I've never celebrated Halloween and I'm not fond of staycations since a night stay at a local decent hotel is the same price as an air tix to a neighbouring country. The last time I went for a staycation was two years ago, I utilised a Groupon deal at Orchard Mandarin and I wouldnt say that the experience was satisfying.
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| Front of the hotel ( took this shot when we went out at night) |
Neverthless, after signing up for the inaugural Hello Kitty run, colleague E told me he's planning a staycation as we had some logistic concerns about traveling to Sentosa for the run, on top of that there was no baggage deposit service for this run (I've always made use of one for all my races). Turned out that a staycation was a good decision, and it also saved us a lot of trouble in the end. Our only regrets was it was only a one night stay and we did not have time to explore the island at all!
My first choice of a hotel was actually RWS but it was fully booked since it was the actual night of Halloween. The next nearest hotels to the start point of the run are Amara Sanctuary and Movenpick Heritage Hotel. From my research at Tripadvisor and Agoda, the review for Amara Sanctuary is not as good as Movenpick, although I stayed there during the night of my sister's wedding (she held her banquet at the same hotel) and I find it quite alright for a family stay. I decided to splurge and try out Movenpick, even though only the premium room was available by the time I made the booking, the good reviews managed to convince me. I'm glad that I've accumulated enough points on Agoda to off-set most of the taxes for the booking.
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| Nice view of the merlion from the comfy king's size bed |
We were busy in school on the day of check-in, and we only arrived at the hotel at 6.30pm even though we could check in at 3pm. The initial plan was to chill and explore a little of the Sentosa Island that night so that we can fully utilise the hotel stay, but E was looking for people to buy the tickets for Halloween Horror Nights so that there's group discount. We already had the idea of going for one of these events this year (Spookatular/ HHN), and we readily agreed.
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| Nespresso machine with the capsules and TWG teabags |
After checking into the hotel, the same staff who helped us with the check-in at the counter took us to our room personally, and I was amazed by the size of the room, it was a kind breathtaking experience as it's the biggest room I've ever stayed locally. We have no regrets for booking the Merlion premium room at all (although it was more costly!) After she pressed some buttons at the bedside, the automated blinds went up and the gigantic merlion was staring at us through the glass windows. Initially, I thought the view cant be really good since they gave us the second floor, but I changed my mind. The hotel room was really spacious with two TV (one in front of the bed and another at the 'living room' area), the living room sofa area can be completely closed off from the bedroom so there will be no issues if guests are invited over. There is also a Nespresso machine with some complimentary Nespresso capsules to try out the gourmet coffee, TWG teabags and so on...
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| The walk in wardrobe with the robes |
Connected to the bedroom and the living room (there were two sliding doors) was a walk-in wardrobe, bathtub area and very spacious shower area. I loved the Yukata style robes they provided, its of matching design with the comfortable slippers, and the slippers are labeled "For Him" and "For Her" although both were of the same design and size. They provided a thicker bathroom robe that's lined with cotton/wool? and I found it really helpful when coming out of the shower area, the air-con was on in the room and I was really shivering! The toiletries are held in a unique dim sum steamer style container and they're all individually wrapped.
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| The cute dim sum holder with toiletries and personal effects |
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| Big bathtub which we didnt get to use |
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| Nice sandwiches from room service |
Once we checked in, we should get dinner and make our way to HHN but that was not what we did. P starting snoozing immediately and just like what always happened what we go to theme park, we only planned to get there after it's opened for hours. We are really the most relaxed theme park explorers I've ever seen and most of the time, the best part of the day is spent in the hotel room wherever we go. As P was snoozing, I felt hungry as my last meal was lunch in school, so I started snacking on the Mars bar even though it cost $3, I also tried making coffee from the Nespresso machine for the first time in my life (I won one Nespresso machine from a lucky draw two years ago but it's still sitting in the cupboard collecting dust). It tasted good but I'm really not a coffee person so I cant tell the difference between the good and bad coffee. After a hot shower, I still felt hungry so I looked through the room service menu and ordered a set of sandwiches, the staff informed me that it would take 40min but it came much earlier than the estimated time. The sandwich came in bigger portion than expected and saved us the trouble of looking for dinner (P woke up once he smell the aromatic fries), I would say that the $18 is quite a reasonable price considering the quality of food and its room service. The food was served in a nice Indonesian style wooden tray and instead of giving us Ketchup in sachets like what people normally do, Movenpick actually provided a mini bottle of Heinz Ketchup, its so cute that I brought the unfinished bottle home for keepsake.
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| Shot of the merlion across the road when we went out |
After getting our stomach filled, we finally get dressed and make our way to HHN at USS. The Imbiah monorail station is right in front of the hotel and USS is only one stop away, we could walk there if we wanted to but we hopped onto the monorail since its complimentary. It was already 10pm and I expected the crowd at HHN to thin out near midnight, thinking that most people need to catch the last transport out of the island but that was not what happened. Its really not a good idea to go to HHN on the night of Halloween itself, it was super duper crowded and we got tired at 1am before it even got any less crowded. Its my first experience at a Halloween themed event so I was still quite excited when we first entered.
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| At the entrance |
Despite taking our own sweet time to enter the theme park, it was still crowded, and the word crowded is an understatement. We just roamed around at first, and marveled at how all the staff at USS had put on makeup to make themselves look spooky and ghostly. I didnt take any pictures but from the aunties at the entrance to the gals selling drinks at the booths, they were all in some kind of halloween makeup.
There were several actors in more elaborate costumes and looking like they walked out of the sets of the Lord of the Ring movies. We went to an open area Demoncracy, it looked like somewhere doomsday had struck and it was pretty convincing with big props like the fallen statue of liberty lying around. There were some acrobats dressed as demons doing stunts later that night but we missed most of the show by the time we wandered there.
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| Fallen statue of liberty at Demoncracy |
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| First haunted house |
The first haunted house we went to (Bogeyman) only have a very short queue and unlike traditional scare places, its outdoor with scare actors hiding behind props like mirrors and so on. Some of those actors did make me jump at certain points and I got a little freaked out by their makeup, and that got us a bit more hyped up to the atmosphere. There was also a booth where they did complimentary makeup for visitors and I must say those people roaming around with the makeup looked scarier than the scare actors.
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| The start of an endless queue |
We went to the next area named Jack's 3D Dementia and started joining the queue to visit, we totally
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| Scary tales, happily everafter? |
underestimated the time needed to queue and the long queue went twirling and twisting for countless times around the area behind the Waterfront monorail station. We didnt even know what we were queueing for and if it was worth the long time queueing up, some kids behind us gave up after half an hour and the midnight was fast approaching. I was glad we brought along bottled water from the hotel as plain bottled water was selling for a gross marked up price along the queue ($3), I wasnt surprised when many people stopped to buy water as it was a humid night and we had stood for almost an hour in queue. I would say that it was quite worth the wait and could be considered the highlight of our night as I've never thought of combining 3D concept with scary stuff like weird looking clowns and girls in nurse uniform. Try thinking of Joker from Batman movies in bright clothes jumping out at you from different corners. There was also this area with a spiral bridge where we felt unbalanced walking on it, and a flight of stairs which were actually just flat ground, everything was just our illusion with the 3D effects. We even laughed at ourselves when we imagined we would fall off the steps and feeling bewildered when its just normal flooring.
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| I'll think twice before visiting on Halloween night again |
I had a long day before HHN, plus standing for a long time at Jack's 3D Dementia took a toll on my ability to stay up late, I was feeling sleepy by the time we left and the crowd didnt look like it was thinning at all even though it was already past 12am. We went to another area Scary Tales, its a big outdoor area where innocent fairy tales characters and backdrops were turned into spooky and scary version, we didnt stay long there as its pretty much just an opened area to wander about. We tried going for another haunted house at the area where Waterworld is situated in the daytime, however after queueing for sometime, I was appalled at how the queue was managed and decided to call it a night. At that moment, I cant help comparing the standard of service at USS and Tokyo Disneyland, where long queues were involved. Perhaps I got used to how things were being so organised in Tokyo theme parks, so I felt really disgusted when the queue area was dark in USS. On top of that, after queueing for sometime, we realise that nobody was really managing the queue and we could be queueing in vain as the queue led to a few different directions. I was really dragging myself back to the hotel and didnt bother to shower again even though I perspired earlier, I felt like I was sinking into the comfortable bed once my head lay on it.
Part 2: Hello Kitty Run race review
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| Dark clouds brooding overhead |
We didnt want to wake up the next day, but it was time for the Hello Kitty Run, the main reason why we had a staycation at Sentosa. With the run starting at 8am, we took full advantage of our close proximity and only woke up at 7.30am. By that time, colleague E who also stayed over in Sentosa was already at the start line. As we took the monorail to the Harbourfront station, we could already see throngs of people at the Sentosa Gateway. I couldnt imagine what the organiser was thinking but they were trying to squeeze 20k participants into Sentosa that morning. Once we exited the monorail station, it was about 8am but we were already stuck among the crowd inching towards the start line really slowly. This is the first time I had to wait for 45min just to get to the start line and its really crazy. I could see that there were equal number of ladies and guys, most of them with friends and family, and many with young kids and prams. By that time, colleague E told me that he had already finished the run and then the nightmare started... Dark clouds began to appear overhead and it appeared that a heavy downpour is coming. Even if we had wanted to, it was difficult to squeeze out of the crowd to avoid the rain as we were already stuck among thousands of people. The rain came down before we even reached the start line, and I saw many frantic parents trying their best to shelter their young kids in the prams. Majority and the rest of us still started the race in good spirits even though we were drenched to the skin. Nobody was really running, it was just a fun walk in heavy rain and we decided to go on just for the fun of it, as it had been ages since we did something like this. E also informed us that the run was just slightly over 3km, so that should be fast.
As like other races, most people did not come in preparation of wet weather and everyone was drenched as the torrential rains came pouring down. Personally, I felt that the parents were brave and adventurous to take part in something like this with young children but I guess most of them were not mentally prepared for the crowd and the chaotic situation, now with the rain and all. My shoes were already wet and heavy right from the beginning, we kept thinking if we should just find our way back to the hotel as we trudged along, but we continued on for 2km. Along parts of the route, we saw decorative Hello Kitty balloon sculptures and stuff, which were perfect for photo moments. It would be a really nice run if it didnt rain, and despite the heavy rain, some people still stopped to take photographs.
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| Glad we still received the medal a month later |
We were really glad that we made the decision to stay on Sentosa the night before, at least we have the warm showers and a nice breakfast waiting for us, instead of getting stuck on crowded Sentosa drenched to the skin. When we reached the Beach Station, we could see the iconic Merlion marking the location of our hotel some distance away and we decided to divert from the crowd to head back. The finish line should be just a short distance away and our only motivation to get there is to get the medal, however, we reckon we will be stuck in the crowd again and it will take a long time for us to get back to hotel from there. Looking at the time, we are just an hour away from the end of our buffet breakfast at the hotel! So, we made up our mind to head back since we've also gotten tired of all the walking in the rain.
We were really glad to peel off our wet and heavy clothes, took a hot shower and went downstairs to enjoy our breakfast buffet spread, which we top up at a price of $25/pax. It's the first time I did not make it to the finish line of a race but proved to be a good decision as most people feedback about the chaotic situation at the event village, some people did not even get their medals while others were snatching more than one! There were a lot of backlash from the public after the run, I do not blame the organisers for the chaos during the rain but I do blame them for allowing too many participants during registration, at a very exorbitant price too!
I enjoyed the staycation on Sentosa but it was too short, I promised myself to make HNN a yearly event and to dedicate a full weekend stay for that in future.
In order to pacify the participants of the Hello Kitty run, the organisers told us to email them if we did not manage to get the medal, I was surprised that it really came in our mailbox a month later, at least restoring some faith I have for Pink Apple. A very pretty medal yay!
