Guy Betsy

Apparently UA and a few other non Star alliance carriers will be using T3 eventually as well. According to changiairport.com: http://www.changiairport.com/changiw...ml?__locale=en

abraxis

T3 SKL lounge and pix are great! Thanks for the virtual tour.

However, has anyone done the same for the KrisFlyer Gold lounge? Since they're the *Gold lounge for SIN, i'd figure that there would be a lot of interest.

Also, has anyone checked out the T3 for a hawker centre/staff canteen like T1 and T2 has? That's always been the frosting on the cake that is flying into SIN...

Gotta Requalify

I am in the F lounge now (and will be until just after 8pm on Monday 14th Jan - if anyone wants a help in.)

I came into the lounge this morning after arriving (I already had my onwards boarding pass). The toilets and showers still aren't ready. I was told it should be some time tonight. So I went over to T2 for a shower, then into town and back here now.

At the moment, there are more staff looking for something to do than passengers. The lounge isn't that big, and not a lot of group chairs, just a whole lot of singles. None of the chairs with the lumber cushons are here.

When I came in this morning, there was only the front check, so you could have come in from the business centre into the F section. This afternoon, they were split up. A person doing the welcome and then a second check at the front of the F section (they aren't joint like they were are T2.)

This morning I showed my Business boarding pass and she said go left. I said check again. Yes she said - go left. I said NO check again - with my finger just under the TPP. She grabs my boarding pass and I said look. Okay she relents you can go right and she yells out Solitaire to the next person helping people go to the end of the corridor. This afternoon, no such problems. Every one looked and said Welcome with no issues.

To me, the staff look like deer caught in headlights - unsure if to run or ask if they can help.

Gotta Requalify

Overall I am impressed with T3. It is big, but gee the distances are so much bigger. It will mean I will have to leave the lounge a bit earlier to get to the B gates, which it appears my flights are leaving from tonight.

The carpet is still soft and bouncy.

They have staff everywhere offering to help, including in T2. I went into town on the train - had time to kill. And when I came back, they had the orange shirt helpers there as well. As soon as you swing your head looking around, they try and make eye contact and offer to help. Just looking gets big grins.

I wondered from where the train arrives past all the aisles of empty (and I do mean empty) check in desks. There is lots of room to grow here. I also noticed a Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge.

Down past Asile 1, sort of tucked in the courner is the back enterance of the First Class Check-In. They have lots of seats here. I just walked in had a look around and then went and talked to someone. There is a separate First Class Passport Stamping area, and I asked if I could use it. They were unsure as they thought only those checked in there could (I got my boarding pass in SFO) but walked me back out of the first class check-in and pointed me to it, so all the government staff could see them talking to me, so I got to use it with no problem. This leads just about opposite to the escalators leading to the Krisflyer lounge. I think they were happy to talk to someone.

Had a walk into the Gold lounge. Not much food and the drink area looked like it could get very crowded quickly. Lots of chairs crammed in together.

One thing about the F lounge - the background music is loud and annoying.

I have yet to join a flight in T3, but the way they do the boarding gates is very different compared to T2. There is no longer a single x-ray and metal detector per gate. There are a number for a group of gates. This could lead to a bottleneck as I see the one set of groups is doing the A380 going to Sydney and my flight to Melbourne tonight. Lets see how they handle that.

There is a signpost saying one row for First / Business / PPS and others for Economy, but this morning when I was checking them out, I saw an Airport Employee tell people just use any old line. That caused a stampede to the empty priority queue. Too bad if you were First / Business / PPS. It could be as the gate had only just opened. I will check out how they are handled this evening.

Just a few random thoughts - if anyone has any questions. I will try and answer. Sorry no photos.

Few quick comments about the F Lounge:

• Ice Cream - Two kinds - haagen das and Ben & Jerry's
• Champange Glasses are smaller than before
• Got told that Toilets and showers should open tonight.
• That background noise really is LOUD AND ANNOYING
• Two computers only in the F section
• Looks down into lounge section A1 - A5, but you couldn't go plane spotting from here, as the glass is smoked to stop you looking out at the tarmac.

Gotta Requalify

Just went and checked out the C lounge. It is HUGE. I doubt very much if that could fill up with only the long haul flights leaving from T3.

It appeared that they had a much better food selection that the F lounge, as F was reliant on it being made fresh with the pasta and other options available.

One thing about the food in the C lounge - it is a very bad design, how it is presented with almost no light shining on it. The light was from underneath, so it was dark, you couldn't see what some of the things are. This will need to be changed very quickly.

More on the annoying music. I am in the "quiet section at the back" This has the sign that says No Mobiles. I walked up and down and this is where the music is the loudess. Not sure if this is on purpose so people can't speak on mobiles.

Off to ask some questions.

Gotta Requalify

When looking in at the Business Class Toilets, there is no way they are going to be finished tonight.

I also asked, about if there are any slumberettes or going to be. The answer is no. Couldn't really answer why not. So not sure what you are going to do when arriving at 1am and have a 9am flight out. Especially with that background crap going on.

I also told her, that while the background noise at the front isn't too bad, it is at the back and she should come down and check it out.

I also saw the door to the F Toilets are at the front. So there are frosted glass windows at the back - with potted plants in front. I wonder where that door leads.

Its 5:20pm and still not many people in the lounge - maybe 20 + staff - plus lots of workmen walking back and forth.

Asked about the door - only answer was "I no speak English". Oh well - a mystery for my next visit.

Sorry about the ramblings.

Gotta Requalify

So I was sitting here, in the lounge and I noticed the bar tender wandered down and looked around. He noticed that I looked up and asked if I would like a top up on my champange. Which I said yes and he took my glass and came back with a top up.

So I asked how it was all going and if he like the new setup. He said the C side is better as it is more constent. The F side has busy and slow times. He also said at the back, there is going to be a sit down area which will be ready in another 2 weeks. This will have a menu you can order from. I asked if this is addition to the current area where they cook the pasta and he said yes.

He also said that last Tuesday they were still drilling in the bar area trying to get it all ready.

Buster CT1K

Welcome to Singapore!

Gotta Requalify

okay, last updates. My battery died, so didn't get a chance to post this.

First there are plenty of power points. At least one next to each seat, but they only take the UK style plug, and I didn't have an adapter with me - no I didn't ask.

The showers and toilets did become ready at about 6:30pm last night, on the F side at least. They are to the right as you first walk in, next to the two computers.

At 6:30pm I looked around and there were only 4 people in the lounge. Myself, one on each of the two computers and one other - Plus the staff. I have never ever seen the lounge this empty. Okay it was a Monday night, second week of the year, but still. It did fill up a bit after that, but still no more than about 20 at a time.

The new toilet / shower area is nice, lots of white and marble. But not straight. Lots of angles. Its hard to explain, but you could get snow blindness on the way to the toilets, as at one stage, you are surrounded by white.

There are only 4 showers. Very different from the T2 showers, they have gone for Trendy. They have two types of showerheads. Some that go straight and some that fall from the ceiling, plus a hand held showerhead. Again very Trendy, and nice when having a shower. They use the same shampoo and shower gel as T2 - Green and Pink. But it was nice to have a shower with so much water being used and not concerned about how much was being wasted.

The finish in the shower rooms is not great. They have rushed too much and it just looks shoddy. I would not be happy if I paid the bills. The rooms aren't big, and have yet to have somewhere to sit down to put your shoes back on. But hey - it had only been open an hour.

In the eating area, I had a very nice Wonton Soup freshly made, and was told to sit down so it could be served to me. Very nice, but again only about 80% there, as I wasn't given any sort of napkin either paper or cloth. I noticed that the satays were out, so for those that love them - they aren't going to miss out.

On the downside, there are no monitors in the lounge showing the status of the flight. You have to go outside to where the lounge dragon is to find out. I think this is an oversight, as I know in T2 they were at the entrance so on the way back from the bar or toilet you could glace at them. Now you have to go outside - not a big distance, but still out of the way. Designers - not thinking about what people are there for - rather than just making it look nice.

Back in the terminal - I think that they have made the same mistake that I heard about from the new Bangkok Airport. All the signs for the toilets are hidden, so they have put temp signs at floor level (okay they are 5-6 feet high, but still at floor level) and have a temporary nature about them. I don't think people will complain about their not being enough, but it is still funny looking around and the clean lines are broken by these temp signs. Again designers going for looks and not what people need.

Lastly, my flight left from a different gate than the A380. But the same area as the flight to Brisbane. So I got to see how the x-rays and WMD worked with two flights leaving at once.

They had all open, which was good, but the line for First / Business / PPS was full, so wasn't happy about that. They have a person their direct people between lines. When he sees you have a business boarding pass, he tells you just to go straight to the front of the line. So it does work - but it took 20+ minutes to get all the daggers out of my back. Either keep people out of the line or don't have it. Sending people to the front of the line is always fraught with danger - especially on flights to Australia.

Also during boarding, they have a separate Elite line, but trying to find where the queue ends and the general mass of lice begins was difficult. One guy shouted at a person in front of me, are you business class. When he mumbled no, he just stormed past him and me, commenting loudly, well this queue is only for business class only. Okay, I was in the elite line as well, but it could have been handled better. I blame the airport design, as we were trying to walk around pillars and chairs. And they now do the security check (passport matches boarding pass) in this line, rather than before the x-ray and also as the gate area had 5 gates, like US airports, they take boarding passes off you as you board and not before, so this slows down boarding as well.

Remember boarding had only just been called. We still had over 30 minutes before scheduled departure time, so taking 1 or 2 minutes to get on board wasn't going to delay anything and it isn't as if the jumbos are short of bin space.

Overall - it didn't feel like Singapore. Everything was new and different and after a week, they are still making mistakes. (Even the boarding calls were stuffed up).

They still have the Koi ponds. Plasma TVs all over the place (just not in the right place). And I am sure over the next few trips it will be better and better each time. But it (both the terminal and the F Lounge) didn't have the WOW - open mouth look around that it did when I went into the Qantas Lounge in Melbourne for the first time in December.

Don't get me wrong - I still think it is great, but I think I was expecting slightly more than just meeting what others were doing. They leap frog the others when it comes to the seats, and maybe I was thinking Virgin+ or Qantas+ or Concorde Room+ rather than old fasioned Gentlemens club with an Ikea trendy design.

I am back there in 10 days and will be doing the T3 / T2 shuffle, so lets see then if things change.

jhm

Another report about the SIN T3 showers here:

http://www.sqtalk.com/forums/showpos...4&postcount=62

including the fact that there's a gap in the door through which outsiders can look!

rolov

I almost hit one of these large signs
http://s50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...t=IMG_2127.jpg

A_Lee

I haven't seen T3 yet but based on these reports SQ ought to be totally ashamed of themselves. Really disgraceful that a five-star airline such as SQ opens T3 with all these problems. Even more disturbing is that is sounds like they have chosen to not significantly update their standards in their new flagship T3 lounges. They are clearly behind the curve now. I'll wait till I see it in person to judge it myself but fear SQ has fallen to only a four-star airline if what I read is true.

Time to do some housecleaning with your management, SQ! You have really lost touch with what the customers expect of you!!!

NeverStill

I was in the F class section of the new SKL in T3 on Jan 16. There are now many computers to use, at least at the front near check in. I counted 7 new Macs and about double that number of PCs. The sit down area was open, but nobody was using it. Others have commented on the chairs in the F section. It seems pretty formal and not very comfortable.

While I like the high ceilings and more open feel of T3, I think it will take some time to grow on me. The carpet is still too new to easily roll a bag on. I didn't notice much noise on the hard flooring - I wish it were all like that. It's a looong walk from the end of the A to the end of the B concourse, which is what my connection was. Maybe no different than T2 though. And maybe it was just bad luck, but for the first time in 12 years of flying SQ, I had a delay of over 1 hour in my flight taking off (SQ 38) AND SQ lost my luggage! Hopefully this isn't a sign of baggage handling problems in T3. As far as I know, my luggage may still be in Jakarta - they haven't found it after 24 hours landing in LAX.

Alawyer

The lack of English-speaking service staff is a hot issue in Singapore right now due to the influx of cheap manual labour from China and India. Shocking to read to read about the ungodlike standards in a flagship lounge.

Still no word about the champagne situation?

SKL C = Charles Heidsieck (Mis en Cave or Vintage?)
SKL F = ????

goback

Too true! Nothing like some sort of earned distinction to make some of our countrymen froth at the mouth. It even might be a case of being, gasp!, un-Australian.