Singapore and where else?

[JDB]

Crafty wrote:

Just to offer a counterpoint, I found Ubud to be traffic clogged, polluted and uncomfortable; with all the “spirituality” pretty contrived…

Sad to hear. We went there for part of our honeymoon 27 years ago and again with children 20 years ago and it was still incredibly beautiful, quiet and undeveloped, but in those days one could also visit Venice and Florence with few tourists. It is getting harder to keep ahead of the crowd, but we are still managing all those years later and with the added benefit of using Avios and companion voucher without having to call at 1am.

[pauline]

Hi travelling back BA F from Singapore on sunday – what are the options for lounges? – won’t unfortunately have long – can anyone advise how long roughly it will take to get from check in to lounge?

[BuildBackBetter]

pauline wrote:

Hi travelling back BA F from Singapore on sunday – what are the options for lounges? – won’t unfortunately have long – can anyone advise how long roughly it will take to get from check in to lounge?

Qantas First lounge has re-opened. Review:
https://milelion.com/2022/05/20/qantas-reopening-first-class-lounge-at-changi-airport-on-18-june/

The same blog has reviews of other lounges.

[pauline]

Perfect thanks

[rashomon]

JDB wrote:

Crafty wrote:

Just to offer a counterpoint, I found Ubud to be traffic clogged, polluted and uncomfortable; with all the “spirituality” pretty contrived…

Sad to hear. We went there for part of our honeymoon 27 years ago and again with children 20 years ago and it was still incredibly beautiful, quiet and undeveloped, but in those days one could also visit Venice and Florence with few tourists. It is getting harder to keep ahead of the crowd, but we are still managing all those years later and with the added benefit of using Avios and companion voucher without having to call at 1am.

Yep this is the truth of it. I remember visiting Jaisalmer 23 years ago – was so quiet and hardly any tourists and we literally stayed in a palace in a room that was three times the size of my bedroom … but the world is now more connected than ever so hard to find gems.

As we don’t have a time machine we will settle with our trip to Bali and will find a nice base in Ubud away from some of the mad traffic.
Appreciate any recommendations on where to stay with two older teens – looking for a pool, some tranquility and within 20 minutes walking distance of main town though would consider a bit further out as well. Happy to spend more here than other places in Bali – ideally around £300 per night but prepared to push to £400 for four of us.

There are SO many great looking places on the usual sites but it’s hard to know where to begin!

[BuildBackBetter]

rashomon wrote:

As we don’t have a time machine we will settle with our trip to Bali and will find a nice base in Ubud away from some of the mad traffic.
Appreciate any recommendations on where to stay with two older teens – looking for a pool, some tranquility and within 20 minutes walking distance of main town though would consider a bit further out as well. Happy to spend more here than other places in Bali – ideally around £300 per night but prepared to push to £400 for four of us.

There are SO many great looking places on the usual sites but it’s hard to know where to begin!

Within walking distance of main town would actually be very traffic clogged, full of commercial shops and polluted as Crafty wrote.
Staying outside the town, you can avoid the traffic in the centre and visit less touristy places – hope you get a good guide / taxi driver who can take you to such places.
We stayed at Sthala (Marriott) a few years ago and while its not a full fledged hotel, was pretty good.
Start with programs where you have status – atleast you’ll avoid the worst rooms and have some backup customer service.

[chrisw1983]

Michael C wrote:

We’re doing the same – currently thinking of tagging on Bali + Hua Hin.

Love Penang – beaches not great, but everything else fab, especially staying at the E&O.

We have just come back from Hua Hin. Nice town good shopping centres and beach, but limited otherwise. We stayed at the intercontinental

[RK228]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

While there are plenty of low cost flights to Bali, don’t forget to check if KLM 5th freedom flight suits your timings.

We flew the KLM 5th-freedom flight from DPS to SIN in July. I wish we could get business class seats like that for intra-European flights more readily.

rashomon wrote:

As we don’t have a time machine we will settle with our trip to Bali and will find a nice base in Ubud away from some of the mad traffic.
Appreciate any recommendations on where to stay with two older teens – looking for a pool, some tranquility and within 20 minutes walking distance of main town though would consider a bit further out as well. Happy to spend more here than other places in Bali – ideally around £300 per night but prepared to push to £400 for four of us.

There are SO many great looking places on the usual sites but it’s hard to know where to begin!

We stayed at Bisma Eight which we liked (nice pool, good food, nice rooms, and near other restaurants, etc.) and it felt a bit quieter, but you could still walk into the main part of town without too much hassle in relative terms. I say in “relative terms” because I found that walking even short distances in Ubud to be far more problematic than most other places we have visited recently because there is often nowhere to walk except the road, which is heaving with traffic all the time (and people were telling us that traffic in July this year was only 50% of the usual levels…). To be honest, I found it stressful as we have a four-year-old son and I didn’t like that we had to be constantly dodging out of the way of, between, or around cars.

We did eventually learn though that hotel will drop us off and pick us up in the Ubud area for a small fee that we could charge to the room. We just needed to send a WhatsApp message to the front desk when we were ready to be picked up.

[polly]

Canggu sweet, nice beaches, surfing for teens, great local eats.. and beer. No crowds. Am Heading there after Singapore in November. Didn’t know about the KLM 5th freedom.. doing air Asia from sin to dps, it will do just fine..
BA finally put us on QR suites from HKG mid Nov, so all good…just hope CX don’t cancel,our connection from KUL tho..you can make plans but never be sure they will all come together these days….

[Michael C]

polly wrote:

Canggu sweet, nice beaches, surfing for teens, great local eats.. and beer. No crowds. Am Heading there after Singapore in November. Didn’t know about the KLM 5th freedom.. doing air Asia from sin to dps, it will do just fine..
BA finally put us on QR suites from HKG mid Nov, so all good…just hope CX don’t cancel,our connection from KUL tho..you can make plans but never be sure they will all come together these days….

AirAsia not only have great times, but the onboard food is really decent for about 2p!

[ffwd]

We were thinking of Nusa Dua in Bali and Hanoi as we have a couple of weeks at the start of December free whilst visiting Singapore.
Any thoughts please?

[memesweeper]

ffwd wrote:

We were thinking of Nusa Dua in Bali and Hanoi

Hanoi IC gave me a superb experience a few years ago. There are much better located hotels, however. Great city. If you’re in that neck of the woods an overnight on a Ha Long Bay boat tour is a must — I think Rhys did a review on this site.

[Michael C]

As I’m sure many others will tell you, there’s not much in Nusa Dua except lovely hotels. Although they ARE lovely! Anything else would involve hiring a car&driver for the day, although totally feasible and that’s the sort of relaxing trip some people fancy some times.
You could indeed do a “triangle” as there’s a direct DPS-HAN flight.

[rashomon]

I’ve done a load of reading and discounted Nusa Dua. From what I understand it’s a lovely place but you could be anywhere in the world and doesn’t have any Bali feel to it. I’ve personally settled on Sanur, Amed and Ubud.

As people responding here seem to be familiar with travel in SEA can I ask if you think it’s too soon to book Singapore to Bali tickets for travel in August? I’m looking at AirAsia currently

[BuildBackBetter]

rashomon wrote:

As people responding here seem to be familiar with travel in SEA can I ask if you think it’s too soon to book Singapore to Bali tickets for travel in August? I’m looking at AirAsia currently

If you don’t mind low cost carriers, you can book 2 months before travel. Sometimes can be difficult to get refunds even if you are eligible.
Full service carriers like SQ / KLM – better to book early.

[Lady London]

tbh JDB your comparison with Venice and Florence even in 1996 and 2003 they and many others were quite crowded. I’d guess the majors had been busy since the 80’s and had started to get notably busier sometime in the 70’s.

[Michael C]

Have had pretty ok trips to Venice and Florence in recent but not lockdown years – all at “off” times, of
course: Tuesday in late Oct., etc.

Will report back from a quick Bologna/Florence in a few weeks! (Bologna is gorgeous yet does indeed seem to avoid
the hordes – fab for a base then trains to other places).

As for Ubud, the area using the name has turned into a bit of a LondonSouthend airport! And a few miles on those
roads can take a LONG time. Still love it, though.

[SamG]

It’s probably too early for flights unless you want KLM biz. Usually Air Asia starts expensive and comes down nearer the time.

But check Singapore public holidays as flights get very expensive around those dates

[rashomon]

Thanks SamG and BuildBackBetter

I guess I’ll wait till the next year to book … my dates are Aug 2 to Aug 12. I can see that Singapore National day lands on the 9th but hopefully that won’t affect the pricing and availability for me.