FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - [FARE GONE] DL: SFO-ATL/JFK-NRT-SIN $1,232.30 ai RT (25,318 mi; 4.9 cpm)
Old Oct 14, 2016, 3:13 pm
  #1606  
BHammy
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: CHA
Programs: DL-DM (1.75MM), Bonvoy LifeTi, Hertz-PC
Posts: 618
Trip report...

First of all - SO MANY THANK YOUs to Csfing1 for the updates and pricing on this route!

I decided to take this run a couple months ago to renew DM status and get more GUCs for our bi-annual LAX-SYD hop across the lake for work. And I took one of my daughters with me so she could get enough MQDs to renew Silver. Also had a buddy tag along from MSP for the whole jaunt.

Routing: [CHA-ATL-SAN]-LAX-ATL-MSP-NRT-SIN, drive to KUL, AirAsia to REP, back to KUL, then SIN-NRT-MSP-(xATLx)-LAX-[ATL-CHA].
[in brackets was separate reservation]

We basically had 3 days in country to do what we did...and it was pretty busy!

Day1
Walked around the Downtown Core of Singapore via the Mall (had lunch at restaurant with no English name) by the Science Center. Walked over to Singapore Flyer and took a ride in that.
Drove to KUL - a little over 4 hours drive. Customs very easy. Note: get Malay money for tolls before leaving Singapore! Stayed at hotel facing the Petronas Towers. Went to get pix of it at night and they turned off the lights as we're setting up

Day2
Went to Batu Caves in the morning. Slightly raining, but once inside caves (after 272 stairs) it was fine. Lower, dark caves weren't open yet.
Left there before noon to head to KUL airport (other side of town) to catch early afternoon flight to REP (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
Didn't get e-visa before, but filling out immigration paperwork on plane and then getting visa at airport took about 5 minutes. Lots of taxis waiting outside - reserved through central booking at window inside airport. Ended up working out a deal with the driver who became our personal chauffeur for the whole time in Cambodia (only 18 hours!)
He took us to one of the temples where Tomb Raider was filmed and then over to Angkar Thom where we snapped a few photos before sundown. Then to our hotel, very nice dinner at local restaurant inside another hotel.
My daughter was SUPER excited to order her first alcoholic beverage as there is no minimum drinking age in Cambodia.

Day3
5am our driver returned to take us to sunrise at Angkor Wat. Quite rainy, but mostly stopped shortly after sunrise. But we had an 8am flight, so back to the airport.
REP-KUL, then back to downtown Kuala Lumpur to take the Petronas Towers tour. (nice)
Then drove back to Singapore late afternoon - arriving around 9pm to walk around Downtown Core again for some night time shots.

Headed back over to the SIN airport to get shower and sleep before 6am departure.
PROBLEM: having a hotel at the Aerotel hotel that's inside security didn't work out. Delta counters don't open up until 3 hours before the flight - not the normal 6 here in the states. While we had reservations from 11pm-5am, we couldn't get our DOX-OK boarding passes to get through security. Had to slum it at the Crowne Plaza at Terminal 3.

All in all - worth it. Even riding coach most of the way. Got a few C+ upgs, and I got FC a couple times I think - which I gave to my daughter. Got to see enough of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Siem Reap to make it memorable.
To sum up each of our stops:
Singapore: Beautiful architecture and overall cityscape.
Kuala Lumpur: MASSIVE construction with multiple ~50 story apartment complexes going up all over town. More spread out than Singapore (for obvious reasons) but still nice to visit
Cambodia: HOT. Oh my, was it hot - or rather it felt hot with so much humidity. Not built up like SIN or KUL - more country feel. But nice accommodations and friendly people abound.

Friendly people EVERYWHERE! Very little language barrier.

On the return we took a shortcut from MSP directly to LAX instead of going thru ATL.
Problem is that it ended up with my daughter being $4 short of her MQD requirement. Luckily, my second call to the DM desk took care of it as they re-routed her in the system to get the MSP-ATL-LAX MQDs instead of just MSP-LAX.
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