We decided to go for an one day rejuvenation trip to Port Dickson after a long exhausted week for our wedding preparation. Avillion Resort was my first choice as I love its concept of the water chalets built over the sea feature an open-air bathroom. Imagine relaxing myself on a cozy bed in the room with a nice book in hand complimented by a splendid view overlooking the sea. How lovely!

Avillion Resort is located on the 3rd mile of 18km stretch of Port Dickson (PD) beach. It’s not difficult to get to Avillion once you reached PD town. The signboards along the road will lead you to Avillion Resort.

Spread over 17 acres of land, the resort offers a sumptuous spread of 300 rooms, consisting of the beach rooms, studios, garden and water chalets as well as the water villas. There are seven wings reaching out to the sea that housed the popular water chalets with windows that open out to the sea beneath you and the sky above.

The map of the resort with 7 wings reaching out to the sea

When I made the reservation online, I was given 3 types of room to choose from – Garden chalet, Water chalet and Premium water chalet. I would definitely go for water chalet, that is the whole idea I chose Avillion Resort. So I read through the descriptions of Water Chalet and Premium Water Chalet from Avillion Resort official website:

Water Chalet (MYR 400 per night) - Sitting on stilts above shallow waters, these signature Avillion chalets offers a spectacular sea view that will transport you away from the hustle and bustle of city living.

Premium Water Chalet (MYR 480 per night) - The Premium Water Chalets are located further out at sea and comes with an unblocked seaview of the Straits of Malacca from its private balcony.

Based on the descriptions, the only difference of Water Chalet and Premium Water Chalet was that Premium Water Chalets are located further out at sea. So I thought since Water Chalet offers a sea view as well, I would rather book the Water Chalet, even though it might be closer to the beach.

With high expectation and excitement, we reached Avillion Resort at 11:30 a.m. Even though the check-in time was supposed to be 3 p.m., we were allowed to check in earlier. I was expecting to be served with some cold drinks while waiting for check-in. Afterall, it’s a 5-star hotel with the high-end room rate. It was a disappointment that there was only one staff standing at the entrance of the lobby just to help to unload our luggage from the car to the lobby. There wasn’t any staff to help carrying our luggage and to lead us to our room, let alone serving us drink. The service was indeed quite bad in comparison to those 5 stars resorts in Phuket Island and Bali Island. I was always greeted with drink and souvenir whenever I checked in 5 stars resorts in Phuket or Bali. Whereas in Avillion Resort, we felt like everything needs to be self-service.

With 17 acres of land, it was quite a distance from the lobby to our room. On the way to our room, we passed through 2 swimming pools, a pet farm and some lush gardens.  It was a nice walk as we were surrounded by greenery as though we were trekking through the jungle.

It wasn’t very impressive when we stepped into our room. It was a decent room but definitely doesn’t deserve a 5-star pay. The furniture can be newer with RM480 they charge per night. The biggest disappointment was the so called ‘Sea View’.

Tell me if it isn’t ‘Neighbor View’

The room is facing OTHER ROOMS!! Why would I want to pay so much just to look at what my neighbors do in their balcony? It was absolutely unacceptable. So we immediately called the reception. The receptionist explained that the Water Chalets give only PARTIAL sea view.

If this is the case, they should have described it clearly in their official website rather than deceiving the guests by telling us ‘Spectacular sea view’. It completely defeated my purpose to come all the way to PD just to look at other chalets. So we requested to change to other room with better sea view. But we were told that the room we had was the Water Chalet room with best view. We then had no choice but to upgrade our room to Premium Water Chalet by paying an extra MYR 80 for an UNBLOCKED sea view.

It’s a decent room but rather small, and nothing to shout about with the rate that they charged. The tv was from dinosaur era. Its screen is slightly bigger than my house computer screen. The air-con was from amoeba era, it sounded so loud as if it was going to explode anytime soon. Don even turned it off as it disturbed our sleep. The only thing that worth mentioning was their bathroom. It’s very spacious with open-air design. You can look up the sky or peek at the ocean beneath your feet while taking shower.

This is the shower area. There is a bath tub too next to the shower.

Sounds like I complained more than compliment. The resort isn’t that bad in fact. Apart from the room, I like its greenery environment, well-maintained with plants and flowers.

This is Garden Chalets overlooking the pool. It’s definitely a way better choice than staying in Water Chalet.

Along the nature’s walking path, there are several lookout points overlooking the sea. The lookout points cater for those who stay in Garden Chalet, or the chalets that are facing other chalets.

It’s time to give some credits to the resort. There are 2 awesome swimming pools located in 2 different areas. The pools are huge enough for the pool lovers.

This is the pool located next to the restaurant.

There is a kid pool with a slide. As a man child, Don slid happily again and again.

This is an adult pool which is quieter and not as crowded as the other pool.

There was also a pet farm full with rabbits, chicken and peacock! It was the most enjoyable time to feed the pets. The rabbits were so aggressive and jostled with each other to snatch the food. I had to hold the food very tight or else the food will be snatched away very quickly.

This little girl wasn’t afraid of the rabbits at all. She was feeding a little rabbit and suddenly there came another bigger rabbit that chased the smaller rabbit away. This little girl got so pissed and started scolding the bigger rabbit. How Cute!!

Very tempted to bring her home :-p

Look at my puffy eyes in the morning.

There was this gorgeous huge peacock that we had been waiting whole day for him to open his tail.

Look, amazing, isn’t it? The peacock was running all over the place in the resort. Sometimes he was seen next to the pool, sometimes on the roof top and sometimes inside the pet farm.

It was during the last day when we were about to check out, the peacock finally opened his tail.

So happy to have this close-up picture with the peacock! His tail is as tall as me, I had to stand on the rock in order not to be blocked by his tail.

This is the back of the peacock with furry feather.

Avi Spa building

After a whole day staying under the hot sun, you might want to rejuvenate yourself with avi spa, a floating spa at Avillion. It is based on the aura of peace reflected in the stillness of the jade green sea, the pervading silence and the glorious sunsets of the Straits of Malacca.

Another amazing selling point of the resort was its private beach. The beach was so clean and quiet that we could spend whole day here enjoying the breeze without any interruption.

It is a long beach that is only accessible  by the guests of Avillion Resort.

My Rating for this resort:

Room: 3 out of 5 stars. The rating was judged based on the hotel’s grade. Since it’s a 5-stars hotel, I expected a higher quality room than just a decent room. The tv was too old, the air-con was too noisy, the Water Chalet wasn’t facing the sea at all.

Cleanliness: 4 out of 5 stars.

Services: 3 out of 5 stars. No bell boy service and no wifi internet access.

Food: 3 out of 5 stars. The breakfast buffet wasn’t impressive at all. The variety of the food was too pathetic for a luxury resort like this.

Summary: We enjoyed our stay in Avillion Resort, but it doesn’t worth RM480 pay per night.

More information about Avillion Resort:

Avillion Official Website – http://www.avillion-portdickson.com

Avi Spa – http://www.avispa.com.my/

Reviews from Trip Advisor

How to get there – http://www.hotelportdickson.net/location03.html

Map to Avillion: