crumble and cold ice cream combination was wonderful.

Service: Good.

Price: Good value for money. I didn't expect the food to be this good for RM30 in The Gardens. Only the pasta dish disappointed slightly.

Location: Chinoz at The Gardens, G212 Ground Floor, The Gardens Mid Valley, Lingkaran Syed Putra, 59200 Kuala Lumpur.