LONDON & FINLAND TRIP – PEMBRIDGE PALACE HOTEL & HOTEL RIVOLI JARDIN HELSINKI, YR 2019 – LOW SIEW GEE

We traveled to London on 20th January – 3rd February 2019 and we stayed at Pembridge Palace Hotel. It was indeed a fruitful experience with Interval International to assist on my booking and I use the Priceline exchange system. Normally what I do is, I will secure my hotel / resort booking first and before I book my flights. My wife and I are immediate travelers. Since we have both retired, we don’t have a fix time to travel. If I felt like traveling in a week’s time, I will log in to Interval International to look for nice resorts and if it’s secure, I will book my flight and we are all set to fly. The whole process is immediate and confirmation is on-the-spot.

We flew through Qatar Airways with one stop at Doha Airport for 3 hours. We normally arrive at our destination in the morning so that we don’t waste time and got the whole day to settle down and plan the day accordingly. For departure, we will normally depart later in the afternoon after check-out so that we can make full use of your time. We spend about RM5,000 for the return flight alone for 2 Pax. Qatar Airways’ food is good, the price is fantastic and for the last few trips that I have been traveling timing is good too.

There are few interesting places that we visited like the Victoria and Albert Museum, Westminster Cathedral, Parliament Square and Buckingham Palace which is a must-visit place. Some of the places of interest had a very nice view and we took a lot of photographs. One of the places that captured our hearts was Tower Bridge which people always confused it with London Bridge. What’s nice about this city is that everything is a walking distance and we just commute via the subways, trams and buses. When it comes to food, we share most of the meals among each other as the portion is too big. We love their Fish and chips because they used cod fish and its very fresh. Just be careful with Pizza as their portion is really huge. Probably 4-5 people can eat a regular-size pizza. Next, we went to try some delicious Chinese food in London China Town. Although you can get it in Malaysia, but I feel the food here taste really good too. Overall, our total car rental and petrol for 10 days is around RM 1,500 – RM 1,600, food expenditure for 10 days is about RM 1,600 for the both of us. If we were to rent using Priceline, we always make sure the hotels come with breakfast or if in the Interval International Apartment, we will cook on our own.

When we first arrived in London, we only wanted to chill and relax after a long flight. On the second day onwards, we visited a few museums, went shopping and indulge in delicious food. We repeated the same thing throughout our entire 10 days journey in London. We don’t have any complaints on our room. It’s just a city hotel, like those old buildings which were transformed into hotels and almost similar to some of the historic places hotels concepts in Malaysia.

One of the special highlights during our visit was the opera house. It’s definitely a must-visit if you are heading to London.

Then, we continue our holiday journey by travelling to Finland on 27th March 2019 to 10th April 2019 and we stayed at Hotel Rivoli Jardin Helsinki. It was indeed a fruitful experience with Interval International to assist on my booking and I use the exchange booking system.

We flew from London using Qatar Airways and landed in Helsinki before we travel by train to Tampere and visited a number of places such as the Kampin Kappeli, Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki Cathedral, Nalkalan Rantapurto, Tampere Kauppahalli, Pygnikin Nakotormi, Tampere Railway Sattion, Arktikum Museum, Tampere Momin Museum, Rovaniemi, Science Centre and many other interesting places. One of the main highlights for the traveling is Rovaniemi which is the hometown of Santa Claus and the capital of Lapland which is situated right at the Artic Circle.  We then enjoy our hunting for the Northern Lights, which is the well-known Aurora Borealis. When it comes to food, we tried the roasted reindeer meat it’s one of their authentic food. In total, we spend approximately RM10,000 for food and visiting places of interest.

The hotel which we stayed at was good and nice to stay in. Since it had a kitchen, we do cook at times.

I am very happy to be a SGI VC member because Vacation Club is very expensive in overseas as compared to Malaysia. In Malaysia, it’s considered very affordable because we get good hotel / resorts to stay with a price that is not expensive. You just need to top up with an exchange fee which is not expensive. It is because the hotels are really expensive in overseas, by being a SGI VC member, you can really save on your accommodation and the savings can be spent on other things during your travel.

For all SGI VC members, please utilised your entitlement nights if you can afford to travel overseas. It’s really worth it and it is much cheaper than booking a room on your own.