A trip to Singapore – why it took 12 hours longer than it should have!

The reasons why we chose the City of Lion for one of our onward travels are many. Safe, exotic, full of attractions, clean, orderly, developed, modern with towering skyscrapers, yet full of gardens and green terraces – culturally so different, yet trying to be a “Western” country.

Opportunities to travel to this city-state are plentiful and one can even run through the offers. How to fly with the best price and time? And avoid unpleasant surprises in the process?

The City of the Lion, the State of Prohibition, the Asian Tiger, East Britannia. There are many terms for Singapore. It is such a specific city-state that it is hard to describe it in a few sentences. On the one hand, a modern financial center, where the world’s largest corporations are headquartered, and on the other, a multicultural one, with many religions and customs. Never before in any city have we had the opportunity to see so many temples of different religions almost side by side.

Singapore is often visited “by the way.” The huge transit airport makes it common for travel to Asian countries to have shorter or longer connecting flights here. Some people stay in Singapore for 1-2 days at the beginning, or at the end, of their long journey through Asia. Others combine Singapore and Malaysia on a 1-2 week trip, with the former country limited to 3-4 days.

We decided to fly to Singapore alone for a week, with the assumption that if we had enough time we might be able to see something in Malaysia as well. And guess what? Time was not enough! Several people surprised us that we were only interested in Singapore, that we were not planning a several-week trip around Asia. Unfortunately (or unfortunately) we have vacation restrictions, so we knew we couldn’t afford a two-week vacation this time. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t fly somewhere further afield for a week, which is what we’re going to try to prove to you.

Why Singapore?

Well, so we had a time limit – 1 week. We also realized that this is the time when we can still afford to travel further with Olive, as we still only pay about 10% of the adult fare (more on free travel with a child under 2 here!). So we were looking for a place where we could spend a week with the baby, it’s safe, we don’t need additional vaccinations, and with all this there are many interesting places to see for big and small :)

The thought of Singapore began to sprout when LOT announced direct flights to Singapore-Changi Airport. And maybe not even so much as a direct connection, but rather convenient flight times made us start reading, asking and watching more and more to make sure it would be a good destination to travel with a baby. Several people have recommended Singapore to us before, but usually in combination with just Malaysia. However, we knew that we would not see everything we were interested in in such a short time, so we left the trip to Malaysia only as an option.

In connection with the new connection, promotions appeared, prices fell, and we… bought airline tickets from another carrier! Two arguments prevailed – the May date suited us better, when LOT was not yet flying directly to Singapore, and the tickets we bought were at a price cheaper than even the promotional price of a direct flight. The cheapest tickets we saw on LOT’s website, in the best promotion, cost PLN 1,800, but as a rule, prices start at PLN 2,300 per person.

The British Airways option (which we chose) cost less than £2,000 without any promotion, and we could have flown at a more convenient time for us. The downside, of course, was that we flew with a connecting flight via London, so the trip also took longer, but we were able to finally fly Aribus A380! The end of the trip stretched us an extra day, but about that a few paragraphs below ;)

It is worthwhile to review flight prices on several different airlines before departure, because it may turn out that a flight that is direct will not come out the best value for money at all.

How about the time change?

In Singapore, we have a time change of 6 hours ahead (+6 hours to Poland’s time), so maybe some of you are wondering if it’s worth it to go just for a week if the time change can knock you out of rhythm for a few days? It may or may not knock out. A month earlier we flew to Mexico, also for a week, and the time change did not bother us, although it must be admitted that the nature of the trip was quite different. There we bet more on relaxation, while here we bet from the beginning on moving around Singapore all day.

So what did the time change look like in practice? We arrived in Singapore in the morning, around 6 a.m. local time, after a tiring commute. We were in the apartment around 8 am and tired went straight to bed for 3-4 hours. We woke up full and, after a quick breakfast, went straight to explore the city. That day, we went to bed at about hrs. 23:00 and immediately, we fully switched to local time (yes, Olive too!).

So, except for one nap during the day, we didn’t feel the time change in any negative way and were able to make the most of our time there, although it turned out that our stay was cut short by one night, all because of delays at the airport….

Flight to Singapore

So how was the trip to Singapore and why the delays? As mentioned, we flew from Warsaw via London. We left around 6 pm from Warsaw, and had another flight around 9 pm from London to Singapore. In practice, we had 45 minutes to change (!). We knew this from the beginning, but we figured that since the system allows the purchase of such a ticket, so there must be an opportunity to “catch” another plane.

Yes, the ability to move between other terminals at London Heathrow is there, but not when the plane has to wait its turn to land and makes an extra lap, which takes about 10-15 minutes, and when you have to wait 20 minutes (!) for the airport bus that transports passengers between terminals. The end result? We missed our flight to Singapore! And it happened completely independently of us and also affected other passengers from Poland (by the way, quite a few people flew identically via London from Warsaw as we did :)).

Fortunately, we had a combination ticket for the entire trip, so the airline had to find us a second connection. Unfortunately, it was the last flight to Singapore that day, and the nearest available seats were on Singapore Airlines at 9 a.m. the next day. It took us a long time to decide whether to take a morning flight and be in Singapore early, or wait until the evening and lose a whole day on the ground. At this point, let me remind you that we chose British Airways because we depended on an overnight flight, however. Since we don’t always make informed decisions, however, we decided to take a morning flight, hoping that more than 13 hours (!!!) with a child on a plane during the day would not be a big problem (after all, we already had experience with such long flights, such as on the way to Mexico).

Due to the fact that the flight was not due until the next day, the airline had to provide us with accommodation and food (we also got a mini toiletries kit and a XXXXXXL T-shirt to sleep in, even for Olive ;)). We were assigned to stay at a hotel about 20 minutes away, which was probably created to overnight those who missed their flight ;) On the spot, we found ourselves in a drawn-out queue at the reception desk, which was formed from people who had taken the bus with us, and it was hard to get free seats at the hotel bar.

Just to get to the hotel took us almost an hour – first waiting for the right bus (even though we knew from which station it leaves, you have to ask the drivers if they are sure they are going to a specific hotel), and then the distribution to other hotels dragged on forever. Finally, it was about 11 pm when we got the key to the room, along with a voucher for dinner. The restaurant was already closed at this time, but we were able to use the aforementioned bar and even order food to the room, which was salutary. We were surprised at how good the food and large portions were served.

It should also be added that we were left without luggage. In general, we can say that it was not a big problem, because we have had such situations several times in our history, and when we have “risky” transfers we always take basic toiletries and underwear for changing handy. However, we were most worried about whether we would have enough diaper and clothing supplies for Olive, because while for adults some toiletries are either given by the airline or can be bought at the hotel, diapers are no longer so readily available ;) We didn’t worry about the transfer itself, the extra night and the increase in travel time, because we knew that for our little traveler it was no problem.

Fortunately, the morning flight on the plane also turned out to be trouble-free, and when we landed on the ground, we still had one diaper to spare ;) In retrospect, we conclude that Singapore Airlines was good luck. The airline has better standards than British Airways (which, in our opinion anyway, is a big improvement over our Polish LOT), we flew on a new machine, the seats were not damaged, and the on-board entertainment system worked (which doesn’t always happen) and was very intuitive. The service was fantastic, especially when it came to the approach for the children – even when nothing was going on, they came over, entertained, Olive even got some toys to make the trip more pleasant. A fairy tale!

Our delight is certainly influenced by the fact that we had an extra seat for the three of us (by the way, in the whole plane about 1/3 of the seats were vacant) and we had a seat in the first row near the aisle, so we had plenty of legroom.

The downside? It is! We found one, a tiny one: since we did not do the booking ourselves and the tickets were generated quite late, we did not have the opportunity to order a meal for Olive (here it should be noted that rarely, but very rarely during the 22 flights in Olive’s history were any meals for infants served at all). But even this was not a problem, because the portions served on the plane were not very small, and in addition, sandwiches and snacks could be ordered throughout the flight.

The flight passed unexpectedly quickly. We even managed to catch a little nap, and Olive managed to explore almost the entire plane and make friends with other toddlers ;)

First impressions in Singapore

After landing, we immediately headed to baggage claim, then to one of the kiosks to purchase a SIM card for the Internet. Do you think we are addicted to the Internet and can’t live without it? :) We wanted to buy mobile Internet on site anyway – it’s a very cool option for travelers, but we’ll write about it in the practical tips. However, something else drove us to buy a SIM card – we planned to travel to the apartment by Uber, so the Internet was essential for us :)

Uber is very popular locally and it doesn’t take long to get free drivers. However, you have to wait if you have some cosmic requirements like a car seat for Bobas ;)

Once we got a cab, we had a very pleasant ride in a hybrid car (there are plenty of those in Singapore), with a lady who decided to tell us as much as possible about Singapore and Malaysia and outline a bit of the social and political aspects. Unfortunately, the 30-minute trip proved too short to exhaust the topics for conversation. Very polite, eager to help and excellent English-speaking locals – this was our second observation after landing.

Which was the first? Ukrop! Although we stood outside enough to pack into the car, on top of that under the roof, by then the high temperature and even higher humidity let us know (and it was six o’clock in the morning!) that the climate here could be oppressive and it would take us a while to adapt to it.

The first day was actually hard, although in the evening it began to rain lightly, which we welcomed with great enthusiasm. The next few days passed rather without rain, which we strongly anticipated, because, however, this coolness was missing :)

When we finally arrived at the Airbnb apartment, we didn’t even have the energy to enjoy the views from the 25th floor. We fell for a few hours to start the day around 12-13 pm and wasting no time to drive towards the famous Gardens by the Bay (Gardens by the Bay), but about that next time…. :)

Summary

Thus, our trip, which was supposed to last about 16 hours, lasted 24! All in all, we had a more comfortable flight to Singapore, and only lost one night on the ground. More importantly, not a single day was lost!

Singapore is proving to be a very hospitable, open-minded country for travelers. It is incredibly clean here (there really is no trash on the streets!), there is order and cleanliness, and the people are very helpful. A week ahead in a developed country, full of attractions and cultural diversity!

Read more about Singapore and what to see in our post Singapore – TOP 9 places you must see!