Monday, March 24, 2008 Checked out in the club lounge, and the hotel car was ready for us this time with our bags ready to load into it. A quick drive over to the airport and airport porter’s met us at the curb (there’s very few as aggressive in Bali in search of tips). This is one of those ‘failure of the last mile’ sorts of moments. The club lounge experience at the Intercontinental Bali – small issues aside – really is quite sublime. They provide you with complimentary transportation back to the airport. I understand they may not be able to leave the vehicle on the curb and come inside, but it seems easy enough to provide an extra staff member who could help you with your bags, through security, and to the checkin…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for March 2008.
Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay Balinese Cooking Class
Four Seasons Bali Cooking School Experience: One of my pet peeves with travel is the last day in a resort destination. If your flight leaves too early, it’s a hectic morning rushing to get things together and get off to the airport… defeating the very relaxation you’ve been trying to accomplish. But a flight departing in the afternoon inevitably means waiting around and pining, “we have only X hours left” rather than relaxing. So I’ve found it’s helpful when taking a late afternoon flight to book activities during the day. We decided to book a cooking class over at the Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay roughly next door to the Intercontinental. Monday morning is the Balinese cooking class (other days feature different cuisines, but when in Bali…) The day started off at 8am in the lobby…
Bali – Dinner at Mozaic
We had one dinner off-property. With the suggestion of some on Flyertalk, we sought out the most acclaimed restaurant in Bali … Mozaic. It’s in Ubud, and nearly an hour and a half’s drive each way from our hotel, but was a nice experience. On the whole a lovely dinner, with wonderful service (though in a very practiced, memorized Balinese way). An advance booking is pretty much required, and then the restaurant requires same-day confirmation (and they also maintain a waitlist) so we had the club lounge staff ring them up the morning of our reservation. And then rather than taking a cab up to Ubud we had a hotel car drive us there, wait, and drive us back. It’s just so impossibly inexpensive (even with the current value of the dollar, and even at…
Bali – Central Mountain Tour
Bali Central Mountains Tour: On the advice of several Flyertalkers, we booked a tour with Wayan Sueta (who has a very nice website). We had him take us up to the Central Mountain region, saw a coffee plantation up in Munduk, and naturally some temples. Here was another glitch in our trip. We had booked him for March 21, we were supposed to meet him in the hotel lobby (and I had re-confirmed just days before). He didn’t show. I called him on his cell and it seems that he had gotten confused. He knew I had booked the 21st, but wrote it in his calendar for the 22nd. Since he lives up in Ubud it was really too late to get started for the day. Not a huge deal, we just rescheduled a spa…
Intercontinental Bali Resort & Spa – Jimbaran Bay
We landed just after 9:30 pm, and I expected the hotel to meet us on the walk from the plane to immigration, apply for our visa on arrival, escort us to their lounge, take our passport and luggage tags, and collect our bags. But there was no one waiting. Now, the above service is a published benefit of a club booking at the Intercontinental in Jimbaran Bay. And there really shouldn’t have been any confusion. Back on January 17th – right after I made the booking — I emailed my flight arrival information to the hotel. On January 18th the hotel confirmed Quote: we have updated your flight details in our system. The transfer from and to the airport will be included as a Club InterContinental guest and you will be greeted by our club…
Delta’s Round of Junk Fee Increases
Lots of new fees in the airline industry, limited only by the creativity of the folks coming up with them. United, USAirways, Delta, and Northwest now have $25 fees for second checked bags, with various exemptions for various passengers. None of this is big news, it’s been written about ad naseum elsewhere. I’ve offered detailed explanations of the economics and motivations behind tacking on fees rather than straightforwardly increasing prices. For example here, here, here, and here. But a new Flyertalk thread yesterday shows Delta raising the ante to a new level. CRC one-visit pass to go from $25 to $30 Unaccompanied Minor fee to go from $50 nonstop/$100 connecting to $100 for all Pets in cabin fee from $75 to $100 Pets as checked luggage to go from $150 to $200 Curbside checked bags…
Singapore Airlines Short-haul Business Class: Singapore – Denpasar (Bali)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 We arrived at Singapore’s Terminal 2, and the Lufthansa arrival gate was right next to our Singapore Airlines Denpasar flight’s departure gate. We went to the Silverkris lounge in Terminal 2, alas the business class side since we were connecting to a 2-cabin Singapore Airlines flight. I heard my name paged over the loudspeaker, and I went to the service desk just inside the First Class section of the lounge. It seems that I had left a DVD on the Lufthansa flight. The Lufthansa staff offered to bring it to the lounge, but since we’d be departing for Bali around the same time that the Lufthansa plane made its way onward to Jakarta, I just met them back at the gate prior to departure. But for us, Lufthansa had certainly redeemed itself from an otherwise unspectacular First Class flight.…
Departing for Singapore, I Can Almost Taste Our Destination of Bali…
Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) to Singapore, Singapore (SIN) 10:10 pm Lufthansa 0778, Boeing 747, First Class, Seats 81C, 81A Scheduled flight time: 11h 45m Our Mercedes van arrived planeside, up a staircase into the terminal and down the jetway where we were handed over to the FAs and led upstairs once again to the upper deck of a 747. And once again to my pre-selected bulkhead seats. This time the load was 8 out of 16, so 6 other people instead of just two. And the FAs, which weren’t all that memorable on the first segment, were downright disappointing on this one (with one redeeming piece of assistance, in a moment). Service was rushed. Now, it’s a 10pm departure so passengers may want to sleep. But I’ll let them know when I want their “Dreamer’s Delight”…
Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal in Frankfurt
First Class Terminal For those who haven’t been, or might be visiting for the first time, the First Class Terminal is on the upper, departure level in a separate building, just west of Terminal 1. The building has a large “First Class Terminal” sign. There’s a pretty sharp turn-off, though, as you approach, which can be easy to miss. (It’s also walkable back from the Terminal 1 arrivals level where the hotel vans pickup and dropoff.) Our car pulled up and a personal assistant met us out front. She asked for our passports, and I handed them over along with our boarding passes. She asked about luggage to check and I noted that our bags were already checked. She took our bag tags in order to check on them. We were quickly through a perfectly…
500 Bonus Starwood Points Per Night at Participating Properties
Starwood is offering 500 bonus Starpoints per night, up to 1,500 Starpoints per stay, at participating hotels throughout the Southeast, Midwest, New England, Caribbean and Eastern Canada. Registration is required and the bonus can be earned with each Sunday through Thursday stay between April 1 and May 31, 2008.
