A staycation and travel addict who tries to toe the balance between living the atas life and maintaining some resemblance of financial sanity.
Ah, a hotel in the clouds.
Ho Chi Minh was one of those cancelled-because-of-COVID plans and I have always remembered I need to check this city off my list. With soaring airfares all around, a $250ish return ticket on Singapore Airlines caught my eye and off I went for 4nights. This property also came highly recommended from a trusted friend and it was just in time to clock double elite nights so win win!
Continue reading “[Hotel Review] Vinpearl Landmark 81, Autograph Collection”
After a whirlwind trip of 2 cities, I was ready to go home!
On the day of depart, I was informed that there were strikes by some airport workers and advised to go earlier. With SQ counters opening 3.5 hours prior to flight in view of that, I plotted to arrive 4hours ahead which turned out to be the right strategy. In case its useful for anyone, tax refund took another 30mins including manual checks at the counter for one of my stash, and off I went to check in exactly at the 3.5 hours mark.
With Business class boarding pass in hand, I also received what they call “Acces N1” – this is printed on your boarding pass – and this allows you to fast track all the way (getting into immigration, customs, security etc) skipping the sometimes-snaking queues which is a godsend given how busy the airport was.
Continue reading “[Lounge Review] Star Alliance Lounge, Charles de Gaulle Airport”
Finally getting to try this lounge to check off all my SilverKris Lounge experiences with this visit! And after hearing all that datapoint about how this lounge can be a madhouse especially later into the evening, I actually made my way almost 6 hours ahead, at 6:30pm, to attempt a much more peaceful experience and take my time instead of rushing through the stay due to the crowd.
Continue reading “[Lounge Review] Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge – Business”
To be perfectly honest, SQ’s announcement of devaluation last year was the cause of this trip. The things I do, hah.
So with the intent of “faster redeem” before the devaluation dateline in 2022, plus sage advice from fellow peeps, it was decided that I will do Singapore-London + Paris-Singapore on Business, with Eurostar covering the transit between the 2 cities. With immediate availability found for May 2023, the redemption was ticketed and ready to go.
But a potential work trip came along which would have clashed, and the commencement of Bonvoy’s double elite nights promotion spurred me enough to scout for availability to change up the trip.
And with that, I was ready to go on a ‘whirlwind’ 8-night tour of two cities in one sitting.
Continue reading “[Trip Report] The FOMO Trip”
This was a quick stop before I flew back to Singapore so review will also be rather cursory. Plus I had a crappy check in experience at the counter (more on this later in my flight review) so was in a bit of a mood.
Continue reading “[Lounge Review] SUITE DREAMS – Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge”
This marks the beginning of my bucket-list trip!
I think I spent way too much time thinking about how early in advance should I head to The Private Room (TPR) – after all, this could be the first and last of my First Class trip on SQ. I wanted enough time to enjoy the facilities but yet not too much to feel bored. Okay I know that some people try to spend 24hrs in TPR to fully maximize their access but that sounds a little too much for me. In the end I settled for 6 hours ahead of my flight, so reaching at 6:00pm for a 2355 flight – dinner, rot, sleep, eat?
[Sorry but am having technical issues with my photos as well so please bear with me]
Continue reading “[Lounge Review] SUITE DREAMS – The Private Room”After my completely devastating forced cancellation of my Etihad Apartment due to COVID (thankssss again), I had shelved any thoughts of flying First (on any airlines) as the roller coaster of disappointment was not something I want to go through again. Yeesh.
Continue reading “[Trip Report] Suite Dreams”
I had a bad feeling about this stay when I found out that we had been assigned a night here due to some flight timing changes but said to myself how bad can a Holiday Inn Express be?
I was so wrong.
Continue reading “[Hotel Review] Israel Idyllic – Holiday Inn Express Dubai Airport”
And so I decided to combine my flight reviews from this trip as they turned out to be rather samey samey and uneventful ie not substantial enough to be 2x separate posts. So while it may not be 100% sequentially coherent, it’ll save quite abit of empty spaces 🙂
Also, please excuse any discernible fatigue in the writing as I am restarting my mental engine after a long break and I hope I remember enough details to be adequate!
Revised review sequence:
Well, okay maybe almost Idyllic.
I should confess that Israel would have never been on my checklist for leisure but there was nothing I could control for a work trip so might as well try to wring a trip report out of it, even though flying Y is not the most exciting thing to write about.
My itenary for this work trip would be 7 days all in, including a 5-night stay in total – 1 night in Dubai and 4 nights in Tel Aviv:
FLIGHTS
Singapore Airlines – I was super glad that I was booked on Singapore Airlines for the 2x 7-8 hr flights. This will be my first Y experience for >5hr flight since 2020 but I’m pretty sure I’d survive quite well on our national carrier. Also time to test out the new economy class meals which has triggered a love-hate avalanche on the internet!
flydubai (website) – never heard of this airline prior to this. Have no idea what to expect but it seems like a decent short haul option for almost 3-4hrs. I also played around with their Manage Booking function (sometimes wonky) and was able to see that Y was laid out in a 3-3 configuration but I wasn’t able to select a fee without incurring additional costs so I’ll leave it up to fate. May the travel gods be with me.
When we began operations in 2009, our aim was to take more people to more places, more often. We now fly to more than 90 destinations and we’re constantly adding new cities to our network as we continue to grow. Over 70 million passengers have chosen to flydubai, making us the second largest carrier, by passenger numbers, operating out of Dubai International.
From flydubai’s website
AIRPORT LOUNGES
I will be optimistic about having the chance to check out these lounges as sometimes work trips can make stuff like these less flexible. Will try my best!
Singapore Changi Airport (SIN)
I am really excited about this one as it had re-opened on 20 May 2022 after an extensive facelift and the official photos of the space and reviews (you guys are fast!) were so pretty. This is also my first time stepping into Changi Airport’s airside after obtaining my Krisflyer Gold Elite status so double happiness!
Dubai International Airport (DXB)
I have never stepped foot into Duabi anywhere (suaku) so I can hopefully use my transit time to lounge hop abit although Priority Pass website didn’t exactly have very enticing photos of the options.
Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport (TLV)
Same same suaku traveller for this airport but pics for this lounge looks way better than those in DXB!
HOTEL
Holiday Inn Express Dubai Airport
This IHG property (website) was an unexpected stop due to the retiming of our Dubai-TelAviv sector, so I am hoping it will suffice for the overnighter and crossing fingers that it’ll be at least clean? And I can’t believe this is where I’ll be testing out my newly minted Diamond status from the fast track. Yeesh. May or may not review this one depending on circumstances (and mood).
Sheraton Tel Aviv
I was really psyched to learn that the choice of accommodation was Sheraton Tel Aviv (website) – yays to the chance to experience the newly renovated property! The rooms looked absolutely gorgeous in pics and the club lounge looks crazy nice too. A dummy search revealed a rather crazy rate of USD500++ a night so high expectations indeed.
Sheraton Tel Aviv sits on a prime beachfront location, right in the heart of the Herbert Samuel Boardwalk, overlooking the Mediterranean coastline, within walking distance to Tel Aviv’s hotspots, artist’s quarter and picturesque Jaffa. Enjoy our fitness room as well as our unique SPA featuring dead sea treatments and much more.
From Sheraton Tel Aviv’s website
So here we go!!
