Bali, Britain, Spain & Safari

[andye]

We went to another Accor Plus restaurant for dinner. The Moonlite Restaurant is at the top of a building overlooking the beach, with good sunset, posh by Seminyak standards and the food was pretty good. (cant find pics I'm afraid)

 

[andye]

We did go to the beach. It's not bad but I have several better on my doorstep.
Boys had a bit of a surf.
Although there the waves weren't huge, there were some very obvious (to us) rips. No red and yellow flags though signage to say dangerous current.
Of course, time and time again, people would go out and be swept to the back.. No formal lifeguards but the surf instructors were kept busy rescuing.them
Despite (or because of) their inheritance of our slow English swimming genes, all our boys have done nippers and gone onto SRC/Bronze when old enough.

 

[andye]

We had an early flight to leave. We had decided to cut short our Bali stay to give us another day in UK (award flights changed easily) but despite me letting them know, the transfer car didnt arrive. Needed several phone calls, eventually getting through to an LE bloke in Melbourne and it did turn up in the end.

 

[andye]

Flight 2

DPS-SIN
SQ Y B737-8 Max
SQ award 55k KF + $32 pp (for whole DPS-SIN-LHR)
Pax: mr&mrsandye mstrsandye3&4

DPS is a shocker for lounges so we settled into a coffee shop. My tendency to use NATO when spelling things out led to one of the boys finding the Antiphonetic alphabet which kept us entertained.(then and other days)

 

[andye]

Flight was good and SIN is always a decent transit (well except during the covid cattle-pen days)
Have gifted my second Amex Priority Pass to mstrandye1 (who is in London and going off for Eurobreaks regularly) so instead of the other third party lounges, we took the skytrain to the Plaza Premium which allow access to all Amex Plats.
Basic drinks are free but paid a supplement for G&T. Food good in parts

 

[Flyfrequently]

Flight 2
View attachment 469953
DPS-SIN
SQ Y B737-8 Max
SQ award 55k KF + $32 pp (for whole DPS-SIN-LHR)
Pax: mr&mrsandye mstrsandye3&4

DPS is a shocker

View attachment 469954

Your Duty free at DPS looks a bit less chaotic than ours a week ago @andye

 

[VPS]

Landed in DPS. Walked smugly past the long queues for passengers getting their visas on arrival.

Then Travel Mistake No 1. Mstrandye3 couldn't get through the electronic gates. The rest of us were already through staring at him on the other side. He went to the desk and it turned out I'd left his date of birth field to the default today's date when I applied online. Fortunately, he didnt need to go back and queue and was let though after he had a short chat with the official and clarified he was indeed 16 and not 3 weeks old. Cue ribbing on my family expert traveller status

A friend of mine coming from the UK to visit his daughter in Australia couldn’t check in. His wife was waved through and he said there was lots of muttering and frantic action on the keyboard and then the supervisor came over. Lots more muttering and furious typing. Eventually, they said to him what is your date of birth? He had put his wrong date of birth on the Australian Visa application and they had to ring Melbourne to approve him being allowed to board. He eventually made it.

 

[andye]

Flight 3

SIN-LHR
SQ Y B777-300
SQ award as above
Pax: mr&mrsandye, mstrsandye3&4

SQ Y is always a decent option with reasonable seats and good service though sometimes exxy for revenue. Mrsandye doesn't think the food is as good as it used to be. IFE is pretty good (EK is the benchmark here). Another good flight

 

[andye]

Next travel mistake. Had booked a car at LHR from Green Motion. Not as classy as the big chains but often half the price. One of the issues is that they are a fair way from the terminal and the shuttle is infrequent. Decide to get an Uber but give directions to the wrong Holiday Inn. Bit of a scenic tour.
I am a cheapo for car hire but you do pay the cost in time waiting to get off and away...more to come

 

[andye]

Spent first London night at sisters in Woodford. As I expect with most family reunions, it wasn't an early-to-bed one.

A bit of to and from about what to do the next day but eventually all agreed to the Cabinet War Rooms.

I know Chuchill is a bit on the nose in Aus given he was the big backer of Gallipoli (not to mention Singapore and the views of some of the Australian Indian diaspora) but its a fascinating visit.

Was tempted by the flying jacket but didnt succumb



A useful travel tip: parking in London is difficult and expensive. We were leaving early the next morning from mstrandye1's unit in Paddington. I was able to find a spot using yourparkingspace.co.uk very nearby in front of a small hotel and much cheaper than formal car parks. There is a similar site called JustPark but I couldn't get it to take my card.

 

[andye]

Flight 4

LHR-GLA
BA Y A320neo
BA award 5250 Avios + $35 pp
Pax: mr&mrsandye, mstrsandye1,3&4

Car drop off pretty smooth. Able to go to the T5 Plaza Premium using our 3 Amexes. It's a long thin lounge. Breakfast time food is better than evenings.


Probably the least comfortable of our flights for legroom and I miss the days when you could get a comolimentary cup of tea/G&T on BA

 

[VPS]

Spent first London night at sisters in Woodford. As I expect with most family reunions, it wasn't an early-to-bed one.

A bit of to and from about what to do the next day but eventually all agreed to the Cabinet War Rooms.

I know Chuchill is a bit on the nose in Aus given he was the big backer of Gallipoli (not to mention Singapore and the views of some of the Australian Indian diaspora) but its a fascinating visit.

Was tempted by the flying jacket but didnt succumb

View attachment 470418

A useful travel tip: parking in London is difficult and expensive. We were leaving early the next morning from mstrandye1's unit in Paddington. I was able to find a spot using yourparkingspace.co.uk very nearby in front of a small hotel and much cheaper than formal car parks. There is a similar site called JustPark but I couldn't get it to take my card.

That is the very annoying thing about trying to use apps in the UK that are Geoblocked and won’t accept Australian Cards

 

[andye]

Again I went with the cheaper car hire option (drivalia) at Glasgow. Pick up shuttle pretty easy with lovely driver. Get to the yard to he told the 7-seater we ordered hadn't been delivered. There were only 5 of us so not a big deal as long as there was decent luggage capacity. But we waited nearly an hour for that car to be cleaned (despite offering to take dirty).
Good example of when a stuff-up happens , its the service recovery that makes a difference and this fell short.

 

[andye]

Mrsandye's sister and family live in Alloway, the birthplace of Robert Burns. Burns House and a pretty pub called the Brig O Doon are nearby. We didnt visit but did go to Dean Castle (small but interesting arms and armour display inside), Boswell's restaurant (mainly to see the Highland cows) and had a fabulous haggis and neeps dinner.

Good family time particularly for the boys to see their cousins. I did wonder how they were going to fit us all in and had booked a local Airbnb but was talked out of it

I can also recommend Culzean Castle if in the local area

 

[andye]

Flight 5

GLA-LTN
Easyjet A319
Revenue GBP 65 pp including baggage
Pax: mr&mrsandye, mstrs andye1,3&4

Another early start after our 2 nights in Scotland. Arrive to drop off car and its closed with no key drop! Drive to GLA, drop off the family then back again. Easyjet baggage drop mercifully quick and meet up again in the lounge. Mstrandye1 assured me that they said it was fine for him to take 3 guests in on his PP (find out when home that its fine but you'll get a bill later).

Alcoholic drinks are by voucher. We had more than enough so donated to other guests (good chance they were Muslim so maybe copious Tennent's wasn't perfect random act of kindness).

Flight was as expected. Reasonable legroom and got the job done

 

[andye]

Yes its another car hire fiasco. Get shuttle to the Green Motion office inside the Doubletree hotel. No-one there for 45 minutes (apparently in the car park). Then had to go through the insurance hard sell (don't need as have complimentary via Amex). All sorts of tricks like not allowing key drop without it. At least I didn't have the problems that the person in front who only had a debit card went through.

When we finally got to the car, it was possibly the worst car I've ever hired (though to be fair have owned worse when young). A Dacia (I had to look it up) that looked like a fridge with worse build quality and handling. It did have Android Auto but it cut out every time you went over a bump

 

[andye]

Still we made the journey to Diss in Norfolk to see her beloved aunt and her Italian partner, Zio F. Her son and his newish wife were also visiting from Dubai.

As usual, the Italian food was amazing (they had moved back from Sorrento where she owned a jewellery shop).

We stayed in a cute little airbnb just outside town. (they are super-hospitable but in their 80s and we didnt want to impose too much). We cooked for all the second day-aunty was impressed with the boys' kitchen abilities