Monday, October 5, 2015

Oct 3-5: Comfortable Journey to Bali

Saturday/Sunday October 3-4

Pros: Comfortable/on time Delta flights, free unlimited booze, good meals, friendly and interesting seatmates, and an easy connection in Tokyo landed me at midnight in Singapore – an amazingly beautiful airport unlike any one I have ever visited in its obvious luxury and cleanliness. Truly more akin to a high-end shopping mall complete with free theaters, plenty of comfortable seating/lounging areas and easy to follow signage. Information kiosks were still fully staffed at midnight – as well as large touch screen monitors to guide me. It was easy to take a light-rail tram from my arrival terminal to the one I would depart from some 7 hours later – and the signage easily led me to both a “Transit Lounge” and a “Transit Hotel.” While I should have reserved ahead of time, I got lucky at the transit hotel and scored a wonderful, fully equipped hotel room for six hours for $60 US. Quiet and clean, I settled in and added to the alcohol-assisted sleep I had gotten on the flights – and awakened ahead of my wake-up call excited to begin the final leg of my journey to Bali.

Cons: When I checked in for Delta, I succumbed to the offered “upgrade” to “Comfort Class” seating – only available on the first flight to Tokyo for just $45. It promised priority boarding – which I got but don't really care about – and extra leg room and deeper seat recline – which seemed worth the cost when I added it but turned out to be indistinquishable from my regular Economy seat on the same 767-type aircraft on the second leg to Singapore. My knees touched the forward seat exactly the same in both types of seating. When I get a chance, I'll leave a comment on the excellent airline seating web site: http://www.seatguru.com so that others might make a different choice. The Transit Hotel for $60 was definitely worth every penny, the Delta “Comfort Class” seating – just hype.


Monday October 5: I'm writing this while enroute to Bali from Singapore on Garuda Indonesian – an airline I had never heard of until this trip. I'm sitting by myself in a row of 3 seats on a nearly empty plane – having just finished an excellent and tasty breakfast on a very new/upscale 737 (complete with individual entertainment consoles, and lots of beautifully outfitted and attentive flight attendants).

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