IainF
Jul 13, 03, 7:42 pm
As a regular visitor to Bali, I always look forward to planning my next trip.
However, this time the trip was made at short notice due to availability of award seats on QF.
My wife (MS R) and I have made 3 trips to Bali over the last three years and had a trip planned last year (October 20) but due to the Bomb in Kuta, were unable to go, much to our distress at having to cancel our holiday due to such a horrible event.
This time we decided on the spur of the moment to see if Qantas had seats available for BNE to DPS for about a week long stay.
I rang QF and yep they could fly us from Sydney direct to DPS on QF29 then return via QF 29 to Singapore then QF 52 to BNE.
This meant we had to pay to get to SYD but that was OK. For those who like to bag Qantas, this award trip was no problem and we were very happy with the routing.
We flew to SYD from BNE on the 2nd July on QF 553. After being booked on a later flight we rolled up to check in and the staff said there was a good chance of it being camcelled due to mechanical reasons. We took the hint, grabbed the earlier flight and wandered up to the BNE Qantas club lounge, where we tried to use our upgrade credits to get into J class to enjoy a decent dinner. The QC staff said it should be OK and to pick up our passes on the way out. I checked ITN and there was 4 J seats still available so I figured we had a good chance.
We had a couple of drinks, watched the news on the 60" plasma screen, got the boarding call, went back to the front desk and was told that there was NO seats in J avail...
OK.
We board the plane and guess what....J is full of deadheads.
Oh well. We cannot seem to burn those upgrade credits. What is very interesing is that we got full status credits of 30 each for the business class flight and bonus FF points for the trip of 1250 each for a flight that cost $143 each!
A quick wait for luggage in SYD, then a wait for the shuttle bus to the Stamford for the overnight stay before our flight to DPS in the morning.
We checked into the Stamford and got up to our room to find two SINGLE beds.
I don't think so.
A call to the front desk got a surprised answer. It seems because Ms R stays with the Stamford very regularly and sometimes has to share with colleagues that this was in her profile.
A quick room change and all was well.
A nice room overlooking the SYD domestic terminals. Pretty quiet, but I did get woken by a 747 landing at 5:30 am. I thoght this was to early for SYD but whatever.
Got the shuttle back to SYD international,
and checked into QF 29. At this point, the QF staff member said to us, and I quote
"OH, you got the best seats in economy!"
Since I had used checkmytrip, I sort of thought we would but it was nice to have it confirmed.
Went into the QC, fairly busy, had some fruit and coffee for breakfast and waited for the call.
After an hour got a call to the front desk and the staff member handed us our boarding passes.
I should have checked the seat numbers, but trusted the words of the check in lady.
We board the plane, and are exactly one row BACK from the front of economy.
AAARRGGGHH.
Why do they switch seats on us at the last minute?
I should stop handing in my boarding passes.
Anyway flight was easy, no turbulance and had the new QF inseat entertainment system to play with. Watch two movies on the flight, and challenged my wife to a trivia game. She wins on science but I take her on geography.
Nice meals and a really good FA by the name of Leonard who grabbed a bottle of Chardonay from J for MS B after a quick dicussion on the merits of wooded v unwooded.
I got a beer.
WE got the DPS without any problems and disembaked though the door just behind us and were first out, as well as getting our bags of the carousel first we made it to immagration first beating the whole plane and a long wait.
Walking out into the airport we looked for our driver from our villa. Got him and commenced our 20 minute drive to the Villa Kresna in Seminyak.
This is a group of seven villa's, we had a one bedroom with plunge pool, breakfasts and a massage included for US$100 per night. Thank god the AUS $ was up to 68 cents that day.
We had a great stay here being the ONLY guests for the week. we had the attentions of about 12 staff, who had to put up with my request to use the coffee machine in the cafe every morning in order to get my short black just the way I like it. (I also had brought with me a supply of Illy coffee)
We ventured into Kuta to pay our respects at the Sari club and Paddy's.
Very sad and what is worse,we were being hassled by hawkers for "Massage, braid your hair etc etc" while trying to read the messags on the makeshift memorial.
I was fairly short with my response.
We spent our time shopping and wandering around Seminyak trying to get the best deals on various homewares etc.
Of course we had brought two empty bags with us.
Got some great bargins and Ms R did her best to improve the local economy with her Mastercard.
We only had one bad experience, Ms R went to one of the many moneychangers in Kuta and changed AUS$100 for 580 000 rupiah. Except they only gave her 508 000.
She did not notice and went back an hour later and did it again. And got 508 000 rupiah.
I met up with her and asked how she was going for money and after a quick calculation we worked out we had been jipped for the sum of 144 000 rupiah in total. Which is about aus$24. Not much, but I was annoyed enough to have our driver turn around and head back to the money changers. The driver was horrified about what I was going going to do and said we should just write the money off.
Stuff that.
I went into the shop and pointed to my wife in the car and said you owe us money. They initially said no we were mistaken, but as I was a little tired and looking fairly unkempt, I think I made my point to them in no uncertain terms. They offered up the 144 000 rupiah and I took 100 000, leaving them 44 000.
They looked puzzled until I explained that it was mainly their fault, but some was ours for not checking properly.
The looks on their faces.....
They shook my hand and apologised.
We also had THE BEST EVER meal of our lives at Gado Gado, which is on the beach at Seminyak. An Austrian (not Australian) chef who is obviously a genius.
We were amazed at the quality of the meal and then at the price.
AUS$80 for food, wine everything.
About half the price for a lesser meal in Australia.
We also had several nights at Jimbarin Bay, eating seafood while the sun set.
The weather was great and we had a ball.
Now we had to leave. We got back to the airport and while waiting for check in, got our bags swabbed for bomb residue. Great security.
We then went to the Premier lounge on floor thre which is shared by all airlines I think.
A few people in there, including about 10 Australian kids aged between 8 and 15.
When will the lounges learn to get an X-box or two in order to keep the kids happy. Sure beats them playing with the coffee machine.
QF 29 was full again and of course we were once again 2nd row economy.
It was only 2.5 hours to Singapore, so I read a book and Ms R snoozed. We were served a nice lunch and we arrived in Singapore at about 4:45. We walked through the thermal imaging machines and made our way to the QF/BA joint club.
Changi Airport is in my books the best airport in the world. Clean, neat, well laid out and plenty of toilets, showers, shops and cafes.
I wonder if the powers that be at LAX have ever visted here?
We decided against going outside even though we had about 6 hours before our connection to BNE.
Ms R wandered around the many shops and bought herself a Sony net md player for a reasonable price and I spent my time in the lounge watching CNN and reading. We showered and then headed down to the gate for our flight.
QF 52 depated ontime at 10:30 and we once again had second row economy.
What made it worse was that in the seat across the aisle from me was a guy from Brisbane (Aspley) who had come from LHR and was already drunk. He spent the entire flight rabbiting on to all and sundry about who he was and what he had done. He also kept ordering bourban and cokes all night. Right up until breakdfast the next morning. I did ask the FA to slow him down but got no response. I cannot drink bourbanat 5:00 am but this guy seemed more than able.
I noticed his name and address on his bag and made a mental note to stand outside his bedroom window and bellow very loud, late one night.
We arrived back in BNE on time and ignored the duty free temptations and went straight through immagration, got our bags and went throught the "declare" section of customs.
They checked all our purchases and sent us on our way home.
OK now for the lessons learnt on this trip.
1- Dont hand over boarding passes to lounge staff.
2- Tell hotel we are MARRIED!
3- Take more money to Bali. and heck money when exchanged
4- Do not belive checkmytrip anymore.
5- Tell FA's sooner about drunk idiots.
Feel free to email me for any details of accomodation etc.
Cheers
Iain
------------------
Better living through chemistry.
[This message has been edited by IainF (edited 07-13-2003).]
However, this time the trip was made at short notice due to availability of award seats on QF.
My wife (MS R) and I have made 3 trips to Bali over the last three years and had a trip planned last year (October 20) but due to the Bomb in Kuta, were unable to go, much to our distress at having to cancel our holiday due to such a horrible event.
This time we decided on the spur of the moment to see if Qantas had seats available for BNE to DPS for about a week long stay.
I rang QF and yep they could fly us from Sydney direct to DPS on QF29 then return via QF 29 to Singapore then QF 52 to BNE.
This meant we had to pay to get to SYD but that was OK. For those who like to bag Qantas, this award trip was no problem and we were very happy with the routing.
We flew to SYD from BNE on the 2nd July on QF 553. After being booked on a later flight we rolled up to check in and the staff said there was a good chance of it being camcelled due to mechanical reasons. We took the hint, grabbed the earlier flight and wandered up to the BNE Qantas club lounge, where we tried to use our upgrade credits to get into J class to enjoy a decent dinner. The QC staff said it should be OK and to pick up our passes on the way out. I checked ITN and there was 4 J seats still available so I figured we had a good chance.
We had a couple of drinks, watched the news on the 60" plasma screen, got the boarding call, went back to the front desk and was told that there was NO seats in J avail...
OK.
We board the plane and guess what....J is full of deadheads.
Oh well. We cannot seem to burn those upgrade credits. What is very interesing is that we got full status credits of 30 each for the business class flight and bonus FF points for the trip of 1250 each for a flight that cost $143 each!
A quick wait for luggage in SYD, then a wait for the shuttle bus to the Stamford for the overnight stay before our flight to DPS in the morning.
We checked into the Stamford and got up to our room to find two SINGLE beds.
I don't think so.
A call to the front desk got a surprised answer. It seems because Ms R stays with the Stamford very regularly and sometimes has to share with colleagues that this was in her profile.
A quick room change and all was well.
A nice room overlooking the SYD domestic terminals. Pretty quiet, but I did get woken by a 747 landing at 5:30 am. I thoght this was to early for SYD but whatever.
Got the shuttle back to SYD international,
and checked into QF 29. At this point, the QF staff member said to us, and I quote
"OH, you got the best seats in economy!"
Since I had used checkmytrip, I sort of thought we would but it was nice to have it confirmed.
Went into the QC, fairly busy, had some fruit and coffee for breakfast and waited for the call.
After an hour got a call to the front desk and the staff member handed us our boarding passes.
I should have checked the seat numbers, but trusted the words of the check in lady.
We board the plane, and are exactly one row BACK from the front of economy.
AAARRGGGHH.
Why do they switch seats on us at the last minute?
I should stop handing in my boarding passes.
Anyway flight was easy, no turbulance and had the new QF inseat entertainment system to play with. Watch two movies on the flight, and challenged my wife to a trivia game. She wins on science but I take her on geography.
Nice meals and a really good FA by the name of Leonard who grabbed a bottle of Chardonay from J for MS B after a quick dicussion on the merits of wooded v unwooded.
I got a beer.
WE got the DPS without any problems and disembaked though the door just behind us and were first out, as well as getting our bags of the carousel first we made it to immagration first beating the whole plane and a long wait.
Walking out into the airport we looked for our driver from our villa. Got him and commenced our 20 minute drive to the Villa Kresna in Seminyak.
This is a group of seven villa's, we had a one bedroom with plunge pool, breakfasts and a massage included for US$100 per night. Thank god the AUS $ was up to 68 cents that day.
We had a great stay here being the ONLY guests for the week. we had the attentions of about 12 staff, who had to put up with my request to use the coffee machine in the cafe every morning in order to get my short black just the way I like it. (I also had brought with me a supply of Illy coffee)
We ventured into Kuta to pay our respects at the Sari club and Paddy's.
Very sad and what is worse,we were being hassled by hawkers for "Massage, braid your hair etc etc" while trying to read the messags on the makeshift memorial.
I was fairly short with my response.
We spent our time shopping and wandering around Seminyak trying to get the best deals on various homewares etc.
Of course we had brought two empty bags with us.
Got some great bargins and Ms R did her best to improve the local economy with her Mastercard.
We only had one bad experience, Ms R went to one of the many moneychangers in Kuta and changed AUS$100 for 580 000 rupiah. Except they only gave her 508 000.
She did not notice and went back an hour later and did it again. And got 508 000 rupiah.
I met up with her and asked how she was going for money and after a quick calculation we worked out we had been jipped for the sum of 144 000 rupiah in total. Which is about aus$24. Not much, but I was annoyed enough to have our driver turn around and head back to the money changers. The driver was horrified about what I was going going to do and said we should just write the money off.
Stuff that.
I went into the shop and pointed to my wife in the car and said you owe us money. They initially said no we were mistaken, but as I was a little tired and looking fairly unkempt, I think I made my point to them in no uncertain terms. They offered up the 144 000 rupiah and I took 100 000, leaving them 44 000.
They looked puzzled until I explained that it was mainly their fault, but some was ours for not checking properly.
The looks on their faces.....
They shook my hand and apologised.
We also had THE BEST EVER meal of our lives at Gado Gado, which is on the beach at Seminyak. An Austrian (not Australian) chef who is obviously a genius.
We were amazed at the quality of the meal and then at the price.
AUS$80 for food, wine everything.
About half the price for a lesser meal in Australia.
We also had several nights at Jimbarin Bay, eating seafood while the sun set.
The weather was great and we had a ball.
Now we had to leave. We got back to the airport and while waiting for check in, got our bags swabbed for bomb residue. Great security.
We then went to the Premier lounge on floor thre which is shared by all airlines I think.
A few people in there, including about 10 Australian kids aged between 8 and 15.
When will the lounges learn to get an X-box or two in order to keep the kids happy. Sure beats them playing with the coffee machine.
QF 29 was full again and of course we were once again 2nd row economy.
It was only 2.5 hours to Singapore, so I read a book and Ms R snoozed. We were served a nice lunch and we arrived in Singapore at about 4:45. We walked through the thermal imaging machines and made our way to the QF/BA joint club.
Changi Airport is in my books the best airport in the world. Clean, neat, well laid out and plenty of toilets, showers, shops and cafes.
I wonder if the powers that be at LAX have ever visted here?
We decided against going outside even though we had about 6 hours before our connection to BNE.
Ms R wandered around the many shops and bought herself a Sony net md player for a reasonable price and I spent my time in the lounge watching CNN and reading. We showered and then headed down to the gate for our flight.
QF 52 depated ontime at 10:30 and we once again had second row economy.
What made it worse was that in the seat across the aisle from me was a guy from Brisbane (Aspley) who had come from LHR and was already drunk. He spent the entire flight rabbiting on to all and sundry about who he was and what he had done. He also kept ordering bourban and cokes all night. Right up until breakdfast the next morning. I did ask the FA to slow him down but got no response. I cannot drink bourbanat 5:00 am but this guy seemed more than able.
I noticed his name and address on his bag and made a mental note to stand outside his bedroom window and bellow very loud, late one night.
We arrived back in BNE on time and ignored the duty free temptations and went straight through immagration, got our bags and went throught the "declare" section of customs.
They checked all our purchases and sent us on our way home.
OK now for the lessons learnt on this trip.
1- Dont hand over boarding passes to lounge staff.
2- Tell hotel we are MARRIED!
3- Take more money to Bali. and heck money when exchanged
4- Do not belive checkmytrip anymore.
5- Tell FA's sooner about drunk idiots.
Feel free to email me for any details of accomodation etc.
Cheers
Iain
------------------
Better living through chemistry.
[This message has been edited by IainF (edited 07-13-2003).]