Jeff and I had a room booked at the Centara Grand at Central World. The mall is my favorite mall and the Red Sky is my favorite roof top bar, so staying there seemed like something we should do. For extra fun, I got a deal on a club room through Agoda, and wow, the club part totally made the experience. Our plan was to drop off the car at the hotel, go to Ocean World at Siam Paragon, come back to Central World for some shopping, and then check into the hotel and put Young and the girls in a taxi to go back home,
The best way to get from Central World to Siam Paragon is on the sky walk, but getting from the hotel, to the mall, to the sky walk, is a bit of a challenge. The hotel only connects to the mall on floors 3,5, and 7, and in all three cases you have to walk through the parking garage to get from one to the other. To make it extra fun and interesting, the sky walk is on the 2nd floor. It's a very typical Thailand set up. We're used to this way of doing things by now though, so we just took it in stride and maneuvered to where we wanted to be. We had Elena in the stroller, but it was the quick collapse umbrella one, so we could easily hop on escalators when necessary.
We enjoyed the sky walk and when we got to Ocean World it was busy, but not so crowded that you couldn't get to what you wanted to see.
Vivian is always up for a fun a photo pose.
(Those crabs really are pretty freaky!)
The extra fun part this time though, was Elena being old enough to really get into what we were doing. She still hasn't caught on to actually posing for the camera, but that's okay. She and Vivi had a lot of fun with this little tunnel.
Elena was having so much fun, in fact, that she didn't want to get out, but there were other kids waiting for a turn, so out she had to come. She got upset with us pretty much every time we took her away from an exhibit, but then she recovered as soon as she saw the next one.
There's even a little play ground inside, very conveniently located next to the bathrooms, so it was perfect for a pit stop.
Then it was into the underwater tunnel for a spectacular finish.
This one shark area is especially cool.
You'd think we would have maxed out on fun by then, but we couldn't resist going back to Central World for pretzels, ice cream, and a quick stop at our favorite book store.
Each girl got a new book, and then it was time to put them in a taxi with Young and send them home. Elena had hit her limit, so she pitched a bit of a fit on the walk to the taxi. Luckily, we had brought her back up car seat, and once she was strapped in she calmed down. We waved good bye, and Young told us later that both girls fell asleep in the taxi.
Jeff and I freshened up and headed to Red Sky for happy hour.
We figured we would play dinner by ear, but we also wanted to check out the cocktails and canapes in the club lounge on the 51st floor. The view was great,
the alcohol was complimentary, and there were lots of fairly substantial food choices, so we decided to just stay there. There were only a few other people in the lounge, and there were several staff people there who very helpfully brought us more wine whenever our glasses got low. We may have gotten a bit tipsy.
After an hour of that fun, we decided we should explore the mall, which was still hopping well into the night. I took Jeff to the Jim Thompson store, and we found a perfect tie, which I made the executive decision to buy for him. We definitely got turned around and lost a bit in the mall, but it was a fun adventure, and we eventually found our way back to the hotel.
In the morning we went back to the club lounge for a delicious breakfast, and then got home with minimal traffic. It was a great outing, and the club option paid for itself and added some extra indulgence to the staycation.
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