mahdnc

My wife has used her Chase card here without difficulty. I presume that there was some kind of incompatibility that occurred as far a getting them to work with Grab.

Yes, you could use a credit card directly.

That's very nice. I plan on being at the Oceanview Bar at the back of Deck 14 when we sail away from Singapore, if you happen to be nearby..... David and Marcia

Have fun, Ken

We are trying to go cashless here in Singapore and later in Hong Kong by going with ApplePay like we have with our two prior trips to Australia. On the other hand, Vietnam and Thailand are very cash oriented and so we will have to be prepared for that and obtain their local currency from ATMs when we go ashore. During our Galapagos trip last month we didn’t have to worry about foreign currency since they have a US dollar based economy. However I still got a surprise and a chuckle when I got change back from my $20 after making a small purchase in Quito. Some of the change appeared to be given in strange subway or old arcade tokens or something like that and I was put off by it. When I held the tokens closer to my face for careful inspection so that I could complain accurately, it turned out to be US one dollar coins. I had not before seen the current dollar coin that is so rarely used in America!

Thank you for the suggestions. We will look into it.

From what I have read and observed in my less than 24 hours here in Singapore is that there is no tipping in general. For example, there was no obvious option to tip the Grab (via the app) and taxi drivers (Apple Pay) and nothing so far here at the hotel. We have not eaten at a restaurant in Singapore yet as we have been eating at the executive lounge here at the JW Marriott out of convenience and getting our bodies adjusted to the new time. That will obviously change because it was not our intention to experience Singapore food through the hotel's executive lounge.

The marathon flights were ok and we would do it again. However we did book Premium Economy seats for the long over-the-water SFO-SIN flight at a whopping 100,000 points per person (was 60,000 points before Covid). The seats are similar to domestic first class (wide seats with lots of legroom but don’t lay flat) and that helped. We have a Transpacific cruise out of Sydney planned for Apr 2025 and we may have to do it in economy class the whole way. Two weeks ago my wife bought her recently widowed father a new Apple Watch Series 9 for $399 USD before tax at Best Buy. He wanted it for safety reasons (like if he falls down and needs to send out a distress call since he now lives alone). So while at the architecturally impressive Apple Store yesterday, she priced the same model with the same specs for $599 SGD before tax which is equivalent to $450 USD. Yes, be careful if you bring your wife to this shopping mall. The formal name of this retail center has the word “shops” in it but it’s spelled with an extra “p” and an “e” as in “shoppes” which tells you that it’s an expensive place that can afford those extra letters. It has a Las Vegas feel to it.

We looked into our options to get to Marina Bay Sands (MBS) from our hotel, the JW Marriott (JWM), which wasn’t far away. Walking was free and would have taken 30 minutes according to Google Maps. We seriously considered this but we were running on energy reserves after our 17.5 hour flight from SFO earlier in the day. We talked to the hotel concierge about Singapore’s Mass Raid Transit system (MRT) and our desire to get to MBS. We were told that there were MRT stations close to both the hotel and MBS although we would have to take two connecting subways to get there. The cost would be about $2 SGD per person at the most. However Google Maps app estimated that it would take a little under 30 minutes which was about the same as walking. The hotel concierge also said that a great deal of the ride there (or maybe it was the subway in general) was viewless because it’s underground. To me that was a big drawback from a sightseeing standpoint so we began looking at car options. A car ride would take about 6-8 minutes according to Google Maps. We ended up using Grab to get to MBS which cost us $9.50 SGD. The app worked well and the use of the app is similar to the user experience with Uber in the USA. The only problem I had was getting the app set up with my credit card. It didn’t like my two Chase Visa cards even after multiple attempts but I got it to take my MasterCard. We didn’t use Grab to get back to the JWM because I wasn’t 100% certain as to where the pickup point was at the large MBS complex (it looked like it wasn’t the same place we got dropped off) so we took a taxi which cost $12.52 SGD and we had an interesting driver with whom we talked about Singaporean politics and his daughter’s upcoming wedding in Hawaii which he will not be able to make the trip there.

We did something very light and introductory during our first day here in Singapore. We visited Marina Bay Sands and went through its high priced shopping mall. Of course the mall was all decked out for Christmas: The mall is very nice inside and most of the stores were fashion stores like Versace, Gucci, Dior, Hermes, Burberry, etc. There was a very nice tea store there named TWG Tea. TWG Tea had a separate restaurant out in the open area of the mall that served high tea among other things: The second floor of the Apple Store there had very impressive architecture. It was encased in a large glass sphere. Apple's showroom floor had spectacular views that the photograph below does not convey very well. There were a lot of circular design and architectural elements throughout the shopping mall.

The one week cruise does go by fast in the end. However, I remember being exhausted at the end of our second day on Xpedition and thinking "OMG, this cruise is not even half over and it feels a like we have been here forever". Have a safe trip back to Quito tomorrow, Ken.

We booked a 1 King Bed, Premier Guest Room which is one step above their lowest category room (which is smaller). We used Marriott points to book our 5 night stay there (if you book 4 consecutive nights with points, you get a 5th night free). About a year ago, Marriott switched from a fixed award schedule to a dynamic pricing model. This meant that the number of points needed for a given room on a give date could rise and fall with time depending on supply and demand. The overall affect was an increase in how many points were needed for a room (aka devaluation of Marriott points). When I first booked the room back in Jan 2023, it cost 207,000 points to get our 5 nights at the JW Marriott. However the award pricing slowly declined over time and I was able to modify the reservation to get the lower rate several times this year. In fact when we were waiting at the gate at San Francisco for our flight to Singapore, the priced declined to 168,000 points. So while I was waiting for our flight, I was able to secure that rate. Before our room was assigned by the front desk agent, I asked if she could get us a room with a view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which would also afford us a view of the cruise pier. She was able to get us a room on the 20th floor . The view is very nice and I can see two cruise ships from our room: Norwegian Jewel (docked) and Genting Dream (getting ready to dock). Below is a poor telephoto view of the cruise ships and the pier. Hopefully I will have a better picture of. it later--maybe with Solstice in it. Our room is pretty nice. It is a bit compact, with high tech touches such as a motorized shade and light controls--neither one I have yet to master. There is no room for a small couch or a cushioned chair, just this metal rocking chair (at the left in the photo below). Very importantly are these electrical outlets placed on either side of the king bed. All of my electronics are now powered by the more modern day USB-C connections. We have the old style USB connections by our bed. We will live. The bathroom is nice. Not visible in the photo below is the walk in shower (to the left of the photo) and the water closet (also left of the photograph and not visible). The toilet also has been gadget-ized and we are learning how to control it and how to use it for good and not for evil. It's 1 pm here and my wife and I were able to relax and get our bodies recharged. I think we are going to venture out.....

Here was our arrival schedule this morning: We landed at 8:00 am local time. This was right on schedule so I don't understand what the pilot was talking about in San Francisco when told us that we would arrive much earlier. There was a fairly long walk to custom and immigration. We arrived there at approximately 8:15 am. As I mentioned in my previous post, customs and immigration was a painless affair as it was all automated (means you won't get your passport stamped though). It took us a while to collect our 3 checked suitcases at baggage claim and we manage to cram those suitcases, our carryon bags, and ourselves into a taxi sedan at 8:53 am. We got to the JW Marriott at 9:11 am. The fare was $25.93 SGD ($1 SGD = $0.75 USD) and it was payable by ApplePay. When we got to the front desk, we were told our room was not ready which was understandable (photo below). The hotel does not have any day rooms or a formal early arrival lounge like we saw with the Marriott hotel in Sydney. However we were told that we could use the showers in the locker rooms on the 18th floor where the swimming pool was located. Since my wife is a lifetime Platinum Elite member with Marriott, we were also able to go to the Executive Lounge to wait for our room and also have a nice breakfast which we did.At 10:10 am, the Executive Lounge host told us our room was ready and gave us our keys.

Thanks for mentioning it, but we missed it which is too bad. The good news is that SIN is set up real well to get arrivals out the door efficiently. The bad news was once we got our bags, there was the taxi stand and away we went. I am aware that SIN has garnered awards as the top airport in the world (here is an example). And when we got lined up to get off the plane, I warned my wife that we might make a detour or delay our exiting of the airport to some of the attractions. But I was not very well prepared in terms of knowing where the attractions were because I assumed that some of the impressive design features of the airport would be there to welcome world visitors flying into Singapore. I was wrong!

The famous wine maker and founder of Grgich Hills, Mike Grgich, passed away earlier this week at the age of 100.

Good to hear that you guys are well and doing a sailing on that brand new baby! You both must be excited about that.

This will be the longest flight that we’ve ever taken so far. It has our flights to Sydney from Chicago beat. Our flight schedule calls for 17.5 hr flight time. While we were in the plane but still at the gate, the captain said the flight should be over one hour shorter (yay) but we have to burn some of that time by delaying our departure because we “won’t be allowed to arrive that early” (boo). I just woke up about an hour ago. I think I slept for five hours. When I woke up, I instinctively wanted to know what time it was. But local time has very little meaning right now. I don’t even know what time zone we are in. Neither does my iPhone nor my Apple Watch. Our plane is close to Guam right now.

The previous posts do a good job of describing the difference between a wet and dry landing. When we attended the orientation presentation aboard Xpedition on our first day, here was their official explanation:

Hello again, Vicky. I trust you and Terry are doing well. David

We landed in SFO about 30 min ahead of schedule (3:00pm). The skies were clear for most of our flight and so we got a good look at the ground. We left the airport to visit our son, Chris, and his lovely girlfriend. We walked around Union Square to look at the Christmas decorations and then headed off to Mr. Jiu's for dinner which included Peking Duck. A quick Uber back to the airport and we are at the gate waiting to board our flight to Singapore. ' Ok, time to board. 17.5 hours, here we come.

Yes, your statement is factually correct. But we actually fly out tonight at 10:45pm (Dec 15). Just to keep the trip plan chart simple looking, I documented the SFO to SIN leg on the chart in the Dec 16th row. That date by the way kinda doesn’t exist for us as we leave SFO on Dec 15, but arrive SIN on Dec 17. I may have taken similar liberties by there way I documented our return flight. Sorry for the confusion.

Although it seems clear that Flora’s zodiacs make entry and egress easier, I did not find Xpedition’s zodiacs that difficult to get in and out of. There was always a crew member (sometimes two) to clasp your forearm to keep you steady. It seemed like getting back into the zodiac from a wet landing was the trickiest maneuver compared to the rest. That’s where I saw two people do a controlled fall into the shallow water of the beach during our sailing. So maybe Flora’s zodiacs are materially better. Now an improvement with getting into the zodiac from the water after snorkeling would be a nice improvement.

sorry. I didn’t read your post correctly in the rush to answer it before we took off from ORD. I only realized my error when I read Rebecca’s post. The most accurate answer to your question is this screenshot of our charter flight schedule information which included actual performance:

I edited the time in my earlier post because it was wrong. But I corrected it. So please note that. We landed at 1130am local time GPS which is 1230pm local time Quito (UIO). We took off from UIO at 1027am Quito time. The flight was nonstop.

We landed at 11:31 am local time for GPS airport.