Flight SQ 218 Melbourne to Singapore 0.35am 26th January 2024.

Gavin picked us up at 9.05pm and we quickly made our way to Tullamarine, Melbourne International airport and whilst we travelled through heavy rainfall we arrived at 9.50pm. We then progressed quickly through customs and Immigration inside the terminal after using the self check in terminals. We were walking through the Duty Free area at 10.10 pm and arrived at the Singapore airlines lounge at 10.20pm to be advised that boarding would occur at 11.50pm.

This had been a dream run, with the new Immigration processing and checkin making life so much easier. We have a snack and drink and we then watch the ladies Semi finals of the Australian Open.

We are called at 11.50pm and navigate the lots and we are ushered directly onto the aircraft. This is an Airbus 350 and we are seated in the middle in seats 14 D and 14 F. All goes well and the Cabin staff advises we are fully loaded at 12.15am and we pull back and depart at 12.20am, some 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

This is an excellent flight, we are offered a late meal but elect to defer to breakfast some 6 hours late. The Staff turn down our beds and Ken sleeps from about 1.00am through until about 6.00am, Jeanette has less sleep.

Breakfast is served at 4.30am after we have adjusted our clocks by 3 hours to accord with Singapore times. Breakfast is simply superb with a fruit platter and then an omelette and sausage etc, hot croissants and delicious butter and hot coffee.

The flight itself is a little bumpy as we navigate through Monsoon storms and we eventually receive notification that we will arrive about an hour ahead of schedule. It has been a fine flight. Comfortable plane ,yet we ffound the beds somewhat hard.

Following a smooth landing we disembark the flight and then traverse the Singapore Immigration and Customs arrangements given we had completed the online application 2 days prior to departure. It worked very well , we walked though ,scanned our passports and were admitted to Singapore.

We then exited through Customs, having collected our luggage at the carousel. We were through before many people had departed the aircraft.

Our Black lane driver was waiting. He took all of our luggage and loaded it all into the large Chinese SUV , extremely comfortable for our 25 minute trip to the Conrad Orchard, which is a new recent fuilly renovated Regent hotel in a prime / perfect location around Orchard Road in Singapore. This was a very pleasant surprise.

Check in at Conrad at Orchard Hotel was quick as we had used Hilton Honors points. We arrived at 5.45am Singapore time. It was quiet but we were greeted by the Night Shift manager.

We were immediately impressed as to the beautiful hotel and we were taken to our Suite 839 and we were pleasantly surprised. It was a beautifully decorated room. The hotel had re-opened last Monday and the formal opening is next Monday. The formal redecoration and refurbishment is simply stunning. We were delighted particularly as the gave us a late check out of 2.00pm on 26th January and made sure that we received a 13.00pm wake up call.

Ken slept through most another 5 hours from 6.30am. Jeanette woke at about 11.50am. We had both enjoyed a good sleep.

Too late for Breakfast , Ken took a walk around the hotel ,and was very impressed. We changed and showered and then packed and we were out of the room at 13.45pm , enjoyed a snack at the coffee shop and about 2.45pm we were in a Cab to the Carlton Hotel , where we are booked for 2 nights. We hadn’t realised that the issue with hotel room availability was due to “Cold Play” a world renowned Band playing 4 nights in Singapore and total sell outs and nearly 100 per cent of hotel rooms were booked.

This hotel is in an area that we know well from an earlier prior visit to Singapore staying at Swisshotel. We are right next door to Raffles Hotel and The Fairmont and Swisshotel. It is a comfortable 5 star hotel, not in the same league as the Conrad, but meets all of our needs.

We check in right on 3.00pm and are in our room and unpacked bye 3.35pm. We are in room 1654. Very Comfortable.

Ken goes out for a walk at 4.45pm and walks through Raffles Shopping Centre and eventually finds a Money Exchanger who does have Philippine Pesos and he exchanges US$. this is to pay for one of our Excursions and we need to handover the funds at morning tea 10.00am on the first morning in Horizons Lounge.

We then decide we have no need for a large meal, but walk across the road to an area with about 30 restaurants and pub type meals. We decide to have a starter and two salads at Harry’s. Ken orders a half litre of HRP Craft beer, simply beautiful and we thought we were advised that it was Happy Hour , but subsequently find the beers didn’t apply. Cost of that beer was Sing $17 including tax.

We watch the end of tennis and see a wonderful recovery from 2 sets down by Menxxxx.

Into bed at 10.15pm after a long day. Weather has been surprisingly good with temperatures in 30’s and yes humidity but not as bad as we expected.

Morning comes quickly as we both sleep well, awake at 5.30am but go back to sleep until 7.30am and weather when we rise looks pretty good.

Now off to Breakfast then Ken wants to catch train to Marina Bay , take some photos and then we are off to lunch with James and Rachel, firstly to their home in Sentosa Cove. And then to a restaurant for lunch.

Thinking that tonight we may go to the sound and light show.

We have visited Singapore on about 5 occasions in recent times post pandemic . It is one of our favourite cities.