Singapore and Bali trip report, the new way of doing things.

[yorkshireRich]

Hi all, so I am nominating myself to be the guinea pig for the newly elected trip report design. I will keep “checking in” every couple of days and adding a post to this thread. It probably won’t be for everyone as I’m no Michael palin (probably more Karl Pilkington) but I will try and add abit of “everything”.

The first section will be my flight to Singapore then the other posts will be all about Bali. I’m presuming the Bali bit will be more of interest to the majority so feel free to skip this section.

I had a minor panic the night before as I couldn’t check in for our flight from Manchester to Heathrow, then onto Singapore. I usually check things over and over and even though BA”s IT doesn’t help, I was more frustrated with myself for missing the error. When I delved further into it, there was absolutely no 125 ticket number showing in the BA app at all. Rest assured JDB et al, the 125 ticket check will now be included in the ritual of checking the flight route, the arrival time and the gate number of our flight 3 month before take off. With the clogs working over drive, I started to realise how this had occurred, and I have calculated that it was when I changed the flight time to 24 hours earlier, to which they obviously hadn’t processed it properly. I had my supplementary BAPP at the ready for my phone call just incase they needed to charge me for the date change but the agent just apologised and assured me that I was now all checked in for the flights.

The flight
Right, so without further a do. Me, the wife and our 13 month old child drove over from Yorkshire to Manchester in the in-laws car and parked at the clayton hotel. This was the strategy of choice as the in-laws were flying in to Manchester airport a few hours later so they could do the glamour option of self-driving back to Yorkshire.
Once at the Clayton, even though I don’t think officially I was meant to take the shuttle bus, the lady at reception didn’t care one bit and we all hopped on. I want to just quickly point out that I love walking and for such a short ride I felt a fraud but I wasn’t left with that much of an option.

We arrived in T3 at Manchester 2 hours 30 minutes before our scheduled departure. The queue was not open but a lady rocked up 15 minutes later and said she was going to serve business passengers first, special assistance and then economy. She hardly got off the ground and then more back up arrived. Security was actually seamless with only one of our 10+ trays going down for special attention (had to put only 3 items in each tray which were over 100ml).
As we exited the lift upstairs, there was a sign to the left which stated this entrance was specially for BA customer. I would say it was all exceptionally civilised, but it was a tad too civilised and quiet for us that my wife kept telling me off for shoving the dummy in every time my child said “hiyaaa” to each and every passenger. I was quite glad when someone sat close with his mobile phone and disclosed his intention of securing a deal for a 5k selection of wine. My mind was already made up though, I was heading to the hoardes of Ryanair customers.
I attempted to wade through a backlog to the toilet and I realised why all of a sudden there was a queue to get to the toilet. Once at the front of the queue I was greeted by the most drunk man I have ever witnessed in an airport. He said “hello, I am nice man, I am gardener mick”. My reply to him was “you have had abit haven’t you? I am sure you are nice but I wouldn’t let you cut my garden today”. I don’t think other people in the queue were quite as immersive with him as I was. Once away from the Ryanair clan, I scanned my boarding card and dashed through the BA barrier and walked to the gate.
Once on the flight, one hour later than scheduled, all I can report was that it was pretty uneventful in row 2 something and we didn’t get kicked out last minute to a highly thought of gold member. After arriving at a remote stand and slightly worrying about time, we need not have worried as we were bussed to A gates and then all of a second we had walked through some door and the realisation had hit that we had bypassed security and we were in the main terminal with the Wetherspoons across from us.
As were short on time, we had to break tradition and not take the walkway to B gates. Instead we made a quick dash to the Galleries south lounge for around 6 minutes to grab bits and bobs, and let the child burn some last bits of energy in the “play area” thing before the journey.

We boarded on time on BA 11 but we were held at the stand for around one hour until we started heading towards the runway. We were all set to go I thought, until a Turkish airlines and Air China sneaked in. The Air China one didn’t even look like it had left the other end of the runway before we had started gaining speed for take off.

The child slept the first 4/5 hours of the flight and after the 2nd/3rd bits of turbulence, woke up and was full of life. That wasn’t part of the plan. I secretly thought though that once we arrive in Singapore, it may not be too bad as she could have a full nights sleep. It probably didn’t help that the gentleman across from us had his window blind wide open so she could see the bright mountains in Afghanistan. After 2 or 3 hours of letting the wife sleep and me attempting to entertain the child by going from the boiling upper deck to the much cooler lower deck, she finally fell asleep. As breakfast was coming around, not wanting to miss a free breakfast, she woke up again.

Arriving in Singapore, it was just as easy as you would expect. I learnt BA 15 which takes off not too long after BA11 had been cancelled. As we waited for the conveyor belt to start up and get going, two pieces luggage came out completely separately, and they were ours. One lady asked me if I was that always that lucky. I checked the BA App and one piece of luggage was missing, but whether it was the car seat or another suitcase was yet to remain a mystery. I lodged the claim with the relevant people at the airport and then when I went back to the carousel, it became apparent that it was the car seat that was missing. 48 hours later it did arrive at the hotel.
As we headed to the exit and out of the terminal, we said goodbye to the people that we saw on the plane and they were all still waiting for luggage one hour later after they arrived at the belt. It probably does not help that as a result of how efficient immigration is, it takes literally 180 seconds from leaving the plane door to arriving at the baggage carousel thus meaning that after that, you”re just stood around.
Straight opposite us as we left T1 was the Jewel so we took it in turns to go have a look at the impressive water fall.

The Hotel
We joined the queue for taxis. We don’t usually join taxi queues at airports and instead we pre book them or get the train, but we make an exception for Singapore. Once in a metered Taxi and on our way to the Mandarin Oriental, I checked my phone and I had received a WhatsApp Message from the hotel asking if there’s anything they could do. I asked the question if they could save a little bit of food from the club lounge as we were pretty much arriving when it was closing. They duly obliged and got us a cocktail each also. We marvelled at what was on the desk with our marina bay view room.
We were greeted by the duty manager and taken straight in the lift up to the room. Upon entering, there was a card from the manager stating how she was gutted she missed me (said no one ever), but there was a jigsaw of chocolate that was absolutely beautiful. We also had a complimentary mini bar replenished daily.
Our room was on the same level as the lounge which is named Haus65. I got the benefit of Haus 65 by booking through Emyr. Another benefit was “Mandala club” but I didn’t think that was our cup of tea so didn’t bother visiting there. Back to the topic of the lounge, no one under the age of 12 is allowed. This meant that we routinely just used the normal restaurant for breakfast and for afternoon tea. We had cocktails/champagne in there also. On one of the days though, as the child was sleeping, we did split shifts and treated ourselves by going in the lounge one at a time.

Still discussing what we did on arrival day here, we had a quick dip in the pool which gave you an awe inspiring view of marina bay. How could you ever get bored of that view? It was then time for sleep, and we all slept from 10pm until 8am. Jet lag beaten, it all worked like a dream.

Our first full day consisted of booking a taxi to Mount Faber for the Singapore cable car. After a slow mooch around there, we were on our way on the cable car straight through Harbour front station, and on to sentosa. There we walked to the beach and caught the sentosa line from Siloso to Merlion. We didn’t participate in any of the activities on Sentosa but stood there and reminisced on where we had done the luging back in t”day. We found it amusing how a nice lady tried her upmost to sell us tickets for 4d adventure land. She even tried offering us a 10% discount to seal the deal for the 4 rides. I politely declined as I really did not think it would have been suitable for a 13 month old, despite her best effort to persuade me otherwise.
We meandered back in humid conditions, and made the use of the pool, the food etc etc. Not wanting to miss out on anything that I feel I am entitled to (well, included in the package with booking through Emyr) we took a ride in Porsches first all electronic sports car, the Taycan. This is a Mandarin Oriental car and it’s provided on a first come first served basis. We didn’t go far in it, but we did take the short journey to Merlion park and I showed our daughter where I foolishly proposed to her mother a fair few years ago. The wife will argue that it was her that was foolish by saying yes.
In the evening, we ate at the Embu buffet. The wife is more Yorkshire than me and was going to whinge about the price, but I tried to explain that with the F@B credit we have, and our need to hit a specific amount on the bill due to the Amex offer, it was practically essential spend. She soon relented and the buffet was superb. There is a similar one at the MO in Kuala Lumpur, but tbh the one in Singapore outshines it. It really is superb.

Our second full day consisted of extensively exploring the MRT. We seemed to go all over on it. It is super clean. Our day overground though consisted of Orchard Road and Gardens by the bay. Orchard road was full of posh shops, but my wife insisted in going in the shops with women outside ringing bells that were nestled inbteween the posh shops. I happily sat down and people watched whilst the baby slept in the pram and I just kept moving along the street as she weaved in and out of the shops. She came back really pleased with herself that she got a fantastic deal on some tatty items and she informed me that it would have been so much more expensive in the airport apparently. My reply “great news luv, in other news, our daughters awake now due to these bludy bells”.
We jumped on the MRT again and visited the free sections of Gardens by the Bay. Some of the features were extremely impressive. One of the main reasons for our visit was to go to the outdoor children’s bit, but by that point, we were behind schedule for our afternoon tea. It wasn’t too dissimilar to some of the water features at the hotel (albeit on a bigger scale).

On the evening we did the river cruise tour which started at Clarke Quay. This was another perk of booking through Emyr. I actually did it March but it wasn’t raining this time, which meant it wasn’t just me on the uncovered section of the boat on this occasion. The commentary was pretty decent and it’s worth a punt (oh, that’s Cambridge isn’t it?)
Once the cruise had finished we walked to China town and despite me trying to tell the wife that we weren’t going the most pleasant way, she insisted we had to walk this way. I was becoming to think it was a trap. She soon realised that we were walking past all these women who were sat on tables in bars with not much clothes on. As I was pushing the pram with the baby waving to them all, I couldn’t have had more attention If I had a wad of notes on me. The wife was genuinely shocked as she didn’t even know Singapore was like that. I don’t think I’m as naive.
Once we were in China town, and because sometimes I HATE change, I had to visit the same place that I did back in 2017. It had yellow chairs outside. They point blank refused to accept they ever sold me lemon chicken back then, but I know they are wrong, as I literally remember all over the world where I have eaten Lemon Chicken. We settled for sweet and sour pork to share in the end, and then headed back on the MRT. Once at Promenade station, we had a leisurely walk back to the hotel where we witnessed them putting tarmac on the roads and sorting out of the pavements. All of this in preparation so Singapore looks pristine to the world next week when hosting the F1.

Due to the late night and the baby’s stubbornness to fall asleep when we were out and about, my wife insisted we went to breakfast separately. I couldn’t resist the urge to have a quick explore. I know it was 08:30am on a Sunday but it was so quiet. When I got back, I said “the queues were phenomenal at breakfast, sorry I was delayed” She knew straight away I had been out and about, as she reads me like a book. In fact I may have been too complimentary there on my wives reading skills, maybe I am just that predictable. After breakfast, my wife stayed in the room to pack neatly for Bali. I grabbed a cabana, woke the baby up and we went for a swim whilst I gave clear instructions to my wife to just “chuck my stuff in the case”.

I’ve missed somewhere inbetween breakfast and the pool that I went to reception to complete that horrible bit of a hotel stay, the payment. Armed with two BAPPs and a platinum, I utilised the “spend 500, get £100 back”. For what we got in the hotel, and considering that the bog standard meal in China town (where we shared) cost us £40, I feel we got fantastic value for money with our £1200 stay.

Feeling refreshed, we were ready for check out. We were showered with more gifts. We have now multiple cuddly lions and various other gifts in our living room at home. Our living room is fast looking like a shrine to the Mandarin Oriental brand.
Singapore and the Mandarin Oriental in particular had been absolutely amazing. A quick mention to the Japanese toilet, I really feel I have mastered it now. I say this as at the start of the week, I pressed a button and not knowing what I had pressed, I moved away and water sprayed EVERYWHERE.
We had visited Singapore before on more than one occasion, but never had more than a night here. I highly recommend. We could now take the short hop to Bali, with no jet lag in sight, and knowing that if our other stays will be half as good as this one on this trip, we will be in for a heck of a treat.

Summary

Companion Voucher on BA in J in Ying and Yang seats to Singapore from the regions. Everything on the aircraft ran smooth.
Mandarin Oriental Singapore is amazing and the Amex offers were timely. Haus65 is most definitely worth it.

[Aston100]

This is the way

[Froggee]

This is uncanny. I think we might be related.

Technically I got engaged in the Mandarin Oriental although, for the records, I got down on one knee at the Merlion once a ring was secured the next day after many painful hours of ring shopping. And I too hate spending money.

And as if she senses this connection also, Granny Froggee gave chase, landing in Singapore the day after you. And on Tuesday she is, of course, flying to Bali.

Watch out for her and the lapsed nun.

[masaccio]

I confess I barely use the app as I find it horrid, but a couple of things I didn’t know. What’s the 125 ticket check? And the BA app reports on luggage?

[SamG]

in the app under “view manage more flight details” you should see a 125- entry against “ticket number”. If this is blank then you will not be able to fly.

This usually happens when you’ve made a change by phone, they queue the ticket up for reissue which are processed in order of departure. So a flight far in the future this isn’t an immediate concern but if you are getting nearer travel you should call back and chase them up.

There is some luggage tracking functionality in the BA app now though I find it to not be as sophisticated as the US airlines

[masaccio]

Well, there it is in my bookings. Ta! One to check in the future.

[Man of Kent]

Thanks @yorkshireRich a very enjoyable read.

[NorthernLass]

Great read – I assume the guy buying the wine was spending 5k GBP, not 5k avios 😂

SIN is definitely on my bucket list, though thankfully (and hopefully) our days of travelling with small children are long past!

[To dare is to do]

“ SIN is definitely on my bucket list, though thankfully (and hopefully) our days of travelling with small children are long past!”

Give your teenager 10/15years and nanny Anna will be back to travelling with small children 😂

[yorkshireRich]

Part 2

I flew with Jetstar out of Singapore Changi T4. Id say it’s some sort of poor relation of the other terminals at Singapore, however it still outshines many others in the world. Manchester, I’m looking at you. T4 is abit out, and it’s the only terminal that isn’t linked to the Jewel. Security is different also, as unlike the others, you go through it straight away and not at the gate. Jetstar wouldn’t have been my first option, but I made the most of my Jetstar credit that I had during Covid. I witnessed the slide near one of the boarding gates, and the big kid inside me was absolutely gutted I couldn’t have had a go. We also visited the plaza premium lounge with our priority pass and although it couldn’t rival the Qatar lounge with its fancy toilets, it was very nice indeed. I also witnessed robots, not only taking trays to the kitchen, but cleaning carpets.

On the Jetstar flight, I found there to be some strange ignorant folk. I think the only defence I have for them is that a lot had been travelling from Europe and were tired, as this was the connecting flight to their final destination. I heard someone on the aircraft asking “what is the visa I need, where do I do that? What is the customs form”. These were the type of people around me. Surely everyone should have a slight knowledge of the entry requirements of the country they are visiting?
We sat in 2A and the baby was slightly restless. She wasn’t terrible, but she had to be entertained constantly. I’d have given her a 5/10. Certainly the worst out of the best flight out of the 16 she’s been on. When we left, the wife was narky and said “everyone is starring at us”. Nobody let us out of our row as everyone was in such a rush to disembark the aircraft. One lady gave us the hand gesture for us to go, and then when she realised we had 3 bags and a pram, her reply was “I don’t have time for this” and barged past me. The wife is quite resilient but I think at that moment, any more holidays of any kind were just a pipe dream.
I like to consider myself a pretty considerate and well mannered individual, but I will paraphrase the mini statement which I said to my wife. It was something along the lines of “there were 2 people in front who were vlogging, canoodling and dropping all their technology devices every 5 minutes on the floor. There was also a passenger next to me pretty who pretty much had his bare feet touching my knee. There was another lady who looked so unwell spluttering everywhere, that if she passed the health check, it would have been an absolute miracle. With all that said, I’m not that sorry that our 13 month child wasn’t 100% perfect for a 2 hour flight”.
Anyway once I presented my point to my wife, we trundled last off the plane and into the arrivals hall. I instructed her to follow me and I told her exactly where we were going. Her reply “are you sure, all the people off our plane are queuing there”. I just told her to trust the process. When we got to the immigration desk, I asked the gentleman which barcode and document he needed first and he just informed me that he would let me know if he needs any more details after looking at the passports. Just like that, we were waved through and at the baggage belt within 120 seconds of leaving the aircraft door. I did feel quite smug for a few seconds knowing that ignorant so and so who barged past me would be now in that queue. I fully recommend doing everything first as I’m sure most HFP”ers would. It appears to save a considerable amount of time.
Our luggage was pretty quick and there wasn’t a huge amount of people at the belt, as they were obviously still all in the immigration hall. When I say our luggage was pretty quick, I mean everything but the car seat. Been here before haven’t we? I lodged the claim and it would appear it was never loaded onto the aircraft at Singapore. I have noticed since that Jetstar have emailed both of us with a credit of 15SGD each. I highly doubt I’ll have chance to use it.
Still in the airport, We had another customs check where we scanned the barcode for customers declaration and what a doddle, everything done, we just needed to find our driver now. I think Denpasar airport had the most amount of drivers trying to get you a taxi that had I ever seen. We had pre booked through the hotel and the price was more than reasonable.
The journey took just under 90 minutes to Seminyak from the airport, but I did not complain, as it gave me time to complete my Singapore trip report.
After we arrived at the Hotel Indigo, the hotel car and driver were subjected to quite a rigorous security check. The barriers were then lifted, and we walked into a very impressive lobby area.
One thing to note that did happen at check in, in a rush so the baby didn’t whine and make a noise, I quickly picked her up and stepped right. As I stepped right, the wife muttered “it’s water”. It was too late, I stepped right into it, and as I type this, my shoes and socks are still drying off. She then muttered something along the lines of”you stupid idiot”. Anyway, what a silly place to put a water feature.
After my little mishap, we were at the room. As platinum elite ambassador member, we were upgraded to the top floor and had a garden view. When I say garden view, it was a couple of big trees. I worked out on the last day that we would have actually been able to look out to sea if it wasn’t for those big trees. We had a huge balcony with separate areas to sit out on. In fact, it’s probably the biggest balcony I’ve ever had in any hotel. The room, even though not a suite, was on the large scale. The bathroom had a fancy shower to the right of the sink and a normal bog standard boring toilet to the left. It had decent toilet roll, but that’s not my forte. I’m all about the Japanese toilets.
It was late by time we quickly got ourselves together and looked for food. We visited chez gaudo gaudo which is very nice indeed. I actually walked past it everyday at various times of the day and it was extremely busy, so it can’t just be me that thought it was nice.
At 1am I was woken by my ring tone of “land of hope and glory”. The person on the other side said “I’m in reception, you coming to collect, I need you here, you coming? After getting dressed, I walked down, and the car seat was yet again delivered to its rightful owner.

We ate Breakfast on our first morning as we did every day in the hotel, despite it not being included for a lowly platinum member. The breakfast was quite good to be fair, and had plenty of fresh juices also. They were situated behind a counter where staff were making fresh food and drink. Until the last day I kept asking them to pass me them out of the fridge for me, until one lady plucked the courage to inform me that I could just walk round and get them like everyone else. Why no one didn’t tell me that from day 1, I’ll never know. I couldn’t have apologised enough. I’m not into the tipping culture, but I thought “how do I resolve this without them thinking that I am stupid lazy idiot”. I then thought, “I’ll just leave it, there mind would have already be made up”.
We spent the majority of the day by the pool, and we had a cabana up some stairs overlooking the pool area. It was a perfect vantage point, and out of the way of others.
The wife got ready for dinner, but I made an impromptu decision to stay in the pool before walking outside the hotel (through a secure gate), and across the road to go on the beach to admire the sunset. There were security to stop the traffic for you to walk safely across the road with the mopeds that were rushing past. I’ve seen a few people moan that the hotel is not directly on the front. I find it bewildering how people can complain, it is literally a 10 second walk to it. We took a stroll on the beachfront, and made yet another impromptu decision to have dinner there and then. We ate at O beach which, you guessed it, is pretty much on the beach. Nothing fancy, but the food was substantial. On the way back, we sat at one of the lively bars on the beachfront. It’s a terrific vibe, and one I was surprised I found myself loving so much. I asked what the best beer was in Bali, and the waiter laughed and said “Bintang, Bintang, and Bintang”. There are 3 varieties of Bintangs but I stuck to the Bintang Radler (the lemon one), and at 2% I treated myself to one or two.

On our second day in Seminyak, we chose to visit waterbom. It didn’t get off to the best start as before we went in, I made sure to clarify that I could go on the kids slides, and take my baby on with me. They confirmed this, but this proved not to be case. The lifeguards in the kids section were adamant she was too small to go on anything, even with her on my knee. The thing with Balinese people is that they are so friendly, and appear so gentle. Even though I felt I had a strong case to answer as I had been totally misinformed at a costly expense, I could not help but feel abit mean (I’m going soft). I therefore tried to raise my point in the nicest possible way. The mere mention of a potential refund put them into backtrack mode, and the manager stated as it was new section of the park, they still haven’t sorted all the rules out yet. As it was, my daughter absolutely loved it, and I’d go as far as saying it was one of the happiest I’ve seen her. Even though I didn’t go on many slides in the park, the adult slides were quite extreme. It was a clean park and the food inside was reasonable. The staff were extremely friendly, and the only water park staff that would come close to them in terms of friendless are the staff at Aqua adventure in Dubai. I was certainly glad I persisted with the issue at the beginning of the day, as I concluded that Waterbom was an absolutely fantastic water park. We thanked the staff for such a great day that we had. On our way back, we went through kuta and legion. The wife in the back of the taxi was muttering and saying “looks nice here, how could we didn’t look at here?”. I can guarantee if we had stayed in kuta, and we had driven through Seminyak, she would have asked the same question.
When we got back we ate at Sugarsand, which was part of the hotel. We had 20% discount as a platinum member, and this applied to all food and drink during our stay. The Sugarsand restaurant is a Japanese restaurant which served super food accompanied by excellent service. There is also an infinity pool to use, if you were to eat lunch there during the day.

Our final full day in Seminyak consisted of us lounging by the pool and exploring alittle. When I say alittle, around 15 minutes from the hotel either side. We had no problems pushing the pram, and pavements were of high quality, and id say better than home. We ate at an Italian restaurant at lunch and a Greek restaurant in the evening. Nothing fancy, but both superb meals. like anything in this diary/ report, just ask if there are specific questions or recommendations that you want to know and I’ll go into more specifics.

We did habe every intention of going to Seminyak square and other places, but as always, time got the better of us. The child was more than happy splashing in the pool and listening to music on the beachfront.

I utalised late check out and messaged the driver personally to arrange the journey to ubud. It was the same driver who took us to waterbom and back earlier in the week. It was substantially more than a grab but it was air conditioned, the driver was friendly and efficient. Even though it was a hotel car, the driver gets a bigger cut rather the hotel taking it. We were also able to negotiate a lower price with the driver before our 2 and half hour journey to Ubud

Quick summary on Seminyak

The hotel Indigo was 138,000 points for 4 nights. Even though I constantly chopped and changed with our itinerary, we were always going to stay at the Hotel Indigo for part of our trip. We definitely made the correct choice with this hotel, as it provided a great base. It surpassed our expectations. I would give it a 9 out of 10, as we couldn’t really pick fault with it.
I don’t think we went to the “busy” area of Seminyak, but where we were, it was chilled out vibe on the beach, and again, surpassed any of our expectations.

[1958]

Useful, fulsome report.
Regarding your Jetstar experience – It’s what we all face if we didn’t collect points!
(We face Jetstar Hawaii to Sydney in four months time, having got Upper / Business as far as Hawaii).

[cin3]

It almost physically pains me to read about going to places with dozens of michelin star restaurants and mindblowing street food scenes and eating hotel grub 🙁