Advice please: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Bali

[FH2]

The real Swiss Tony wrote:

We ended up buying IHG points in the 100% promo as that came in at something like us$190 a night for the intercontinental Robertson Quay. So I’d definitely keep an eye out for points offers.

I see the Park Royal on Pickering is now showing at £130/nt for the dates of our stay at the start of next month. Had that been on offer months ago I might have been tempted.

Thanks – I had not thought about the possibility of buying points so that is worth knowing.

[SamG]

Singapore rates do seem to be softening slightly, it’s always been an expensive city but it’s been quite ridiculous since COVID.

Definitely consider staying slightly less central if you do get to Singapore, somewhere like the HGI Serangoon or the Mecure on Stevens. The buses / MRT are excellent and dirt cheap and and taxis / Grab app rides very reasonable too. I ended up staying at a friend’s this trip but the Westin does seem to allow 4 to share a 2 bed room if you can buy enough Marriott points. One of the local options does have family rooms but they were ridiculously expensive

[Michael C]

SamG wrote:

Singapore rates do seem to be softening slightly, it’s always been an expensive city but it’s been quite ridiculous since COVID.

Definitely consider staying slightly less central if you do get to Singapore, somewhere like the HGI Serangoon or the Mecure on Stevens. The buses / MRT are excellent and dirt cheap and and taxis / Grab app rides very reasonable too. I ended up staying at a friend’s this trip but the Westin does seem to allow 4 to share a 2 bed room if you can buy enough Marriott points. One of the local options does have family rooms but they were ridiculously expensive

Any experience of the Indigo in Katong, @SamG ? Thpught that could be fun for a short trip!

[SamG]

Not the hotel itself but I like Katong. Handy mall there and right near East Coast Park. One downside is lack of MRT but the no.36 bus is handy, could even take it to the airport !

[Michael C]

SamG wrote:

Not the hotel itself but I like Katong. Handy mall there and right near East Coast Park. One downside is lack of MRT but the no.36 bus is handy, could even take it to the airport !

Just what I thought. Maybe not this time, as just easier to be “central” with
9-yr old, but will def. note it for another trip.

[LD27]

My understanding from when I was in Singapore end last year was the MRT is being extended through Katong area but don’t think it will be open until end of this year, early next. Sadly not for my next visits in October and December.

My go to hotels are IC (both) Shangri La and Jen (both). Also stayed a couple of nights in HI. Prices seem much higher this year. But keep looking as they did come down last year. Points were good value. May even try the Indigo.

[The real Swiss Tony]

I’m seeing some good rates in August for 4* hotels on Klook (which is also just a handy app for travel in Asia as well). One night in the Furama including round trip private transfer for just over £100.

And if anyone wants a referral code for Klook, C4WZK gets us both £4 off.

[Jon]

Michael C wrote:

Any experience of the Indigo in Katong

Stayed there a couple of times, liked it a lot. Although the area itself is probably only good for a day or so.

I was also pleasantly impressed with the Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay – very good value for money, I thought.

I have an upcoming stay at the Amara, which looks pretty good, and was about £150 via Hotels.com. Plenty of other options at similar price when I last looked a few weeks ago.

[Aston100]

Jon wrote:

I was also pleasantly impressed with the Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay – very good value for money, I thought.

18 sqm room.
I wonder if that’s the smallest room size in any HIX in the world?

[Jon]

Aston100 wrote:

I wonder if that’s the smallest room size in any HIX in the world?

I would imagine there might be a smaller one in Tokyo? 😉

Conrad Singapore has notably large rooms for the price.

[Aston100]

Jon wrote:

I would imagine there might be a smaller one in Tokyo?

I couldn’t find a HIX in Tokyo, however the one in Osaka seems to have a 17 sqm room!

[SamG]

I used to go past that HIX on the way to the office and the outdoor breakfast area does look quite pleasant and never too busy!

The Jen at Orchardgateway used to be one I recommended to visitors, handy location and a nice rooftop pool and bar. It also has some family room options. But the last couple of times I’ve looked the pricing has been silly but worth checking.

[mol27]

Reading this thread with interest as a family of five planning a similar trip for Aug 2024… also trying to figure out some rough options.

Has anyone had any luck getting Avios availability for Malaysian airlines into KL?

We visited Perhentian about 25 years ago and we are keen to go back there or try Redang. Had also been looking at the Tarras Beach – but just trying to figure out the logistics. As mentioned there are two flight options to Redang itself from KL’s Subang airport SKS or Berjaya). One has a 7kg bag limit, the other 15kg.

I asked Tarras re a boat from Perhentian to Redang and they said we could organise one privately and then they quoted quite a high sum (I think Tara’s suggested £250 – am sure you could find cheaper locally?). Alternative seems to be go back to the mainland, transfer to the other ferry port and then on to Redang.

We will aim to combine the “beach/snorkel/dive” element with Malaysian Borneo, which we have been to a long time ago, but did not do Kuching, so would explore from there then go to Mulu for caves. Sounds like other readers have been there and enjoyed?

Will also look at Koh Samui for the diving/snorkel etc – thanks for the tips above.

[FH2]

FH2 wrote:

Thanks this is all very useful. Based on the comments here and the research I have done in the last few days I agree that Singapore/Bali/Lombok would be best for us so am really hoping that I manage to get the BA reward flights to SIN and back. @BJ you are correct that the budget is not unlimited! I am happy to pay for a high-end resort for the beach part of the trip (GBP 400-500 per night) and for the city parts I will be looking into options for around £200-300 per night. I am hoping to keep internal flight costs down by using LCCs.

@SamG – I did consider Phuket but the weather put me off. I really appreciate all the advice I have been given here. Once/if (!) I secure the BA flights, I will no doubt be back here for more tips!

Hello – I am resurrecting this thread as I have now booked our flights for July 2024 (4 seats in CW, LHR-SIN-LHR). So I now have almost a year to plan! We want to spend a few nights in Singapore, then fly to Bali to spend a few nights in Ubud, then to Lombok and back to Singapore to catch our flight home. We plan to use LCC for the inter-Asia flights – do the fares tend to be cheaper on the likes of Garuda and Scoot on release or is it better to wait until closer to the date of travel? Same question for hotels too really – is it too early to start booking now? As mentioned already on this thread, Singapore hotels are expensive at the moment so am thinking prices may come down. For Lombok we are considering the Oberoi Lombok – has anyone stayed there before and have any views? Thanks in advance.

[S]

Hi FH2,

Where are you looking to to stay in Singapore and Bali from your initial searches? I ideally wanted to stay around the Marina Bay area for our three nights in Singapore and somewhere that is easily walkable with our baby. The Fullerton Bay and Ritz Carlton would have been my first choices but are beyond budget.

The other FHR hotels are appealing as can use Amex travel credit and get the FHR perks. Trying to decide between Four Seasons (best rated), St Regis (biggest room/best value) and Conrad (best location for us). Sofitel and Andaz are other non-FHR options which are cheaper. If anyone has experiences staying at any of these I would be keen to hear thanks.

[SamG]

It’s probably too early for hotels – no one has thought about pricing yet. But you can always make some plans using flexible rates and then cancel / rebook / switch hotels nearer the time. Usually about 6 weeks out is when things move (at the moment usually the price seems to be dropping). If you’re not fussy on booking direct for status / points then luxury escapes particularly but secret escapes etc also often have good packages

Flights the same, prices don’t usually move too much, especially mid week and there aren’t any public holidays or school holidays to worry about in July. I wouldn’t be rushing to book as schedules do change and a different airline may end up being preferable and usually it’s not easy/possible to get a refund if schedules do change

@S from those 3 I’d probably go for the Conrad. The location of the FS & St Regis is a little out of most things you’d be walking to whereas at the Conrad you’ve got Suntec mall right there and can walk to Marina bay/gardens by the bay etc

[FH2]

@S – in Singapore I would ideally like to say around Marina Bay area but it seems quite expensive. We only plan to stay for 3 nights so I am happy to go with a lower budget hotel – I have heard that Holiday Inn Clark Quay is meant to be quite good for the price and location. Bali – we are willing to spend more but I haven’t started researching yet. @SamG – thanks for the advice – I will start looking for flights towards the end of this year I guess.

[mol27]

@FH2 – well done on getting the flights, particularly as you mentioned that the agent had to process as two bookings – assume you called the US number, and they did the bookings for you one by one, and in the meantime no one had snapped up the other two seats from inventory?

Good luck with the planning. Sounds like a fun trip!

[FH2]

mol27 wrote:

@FH2 – well done on getting the flights, particularly as you mentioned that the agent had to process as two bookings – assume you called the US number, and they did the bookings for you one by one, and in the meantime no one had snapped up the other two seats from inventory?

Good luck with the planning. Sounds like a fun trip!

@mol27 – It was a bit of a mission – I called the US call centre at 1am UK time – the agent was very helpful and set everything up so was good to go – except no seats were released. Apparently there has been a glitch over the last few weeks affecting certain routes including SIN which meant the usual 4 CW seats were not being released every night. I called the US again the following night at 1am – this time the seats were released but only 2 seats showed up so I didn’t book them. I then called the UK call centre the following day around lunchtime and got lucky – the agent could see that 9 seats were available using the enhanced availability from the BA Premium Plus Amex. We are using companion vouchers from these cards so these extra seats were available to us. I had already used the companion voucher to book the outbound flights online so there was no way I could check for enhanced availability myself online but the agents at the call centres are able to view this. So the agent booked the 4 seats for us us as 2 separate bookings one by one. We were lucky as as there was a lot of availability so less risk of the seats being snapped up while she processed the first booking. If you have the BA Premium Plus companion vouchers it is definitely easier to get seats because of the enhanced availability. Good luck – I hope you manage to get your seats!

[FH2]

mol27 wrote:

@FH2 – well done on getting the flights, particularly as you mentioned that the agent had to process as two bookings – assume you called the US number, and they did the bookings for you one by one, and in the meantime no one had snapped up the other two seats from inventory?

Good luck with the planning. Sounds like a fun trip!

@mol27 – I just posted a reply but it disappeared so I will try again! It was a bit of a mission – I called the US call centre at 1am UK time. The agent was very helpful and set everything so we were good to go – but no seats were released. Apparently there has been a glitch affecting certain routes including SIN which meant that the usual 4 CW seats were not being released every night. I called the US again the following night at 1am UK time and this time the seats were released but the agent could only see 2 seats so I didn’t book them. The next day I called the UK call centre around lunchtime and got lucky – 9 CW seats were available under the enhanced availability from the BA Premium Plus Amex companion voucher. The agent booked the 4 seats for us as two separate bookings one by one (one using my voucher, the other using my husband’s voucher) – she said it was not possible to process both bookings at the same time. We were lucky as there were a lot of seats available so less risk of them being snapped up by someone else while she processed the first booking. I had already used the companion vouchers to book the outbound flight online so there was no way that I could view enhanced availability online myself but the agents at the call centres are able to view this. If you have the BA Premium Plus companion voucher it is definitely easier to get seats. Good luck – I hope you manage to book the flights that you want!

[SamG]

Singapore just swapped to the A380 next summer which adds quite a lot of extra seats in J/F – I don’t have a voucher to check but it’s showing I9 on a lot of flights so I suspect availability may be quite good at the moment if you do have one to spend

[0 post]

Hi folks, does anyone have any experience of staying at the Pangkor Laut Resort? Particularly getting there from KLIA. Seems to me like the bus is the way to go and taxi for the way back to the airport. Just thinking that if we got the QR flight that arrives at 8am ish, we’d be too early for check in so why not relax on a luxury bus?

[BBbetter]

FH2 wrote:

Bali – we are willing to spend more but I haven’t started researching yet.

Ubud- Sthala is a good mid range option if you are a Bonvoy member.

[FH2]

BBbetter wrote:

FH2 wrote:

Bali – we are willing to spend more but I haven’t started researching yet.

Ubud- Sthala is a good mid range option if you are a Bonvoy member.

Thanks – this looks like a very nice property.

[FH2]

A further question if I may: what is the best way to travel from Ubud to Lombok? I understand that there is a ferry but would it be better to fly from DPS to Lombok? Or is it not worth it given that, as far as I understand, it takes around 90min drive from Ubud to DPS? Thanks.