Just the 1 night stop over in Singapore on the way home. Accor looked after us amazingly as usual and the upgrade at the Novotel was amazing. Great view over the City. Decided to surprise my wife and burn some FF points to book the Singapore suites for the journey home. Was waitlisted and didn’t have high hopes as I have tried a couple of other times without success but much to my surprise the notification came through a couple of days before. Got to the airport early to have a quick look at Singapore Jewel and then headed to the Private room for some dinner before the flight.
View from room at Novotel Singapore
Singapore Suites on A380.
Manage to snare the partner suites which effectively turns into a double bed.
Absolutely amazing and another item ticked off my bucket list.
It’s free which is pretty cool and has a good shopping precinct but we left at the right time. About an hour later and we wouldn’t have been able to move, the place was filling rapidly
Excuse my ignorance but is it good/bad?
Living near the Barossa and having owned pubs I like to think I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to reds and whites but have no idea on sparkling or champagne. I can’t tell the difference between a $5 bottle from Uncle Dans or the expensive stuff.
Quite private. Sliding doors close and the doors have shades that close. The compartment walls don’t go all the way to the ceiling. They compartments aren’t soundproof so if you do want some action you just have to keep the noise down.
Could have been a $5 bottle and I wouldn’t have known the difference. It all tastes like pelicans pizz to me. The choice of Champagne was the Krug 2004 or the Dom Perignon 2009.
I only had one glass on takeoff but my wife enjoyed several. I moved on to the JW Blue and then had a couple of Hennessy Cognac XO’s before bed time
I just don’t have the taste for Champagne obviously. I do love my whites though and at home we usually have a glass of Pinot Grigio or similar with our dinner.
I have just come back from doing two tours in the past 3 weeks with TripaDeal, 7 days in Beijing and Xian and 8 days in Chengdu and a Yangtze river cruise.
I must admit I was a bit sceptical about how good the quality of them would be as they were so cheap but they both exceeded my expectations.
The flights were excellent, we were met at the airports by experienced English speaking tour guides and driven around in good quality buses. All the hotels we stayed at were 5 star (the one in Beijing was particularly good, a spa resort with about 25 free hot spring spa pools) with a fairly good buffet breakfast every morning and lots of free meals and guided tours.
I really couldn’t fault their service or organisation skills at all.
The only downside is a few extra costs (and the return flight landed later than hoped for on Sunday so I missed the Carlton game), there is mandatory tip of $12 per person per day and there were quite a few optional tours and meals that you had to pay extra for, but most of them were well worth it.
But considering how ridiculously cheap the base price was (and I see they are now have deals even cheaper than what booked e.g. 12 days for 2 people at $1999) and include return airfares, guided tours, internal flights and bullet trains between cities I would certainly recommend them to anyone.
I’m off again on Sunday to hike the Kokoda trail, has anyone else done that?
I did it about thirty years ago. Hardest ten days of my life.
I had prepared by walking up to 10 km every day in hilly gorges around the Marsh for three months prior, and I was very fit and healthy. Nothing like walking 10 kms a day for ten days at Kokoda though.
Our group had a couple who had prepared by walking around the streets of Brighton, and they were medi-vaced out after 4 days.
My advice is to make sure you are very fit, get good gear and walk your boots in well before you start. Take extra socks and tape for your feet, expect to be wet for then 10 days, conserve your energy and follow the directions of the locals. Make sure you have extra insurance, and check it out carefully.
It is worth the effort, just do not take it lightly, it is not a walk in the park.
