Prior Preparation and Planning Prevent Piss Poor Performance
I first travelled to Singapore in 2008 with a good friend of mine. While we were there we darted off to KL for a few days and took in some of the local sights, as well as attractions (there is a hidden pun there – sorry, private jokes are so bad, but if anyone knows Sissy, you’d know what I mean!) Anyway, we elected to go by VIP bus. We had heard about how good it was, and cheap, and so we did it. Without a lot of research, we jumped on one of the services (the name has seriously escaped the pair of us) and we were dropped off in some dingy bus terminal/car park with hordes of teksis (how Malaysian’s spell taxi) who were unwilling to run their meters for us.
So we elected to walk.
It was hot, uphill, long and we were dragging our luggage along for the ride. Did I mention it was hot?
We stayed at a hotel, Corus, pretty much across the road from the Petronas Towers. Not bad at the time, cheap, free wifi in their lobby (BTW they don’t have this any more), and not too bad. Especially for the price. The bad point was though, that another bus company ran VIP busses TO THE DOOR!!!
It’s now 2011.
I had forgotten a lot of the lessons learned in 2008 – especially the difficulty in organising and coordinating international travel between countries, that aren’t your home country, and that (despite official languages) don’t speak great EngRish). When I decided to visit KL with my wife I did look briefly at the Corus hotel, but quickly dismissed it for some reason (it wasn’t the wifi!), and went with the Novatel. Now this is no dig on the Novatel, they are a good Hotel and I would recommend them again, Well, we’re still here and haven’t had any problems so far. BUT, and here’s where the 7 P’s come into it… When it came to organising the bus (long after I had BOOKED the accommodation), I booked with the bus company that dropped us off at the Corus Hotel. But the Novatel is closer to the car park/bus station that Andrew and I had taken in 2008!
Is that irony?
No, it’s just those 7 bloody damn P’s