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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