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