Port Moresby - Singapore via Brisbane in Y

[highflyingkiwi]

Unfortunately I had to book this trip via an agent over 5 months ago, however I (thanks to AFF) did all the legwork then asked them to ticket.

The trip to SIN was with Mrs HFK, Miss 10, Mstr 8, and Miss 3. They then transferred onto AKL where they are completing a BNE-AKL-BNE-POM trip, whereas I got the comfort of traveling back to POM by myself.

POM-BNE VA4190

Booked 5x Saver Fares as the Flexis were a couple of hundred more each ticket, not worth it from POM as we all have bags (and extra bags with VFF) and if we buy anything it only costs about $40. No IFE on this flight, but it is the new 737 with 2 rows of business and it appears the few Flexis on the flight ended up with Galaxy Tabs from Business.

Agent hooked us up with row 15, and I was unable to change this online. I, of course am on a separate PNR, so I rang through to the contact centre 40 hours out, asked for a TCP, and had us moved up to row 5. No problem of course, and off the phone in a couple of minutes.

Leaving Port Moresby, you need to be at the airport a good 3 hours ahead of departure as the airport and especially customs is notoriously slow. On arrival, you immediately pass through an airport security scanner beside the sign that says: no betlenut, no guns, no knives etc.

I looked up at the queue, and even though EF had the flight half empty 3 days prior, there was a large Rugby League team at the checkin. Of course, one of the computers was down, so they only had 2 counters going for what was now a full flight. Everyone else was being put through Premium checkin, but thankfully only 2 people ahead of us. The checkin clerk gave me a small handful of express cards, one for each of us but I needed to remind him to tag the bags with Priority...

We ventured upstairs after checking in and sat in the pre customs cafe. It's not great, but better than being on the other side where there was a dodgy little food counter.

90 minutes before departure we decided to brave the 2 customs agents and the inevitable 500+ person queue (3 flights leaving within 2 hours of each other) , but on going through into the customs area - there was not one single person in the queue. If I could have taken a photo, I would have. A zero queue here NEVER happens... After customs, you now have to hand your boarding passes to a boarding pass checker, before going through security again.

On the other side, we were pleasantly surprised to see that Figaro had decked out a nice cafe with comfy seating and tables - awesome. They do cough coffee, but nice sandwiches. Inside here is a little duty free shop, I think you can buy a carton of smokes for less that the price of a packet in Oz and NZ. Since we haven't been out of the country since Christmas, having a nice (not awesome, but nice for PNG) cafe in departures is pretty damn cool.

Our plane was meant to be boarding at 1330, but was delayed until 1340. 10 minutes delay here doesn't even qualify for island time...

On leaving the departure area, you then get your carry-on searched for water bottles, of which they will confiscate any, then it is on to have passports and boarding passes checked, and then out onto the Tarmac where our VA bird was waiting. Of course everyone is dressed for Brisbane weather (high of 18) and we swelter under 35 degrees as we walk across.

I hand over passports and boarding passes to the FA, who says "I'm sure you know where your seats are, welcome back Mr HFC" nice

Then we spent the next hour on the Tarmac waiting for 3 passengers who customs had decided to not let through... And of course the search for bags etc that had to be offloaded. Truth be told, we didn't see some friends on the plane who were meant to be on it... A party of 3 - the gods can be cruel...

The poor League fella sitting in our row had obviously forgotten to go to the loo back in the airport, and was fair shaking needing to go to the bathroom. The FA originally told him he had to wait as they were about to go, but after 30 minutes I pulled a DYKWIA moment and told the FA that he needed to go... Now. She relented pretty quick. . I'm glad, I couldn't bear the smell of urine in the plane, it was bad enough in the airport loo - which is hands down the most disgusting bathroom I've had to use, including ones in places like Djibouti and India.

Flight finally leaves and services starts. FA decides to check that we aren't on a Flexi as normal - we must stand out as it appears she has the memory of an elephant. And then we get the Luke Mangan beef pie and a few little things for the kids. Thankfully, small mercies - they have taken the wrap off the menu. The FA spots us a cheese and crackers when we realise that we stuffed up our order, which was a nice touch, and meant we didn't need to do 2 credit card swipes.

Rest of the flight pretty uneventful and although Y was pretty full, J only had 1 person in it. Crew were fantastic and let my wife use the J bathrooms as they had blocked the aisle with service.

As we were late into Brisbane, they moved all transfer pax to the front so they they could jump out first, which was a nice idea - but the air bridge failed to work, so we were sitting for another 10 minutes on arrival.

Customs was completely empty so didn't need to use express cards, I am now collecting them

Tried to hire a Mitsubishi ASX from Europcar, and had a painless experience - it was half the price of Hertz. They ended up putting us in a new Hyundai i34 which isn't what I wanted, but it did the job and the kids got to use their VIP Movieworld passes down on the Gold Coast for the last time before they expired. Mstr8 is still unhappy that he is under 140cms, and Miss10 is over 140cm's but she won't even go on the kids rollercoaster - and he isn't allowed on the big kids rollercoasters.

 

[highflyingkiwi]

BNE - SIN SQ256

Used premium checkin, but on a full flight discovered that we had been moved from pre assigned row 41 back to row 62. So much for allocation, however it turned out alright as the 5 of us were together with 62 having 3 middle seats rather than 4, and they were only slightly offset. The flight was full, and I was told that I could only take one guest into the lounge so there was little chance of us getting in.. we hung out and had coffee waiting for our traveling buddies (flying to same holiday, but on Qantas) to arrive.

Flight was on time leaving BNE, and the kids were stoked with the fantastic SQ setup in the A333. Krisworld got a hammering, so much so that Mstr8 had his lock up 4 times and had to be rebooted to get back in.

Both dining services were OK, we prearranged children's meals and these were much nicer than the standard meal the adults received. FA's were very happy to help with anything, but really got confused if you asked for something out of the ordinary - like apple juice rather than orange.... A bit odd that. They also had no idea on the iPod plug, even though I pointed out to them in Krisworld that they had the cables and were meant to know how it worked...

Service was efficient throughout, and the Singapore Girl legacy lived on.

With arrival into Singapore, we were held up by 30 minutes due to the haze, it really was terrible, and somehow you could smell the smoke in the main cabin.

Arrival into Changi was changed from T2 to T3, so I think that they had it wrong in the beginning and it was always T3. Of course, with 3 kids in tow we were never going to break any land speed records getting through baggage collection and customs, but as we hit each point it was as if we were the only people in the entire airport. Changi certainly is unreal... Maybe we could get Port Moresby airport staff over there for a lesson in efficiency (and Aus/NZ too)

People did think it was odd that we were just going to Singapore for a holiday, and even odder that we were staying way out at Sembawang rather than in the city. And even more amazed when they saw how many of us: 3 families, 6 adults and 10 kids. We needed 4 taxi's from the airport which made for interesting comparison on price.

Taxi A - $35
Taxi B - $36
Taxi C - $45
Taxi D - $50

All taxi's followed each other along the same route, but we didn't compare until after we got to our housing... Thankfully mine was $35

We spent a week in and around Singapore, with most of our travel on the very awesome MRT. This proved a treat with a big party such as ours as we didn't exactly blend in, nor did we look to be tourists - I think people were confused... To top it off, when we did take Taxi's back on the odd occasion from town to Sembawang, I had to give the drivers directions.... I know my way around the back part of Yishun now

Travelling on the MRT meant a 1.5km walk to the station where we encountered monkeys on our first walk happily roaming and making a nuisance of themselves, and through a residential highrise complex. At Sembawang MRT there is a great food area where you could get a Laksa for SIN$3 and I think we managed to feed all 16 of us for around SIN$50 (AUD$40).

The MRT only took one trip for us to figure out how it all worked, and when not to go on it. Dueing the week, MRT released a new program with free rides on the train in order to get people going to work earlier - this of course didn't help the trip home though

Of course - the Haze from Indonesia was terrible the whole week, but we still made a point of going out each day with trips through Little India (which I thought was a dodgy dump), Chinatown (which was great to wander around and gets some clothes tailored), and of course Sim Lim Square where I was accosted every metre by hawkers trying to sell me something for my camera/phone/PC. We also spent two days on Sentosa - the first day was a Cable Car ride over - which is accessed by going to Vivo City, then travelling all the way to the right, out of the mall, through another smaller mall, and then follow your nose... We arrived and wanted to go to the big aquarium, so were told to hop on the bus - when later, we found we could have just gone down some escalators...

The Aquarium was amazing - and one of the highlights of our trip.

Our second trip to Sentosa had us going to Universal Studio's. We were going to go to Legoland in Malaysia, however with the Haze very bad over Malaysia we decided on the less stress option. We took the MRT into Vivo City again, then queued for Universal Studio tickets on the top level of Vivo City (which has a great hawker food place btw). Then took the monorail over to Sentosa. On arriving - we found the Universal Studio ticket office on Sentosa was empty... Lesson learned - but it could have gone either way I suppose.

The great thing about Universal Studios, was Mstr8 could ride ALL the rides, including the 5x inversion Battlestar Galactica dueling coasters... This was his favorite part of the trip no doubt

We also spent half a day just taking a tourist bus around Singapore - called the HiPPO it left from Suntec City Mall and went on 4/5 different hour long trips. It was a casual (but pricy) way to get around and have a look.

Sadly our holiday was over and we had to catch the overnight SIN - BNE.

 

[highflyingkiwi]

SIN - BNE SQ235

At T3 used the Business Class checkin, but had a few issues as our booking was linked up, but we were transferring to different countries once in Brisbane. This took a while to sort out, and we were put into row 59, which I knew was the first row of 3 middle seats and would be terrible. Unfortunately another flight that wasn't completely full, but nowhere else to put the 5 of us together so ended up stuck with it. Of course on both legs, MrsHFK sits with Miss3 in the 2 block, and I have to sit in the middle of the row of 3 to stop the arguing and fighting.

They interlinked all bags, but could only printing a boarding pass for my VA BNE - POM transfer, and thankfully got my favorite seat 3D.

We went through very early as we wanted to look through the Butterfly Garden (of which we found 2 butterflies) and just wander Changi a bit. Living in PNG, having any opportunity to do "normal" things that might be mundane to some, means an adventure for us

I love the way Changi goes about its business, checkin was immediate, then we went through a small screening before handing our passports over to customs. A customs guy got each of us going into a separate queue because it would be "faster" and so we cleared customs in under a minute... And got to use the little touch screen and give them a big happy face

Duty free wasn't all I thought it would be, very poor selection of electronic gear, and I'm glad I bought my Sony Smartwatch in Sim Lim Square as the Sony shop at Changi doesn't stock them. Now I just need to develop an App for it

Kids played on play equipment, something that is always missing from other airports, and we wandered all the way down to A21.

Wifi was hot everywhere we went, and of course free... Kids were stoked! Me too!

Security screening was fun! The security people really just wanted to help us with the kids and all our stuff, and it seemed that we were personally assisted through, but on looking back - everyone was being treated in a similar way.

The flight from SIN to BNE was exactly the same as the first flight, but row 59 was indeed a shocker. Tray tables were offset and encroached into the next seat, the kids could actually see what was on my screen, so couldn't watch Django. And when Mstr8 knocked his OJ from the cup holder, it ended up in my lap.

On both flights, the amenity pack only contained socks, toothbrush and toothpaste. No eyemask in the pack, which was really needed as it was 2 hours before lights were off, and then they were only off for about 2.5 hours. I tried the toothbrush and toothpaste, and needed to rip into the toothpaste with my teeth to get the damn wrapper off. Miss10 put on the socks, which were a bit daggy, but she thought they were cool.

On the day flight, I found the seats to be comfortable, but on the night flight they were too uncomfortable. The headrest wasn't great, the silly footrest got in the way, and was especially bad as it was off centre and right where my left leg was. For sleeping in - not good.

Meals were great, but dinner for adults had ice cream, and the kids didn't get any... I gave up mine, but the FA came through later and offered ice cream to the kids as they had "extra". Again, it's those nice touch's that make a trip enjoyable.

The flight was the smoothest I had ever been on, not one bump or rattle and we arrived in BNE on time.

Transit in BNE was super quick although the AirNZ/VA 777 code share TT flight hadn't opened so the CSR at Transfer couldn't get the wife and kids BP's for the next flight. Off to the Koru Club which was pretty empty at 7:30am and no problems with the 5 of us. I did get a call to go back to Transfer so VA could swipe my passport and the team in Koru were fantastic as normal. They helped MrsHFC after I left with boarding passes etc, of which they ended up in row 39 but AirNZ fed them as well, even though they were all on VA Saver Fares. MrsHFC did note that AirNZ BP had VA Gold on it which she obtained whilst in Singapore.

 

[highflyingkiwi]

VA4191 BNE-POM

Flight for me on time, and had my preferred 3D with a shadow. Plane was surprisingly full but with only 1 person in J. Crew didn't say hi, and were pretty sour the whole trip, so I decided to be one of those horrid people that sends them back for a hot pie after they have just gone south for the people over the other side of the aisle.

There were quite a few groups on the plane doing Kokoda, Mt Willhem and other exotic adventures (yes, they all wear branded t-shirts)

I was pretty stuffed after a no sleep SQ flight, so I got a bit of sleep on the VA flight. Arrival into POM was ladder onto the Tarmac and the furtherest you could get from the terminal. With everyone behind me, I arrived 3rd into customs, had my first bag in 5 minutes but had to wait for the next 30 minutes for my 2nd bag. POM doesn't care if you have priority tags

Got the 3rd degree from the security scanner guys you need to go through - and out the door... Home!

Of note: SC's with family pooling all credited within 1 day (even the SQ ones) except the VA flight BNE-POM which still hasn't credited. In using SQ for the small extra cost, I requalifyed Gold for next year, and took the Wife from Silver to Gold and halfway to Platinum.

Wife is still in NZ, so it's beer for dinner

em tasol