OZDUCK
Established Member
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2010
- Posts
- 3,655
As I posted in the '2019 travel plans' thread, we are heading off to Bandar Seri Bagawan, the capital city of Brunei, to catch up with some of my wife's relatives. I don't expect an excitement packed visit for our 7 night stay. However, we hope to get into the jungle a little bit.
We are flying QF in J for the Per-Sin-Per legs as during their New Year Sale they undercut SQ by about a $1,000 per person. We will then try out Royal Brunei for the second leg. As there are only two Royal Brunei flights per day from Singapore to Brunei our arrival time meant there was no available connection. We had to stop at least overnight so we decided on three nights in Singapore at The Village Hotel Katong.
The check in process for our QF flight was pretty uninspiring. There was no specific check in for International pax and there were also a couple of domestic flights being checked in at the same time. There were only 2 counters open for all "priority" passengers and the queue was longer than the Economy line. We tried the bag drop machines as we had checked in on-line but they wouldn't accept our details so a QF staff member had to come and assist us. She seemed to be doing the same for almost all people using the machines. I can certainly say that Scoot's treatment of their Scootbiz pax at check-in at Perth Airport felt more "premium" than what we encountered with QF.
However, I must add that all the staff we dealt with were very pleasant and were trying their best to handle a system that was not working well. I don't know if this was a normal day or if some staff shortages or IT problems had occurred.
In Perth there is no dedicated J lounge for International passengers boarding in Perth. You have to use the Domestic J lounge and then be processed through immigration afterwards. The domestic J lounge was very lightly populated with not a piece of hi-viz clothing in sight. However, because of this process we had to pass through two security checkpoints - a domestic one to get to the lounge then a second International security check after immigration. To make it even more annoying, I had to take off my belt at the domestic checkpoint but was told to leave it on at the International one.
Our waiting plane, named King Valley. Again the priority queue seemed almost longer than the "normal" one, even though they did police it. No carry-on bags were weighed.
The compulsory leg room shot. I felt there was more foot space in this seat than on the QR A380. However the seat itself itself was mechanically very worn. It shuddered when changing positions and a couple of the preset buttons were not working. More worryingly, the inertia reel function for the sash part of the belt failed when I put it back onto the lap belt prior to landing in Singapore. I did report the problems to a FA on disembarkation.
The entree of Sesame and soy poached chicken was tasty and had a lovely bite. The chicken was moist and tasted fresh. There was also the usual uninspiring salad of tasteless leaves that seems to be favoured by many airlines.
I had a main meal of Tandoori Grilled Lamb with rice. The rice was a bit dry but the meat and vegetables were tasty and tender. But it had obviously never been anywhere near real tandoori spices.
My wife had a roasted vegetable salad with caramelised bacon. She said it was tasty but served a little too cold.
We both finished off with a Vanilla creme with almond praline and raspberries. It was lovely. I had a glass of Tokay with mine.
Before arrival we were served a mini quiche which was also fine.
The food was perfectly acceptable. Even better the service on board was very good with all the FA's we encountered being pleasant and helpful. A good crew.
The Village Hotel in Katong is a bit out of town but we like the area and there are plenty of buses to catch to get into centre of the city. As it is an older hotel the rooms are pretty big for Singapore - 29 m2 - plus they have a balcony. There was a special on and we got the three nights for S$423 which is pretty good for a reasonable hotel in Singapore.
Part of our room before I messed it up.
We are flying QF in J for the Per-Sin-Per legs as during their New Year Sale they undercut SQ by about a $1,000 per person. We will then try out Royal Brunei for the second leg. As there are only two Royal Brunei flights per day from Singapore to Brunei our arrival time meant there was no available connection. We had to stop at least overnight so we decided on three nights in Singapore at The Village Hotel Katong.
The check in process for our QF flight was pretty uninspiring. There was no specific check in for International pax and there were also a couple of domestic flights being checked in at the same time. There were only 2 counters open for all "priority" passengers and the queue was longer than the Economy line. We tried the bag drop machines as we had checked in on-line but they wouldn't accept our details so a QF staff member had to come and assist us. She seemed to be doing the same for almost all people using the machines. I can certainly say that Scoot's treatment of their Scootbiz pax at check-in at Perth Airport felt more "premium" than what we encountered with QF.
However, I must add that all the staff we dealt with were very pleasant and were trying their best to handle a system that was not working well. I don't know if this was a normal day or if some staff shortages or IT problems had occurred.
In Perth there is no dedicated J lounge for International passengers boarding in Perth. You have to use the Domestic J lounge and then be processed through immigration afterwards. The domestic J lounge was very lightly populated with not a piece of hi-viz clothing in sight. However, because of this process we had to pass through two security checkpoints - a domestic one to get to the lounge then a second International security check after immigration. To make it even more annoying, I had to take off my belt at the domestic checkpoint but was told to leave it on at the International one.
Our waiting plane, named King Valley. Again the priority queue seemed almost longer than the "normal" one, even though they did police it. No carry-on bags were weighed.
The compulsory leg room shot. I felt there was more foot space in this seat than on the QR A380. However the seat itself itself was mechanically very worn. It shuddered when changing positions and a couple of the preset buttons were not working. More worryingly, the inertia reel function for the sash part of the belt failed when I put it back onto the lap belt prior to landing in Singapore. I did report the problems to a FA on disembarkation.
The entree of Sesame and soy poached chicken was tasty and had a lovely bite. The chicken was moist and tasted fresh. There was also the usual uninspiring salad of tasteless leaves that seems to be favoured by many airlines.
I had a main meal of Tandoori Grilled Lamb with rice. The rice was a bit dry but the meat and vegetables were tasty and tender. But it had obviously never been anywhere near real tandoori spices.
My wife had a roasted vegetable salad with caramelised bacon. She said it was tasty but served a little too cold.
We both finished off with a Vanilla creme with almond praline and raspberries. It was lovely. I had a glass of Tokay with mine.
Before arrival we were served a mini quiche which was also fine.
The food was perfectly acceptable. Even better the service on board was very good with all the FA's we encountered being pleasant and helpful. A good crew.
The Village Hotel in Katong is a bit out of town but we like the area and there are plenty of buses to catch to get into centre of the city. As it is an older hotel the rooms are pretty big for Singapore - 29 m2 - plus they have a balcony. There was a special on and we got the three nights for S$423 which is pretty good for a reasonable hotel in Singapore.
Part of our room before I messed it up.
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