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REVIEW: W Bangkok, Spectacular Room

Published by Shane

As the year was coming to a close and in need for a few more qualifying nights to renew my SPG Gold status, I booked a night with W Bangkok for a weekend stay after a couple of working days in the capital city of Thailand.

Spectacular Room

W Bangkok is located along the commercial zone of Sathorn, near the Chong Nonsi BTS station. A stone’s throw away from Silom, the location is great for those who needs easy access to the city centre where Siam Paragon, Central World and the likes are located, but quite a hassle if you wish to café hop along the Sukhumvit area.

This Starwood property is a Category 4 hotel, the lowest category for the W Hotels brand (there are only eight Category 4 W hotels globally, with four in Asia).

Welcome cookies placed in my room

The hotel runs 31 floors high, featuring 403 guest rooms and 34 suites.

For this stay, I booked myself into the entry level Wonderful Room. Being a SPG Gold member, I was upgraded to the Spectacular Room instead. And of course, I enjoyed the perk of a 4pm check-out as part of the SPG Gold benefits. Note that this benefit cannot be enjoyed at W Hotels that are resorts, such as W Sentosa and W Bali.

Giant gloves on every bed – perfect for that Instagram moment

The Spectacular Room boasts a rather unique layout, around the curved parts of the floor, giving the room a curved window to form a triangular layout. The décor is in the usual loud and modern W Hotel style, adorned by a huge pair of glitzy boxing gloves on the bed.

The room overlooks the swimming pool on the 6^th floor, as well as the front porch of the hotel which has a fountain.

View from the room

The bathroom is integrated as part of the room, separated only by a huge yellow frosted glass strips and a heavy red curtain that serves as a ‘door’ for the bathroom. For those traveling with friends and family and prefer a bit more privacy in the bathroom, W Bangkok may not be the best choice.

Open concept bathroom

Most of the recreational facilities are located on the 6^th floor, including the gym (FIT), outdoor splash pool (WET) and the AWAY Spa.

The gym is one of the smallest in the W Hotels I have stayed in. It is an open area on the floor, and is accessible 24 hours. The outdoor pool is not large, but throughout the day you will find people basking in the sun on one of the many deck chairs around.

The AWAY Spa is located on the same floor as well. At the time I stayed, W Bangkok was running several promotions for spa services, including a room package, Fuel Your Glow, which includes a 60-minute AWAY Massage for one. My feel is that being a destination known for its great spa and massage scene, hotel spas such as AWAY will find it incredibly challenging to offer a premium product when similar alternatives can be found easily and at a fraction of their price.

AWAY Spa – Men’s changing room

Guests may use the AWAY Spa facilities, including the steam room and sauna free of charge. The relaxation facilities are gender-segregated, but they are rather small and often underused. Note that the staff do not keep the steam room on at all times, so it’s best to call 15 minutes ahead for them to switch it on if you intend to use it.

There is also a jacuzzi somewhere within, but I didn’t check that out.

While my room didn’t come with breakfast, I asked about it during check-in and they offered a 30% discount on the breakfast at the Kitchen Table if I took it up at check-in. That comes up to about THB700 nett, which was quite a steal for a hotel breakfast but obviously extravagant by local standards.

The Kitchen Table

The Kitchen Table is located on the second floor of the hotel. First thing that caught my eye was the abundance of space and natural light. Of course, the high ceiling helped too. As with all W concepts, the Kitchen Table boasts of mod décor, the use of bold colours contrasted with black.

At first glance, there was a good spread of food choices: from your usual English style breakfast items such as bacon, eggs cooked-to-order, waffles, pancakes, to a wide variety of Asian fare, including congee, DIY miso soup and a live noodle station, serving up tom yum or chicken broth soups with noodles.

Cooked to order noodle soup, chicken broth

When I first took my seat, I was presented with an eggs menu. I ordered a pair of poached eggs. Honestly, the eggs weren’t fantastic so I only managed to finish one. The pastries were on point as usual – with the pancakes being my favourite. I only wish that the pancakes and waffles can be made to order so that they remain hot and fluffy.

Plenty of pastries and baked goods available for breakfast

Consistently across Asia, the Asian fare is much better. The noodles were on point, and the dim sum was decently delicious too.

Outside of breakfast, W Bangkok has got one of the most vibrant dining and drinking line up across Bangkok hotels.

Available for breakfast too – Dim sum

Every alternate Saturday, The Kitchen Table features ‘W does Brunch’, offering a vast spread of fine cheeses, salads, cold cuts, carved meats, BBQ, seafood, céviche and many sweet treats. Food and non-alcoholic beverages goes for THB2,500++ per person, while free-flow alcohol adds only THB600++ to the bill. SPG members enjoy additional discounts.

At Woobar on the ground floor, they have a daily happy hour one-for-one deals, but note that the one-for-one offer is based on a more expensive and limited menu. Still good value overall, especially if you imbibe alcohol like water.

Woobar, ground floor

What’s more exciting are the mid week events: apart from the usual ladies night every Thursday called “Girls Love Bubbles”, Woobar also features a “Boys Love Bubbles” every Wednesday night with free flow prosecco!

Next door at the House on Sathorn, there’s also a plethora of dining offers and options available for guests and walk-in customers, such as the high tea offer at the Courtyard available daily from 2.30pm to 5.30pm at THB1,350++ for two, including a selection of TWG teas. In the evening, the Courtyard and the Bar also runs a happy hour from 5pm to 7pm on weekdays offering 25% off all cocktails and beers.

W Bangkok

Overall, W Bangkok offers good value for the money you pay – in terms of its offerings as well as its excellent location in metropolitan Bangkok. The thing that didn’t quite work for me was the small swimming pool. As one of the cheapest W properties globally, this hotel is definitely a great place to sample the W style and top notch service without breaking your wallet.

FLIGHT REVIEW: Singapore Airlines A330-300 Regional Business Class, Taipei – Singapore

Published by Shane

Singapore Airlines / 28 Aug 17 / A330-300 / SQ879 TPE-SIN / Business Class

While planning for my weekend trip to Taipei I realised that Sunday evening flights back to Singapore were getting really expensive, so I decided to burn some miles as a treat to get home on Singapore Airline’s business class, partly to review the SilverKris lounge at Taipei airport which hardly had any reviews online (for good reasons).

Singapore Airlines A330-300 regional business class

Some people may not believe that short haul business class tickets are worth burning miles on, but I beg to differ. At 27,500 miles (each way) for a saver redemption (and this is after SQ scrapped the 15% discount for online redemptions), I do feel that the Singapore-Taipei sector is still worth the miles given that it’s the farthest SQ sector within the Hong Kong/Taiwan/South China region. By contrast, Singapore-Male is comparable in terms of flight time, but it will cost you another 7,500 miles in business class.

Singapore Airlines Business Class cabin

In terms of value per mile, given that SIN-TPE business class tickets on SQ trends around $2,200 round-trip, that translates to a redemption value of 3.9c per mile.

Airport experience

Singapore Airlines operates out of Terminal 2 at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport. With two flights a day, the check-in counter opens 2.5 hours before each flight and closes 40 minutes before the flight. While you can check-in conveniently online 48 hours before the flight, you will need to drop your bags from the counters at airport within the stipulated times. Note that there is no early check-in facility at Taipei airport, although I don’t see why you will want to go early given the distance from downtown and the lack of offerings at the airport or the lounge.

Given the flight volume, there usually isn’t a long queue. Just a tip: if you need to do tax refunds, remember to do it at the bridge towards the car park at Level 3 before you check-in otherwise it will be quite a backtrack from the check-in counters.

Soon after clearing immigration and security, I made my way to the SilverKris lounge a level above the main shopping floor to check out the lounge.

The aircraft

About 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time, I made my way to the gate thinking that boarding should have commenced. Alas, boarding had still not commenced when I got to the gate.

The bird

When boarding commenced I was one of the first few to enter the aircraft. Like many airlines, Singapore Airlines lay out its newspapers and magazines on a trolley right outside the aircraft door. I picked out two magazines and made my way to my seat at 11A. After the aircraft door has closed, I was delighted to find out that the seat next to me was going to be empty – oh what a joy!

The aircraft for this flight was a A330-300, featuring a two-class cabin consisting 30 seats in business class and 255 seats in economy. Singapore Airlines uses the A330-300 for most all of its short and some mid-haul flights, including Japan, Australia and India. In business class, this means a 2-2-2 configuration with seats by the window not having direct aisle access.

The back of the Business Class seat, with footrest nested under the seat in front of you

Given that the flights that the A330-300 serves range from Kuala Lumpur to Nagoya, the business cabin features a regional business class seat product. While SQ touts them as a ‘flat bed’ (which is technically correct), do note that in the bed mode the bed is at a slight incline of 172 degrees. Not the best product for overnight flights, so be sure to note the aircraft type when you book.

However, for short haul and day flights, the seat is an absolute delight to be in. At 24.5 inch wide, the seat is incredibly generous in terms of space with a great cushion and back to boot. While the airline post its seat pitch at 60 inches, this includes the space under the seat in front of you. I was at a bulkhead seat (or first row for laymen) so the leg room didn’t feel as generous.

Control panel for the seat under the armrest

The seat controls were a little hard to figure out. Even though it wasn’t the first time I have been on the seat, it still took me a while to remember where to find the seat controls, USB ports and headphone sockets were. Storage wasn’t fantastic too – there was a small strange pocket by the side of the seat that allows you to slot in your laptop. Be careful if you wish to use that space to put your tablet/iPad in, because it might be hard to retrieve if you have got thick hands.

The Service

As with other airlines, business class passengers always board first and that also means that they will be served a pre-take off beverage while waiting for boarding to complete. When I first came on board, almost like clockwork, the stewardess came by and asked if I liked a glass of Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve champagne or juice. No prizes for guessing which I went for.

Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve champagne

Soon after take off, the crew came around to take around round of orders for drinks, while they prepare for meal service. This time I went for a coffee, which was served with a small tray of warm nuts.

Coffee and warm nuts

Meal service commenced about an hour into flight. The appetizer was a beautifully plated antipasto of marinated prawn with smoked chicken and mozzarella, with balsamic dressing.

Appetizer – Antipasto of prawns with smoked chicken

While the options for today’s lunch looked fantastic in the menu, I have pre-ordered the Seared Lamb Loin with Jus through the Book the Cook service on Singapore Airlines’ website before my flight.

The Book the Cook service is one of the industry’s best and possibly one of SQ’s unique proposition for its premium customers. Offering a dozen choices from most of the destinations that SQ flies out of, you will always find something that you like from the list.

Singapore Airlines Book the Cook – Seared Lamb Loin

On the website, the dish was described to be a “seared lamb loin with jus, crushed pea with mint, leek and olive oil mashed potato”. However, the presentation leaves much to be desired. I figured that mash potatoes, or anything mashed for that matter, is just a bad idea for in-flight meals. The lamb loin was rather nicely done though.

My choice of dessert was the Haagen Dazs mango sorbet, which was way too sweet for me. If it was that sweet at 35,000 feet, I’m not sure how it will be on ground.

Mango sorbet

Dinner service was over in under an hour, and with a final drink service, the crew pretty much left us alone until the end of the flight.

The entertainment

The Singapore Airlines in-flight entertainment system, KrisWorld, is touted to be one of the world’s best. In this month, the KrisWorld magazine (yes, the IFE comes with its own magazine) touted over 250 movies and more than 600 TV shows. Being an Asian airline, Singapore Airlines definitely has a rather decent selection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean films with a total of over 50 options to choose from. Definitely a plus point for me.

My 11A entertainment screen – a bit too far from me

Of course, I had to indulge in a Chinese film, which is constantly a pain point for me when I fly with Qantas for their lack of selection.

Overall the flight was definitely enjoyable – at 27,500 miles for a redemption business class ticket, this is definitely a value-for-miles redemption to travel in style either to or from Taipei.

The short side of this trip was the lacklustre Taipei SilverKris lounge, which you are better off without. Also, Singapore Airlines has long gotten away without offering frills such as amenity kits and pyjamas for their business class customers. While the relatively short flight doesn’t warrant the frills, but providing a well thought designed kit will definitely boost its ‘class above the rest’ status, just like how wildly popular its 70^th anniversary limited edition amenity kit was received.

It’s true that the reigonal cabin product looked rather tired, but they are definitely still highly comfortable. Coupled with the right Business Class menu, the experience can still be pretty lux and worth the miles, or money.

LOUNGE REVIEW: Cathay Pacific Lounge – The Wing, Hong Kong International Airport

Published by Shane

The Coffee Loft

On a whirlwind business trip to Shanghai and Hong Kong, I managed to spend some time at the very much acclaimed Cathay Pacific lounge at their home base – Hong Kong International Airport.

Cathay Pacific has a ridiculous number of lounges in HKIA itself – a grand total of six, of which two have dedicated first class lounges.

If you need a whirlwind introduction, Lounge Buddy has a handy guide here.

Cathay Pacific The Wing lounge, right across Gate 2

For this trip I went with The Wing, Cathay’s flagship lounge which was recently renovated. The double-storey lounge is located closest to the immigration counters, on the left right after immigration and security right across gate 2.

The lounge has two sections – one for business class and oneworld sapphire members, accessible through the entrance opposite gate 2, while the first class and oneworld emerald section can be accessed directly to the left once you clear immigration into the upper floor. For business class passengers this can be quite a walk (maybe five minutes), which was the case for me.

Upon approaching the lounge the façade looks very understated, but when you step into it, the feeling transforms. If it’s your first time into the lounge, be sure to head upstairs first if you want to hit the food directly, but if you want to have a shower stay down.

There are several zones in the lounge, so let’s tackle them one by one.

On the lower floor, there are the showers, and a smaller lounge with a self-service beverage bar.

Cathay Pacific Lounge shower suite

I first headed to the showers to cool off before having my lunch on the upper floor. The walkway to the showers were mood-lit, leading you to an array of 24 private shower suites. There was hardly anyone taking a shower when I was there and I had plenty of rooms to choose from.

The shower layout were standard by airport showers, but very elegantly dressed. Cathay Pacific offers up Jurlique amenities in-flight for business class customers, so similarly the Jurlique products were used in the shower rooms too.

Unlike the Qantas lounge in Singapore, the towels are made available within the showers, and replaced after every passenger who uses a shower room. This is a lot handier than having to take one from the counter before showering.

The upper floor is where the fun is. Going up the stairs, the First Class lounge is on the right (which will be cordoned off anyway), but on the left is a myriad of zones with different offerings.

Stairs to the upper floor

The Long Bar stretches across the entire first zone you see, overlooking the gates and the aircraft stands. Not to be confused with Singapore’s Raffles Long Bar, this sleek bar serves up an extensive list of spirits, wines, classic cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages. The only downside is the choice of draught beer – there was only Tsing Tao available.

Long Bar – get your cocktail or champagne right here

The famed Noodle Bar is tucked right at the end, completed with long wooden benches and well padded stools.

Noodle Bar

On the menu was a selection of four made-to-order noodles and three baos (oriental buns) to choose from, and right beside the bar was a mini buffet of dim sum and other oriental treats, complete with a beverage bar where you can pick drinks, water and coffee from.

The Noodle Bar cook-to-order menu

Adjacent to the Noodle Bar is the Coffee Loft, serving up barista-made coffee, along with an array of pastries and cakes to choose from. A little known secret is that this place also serves up Haagen-Dazs ice cream and the very local Hong Kong milk tea!

Iced latte and Haagen Dazs ice cream

To sum it up: I love the lounge. the open top concept on the upper floor exudes a feeling of space and allowing plenty of light into the lounge during daytime, and the multi zone concept gives passengers a choice regardless of the time of the day they visit. Serving up hot favourites such as freshly cooked noodles, a comfort food for many Asians, is also a big plus point for me.

Elegant design, fully stocked pantry and food bar

My only regret is the lack of time to spend in this lounge as the immigration lines were far longer than I planned for. The business class lounge is amply spacious, although there were quite a far number of passengers inside given its proximity to the immigration checkpoints.

If you have never been into a Cathay Pacific lounge at Hong Kong airport, this is definitely a good place to start with before checking out the other lounges offered by the airline.

REVIEW: SilverKris Taipei Lounge

Published by Shane

Singapore Airlines has its very own lounge at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2.

While some people may find it odd that SQ operates its own lounge at an airport where there’s only two flights a day, frequent flyers will recall that SQ used to run its Singapore-US services via Taipei until the 2000s, and this lounge had a far better service proposition back then for Singapore Airlines’ very own premium customers.

Star Alliance gold members have no lack of lounges to choose from at Taoyuan International Airport. With home carrier EVA Air operating out of Terminal 2, Star Alliance gold members and business class passengers on the Star Alliance carriers can either hop into EVA Air’s several lounges or to the Singapore Airlines lounge.

SilverKris Lounge on the Mezzanine level of TPE

So let’s focus a little on the Singapore Airlines lounge. Tucked away on the fourth floor, a level above the retail level, the lounge is well sign-posted even though the entrance is not very obvious.

The lounge is one of the smallest out of all the SQ SilverKris lounges around the world. Taking the shape of a rather long and narrow rectangle, there is a row of armchairs closer to the windows, with a theatre-style sofa arrangement facing a TV screen on the other side.

TPE SilverKris Lounge

The refreshment area is at the far end of the lounge, with its usual service of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and warm food. My comfort food is always a small cup of ice cream and I recalled SilverKris Seoul lounge serving that, but this certainly wasn’t available in Taipei’s lounge.

Refreshment area

Also, the lounge didn’t serve champagne, and the selection of wines were rather crappy as well.

However, what I like about Taiwan in general is the food – and this was reflected in the Asian fare served up by the lounge.

Asian fare

On the menu today included Teriyaki Chicken, fried rice, dumplings, miso soup and the ubiquitous Taiwanese Braised Pork Rice, or lu rou fan. I was full before I went into the lounge, but greedy me couldn’t resist having another serving of it before I head home.

The lounge also has shower facilities in the toilets located at the back of the lounge, although I didn’t really check it out.

My favourite – Braised pork rice

Overall, the lounge is definitely by far one of the least impressive of the SilverKris network, given the size of the lounge and how dated it feels. One may also wonder if it makes any business sense for Singapore Airlines to continue maintaining its own lounge in Taipei given its flight frequency as well as its relative strength against its key competitor in the market, EVA Air. As Taipei no longer is a strategic market for Singapore Airlines given it is now a end destination rather than a transit hub, I don’t foresee any further investment for Singapore Airlines to refresh the lounge product or even sustain the lounge in the longer horizon.

Singapore Airlines SilverKris Taipei Lounge

Taipei Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2, Level 4
Opening hours: 0530-1745H daily

Qantas’ Kangaroo Route to fly via Singapore from 26 March 2017

Published by Shane

Five years after moving out the transit point of its flagship Sydney-London route to Dubai, Qantas is now moving the layover stop back to Singapore from next year.

Along with the shift of the stopover point, Qantas will also increase services to Melbourne to twice daily, including a daily A380 service.

Qantas and Singapore shares a historic link, given that the Australian carrier operated its first international service to Singapore way back in 1935, becoming one of the oldest airlines to operate into Singapore.

In 2012, Qantas and Emirates became strategic partners, which saw Qantas moving its transit point for Australia-London flights to Dubai. This is so that Qantas customers travelling from Australia could benefit from connecting to Emirates’ network of over 30 destinations in Europe in Dubai. With the move to Dubai, Qantas also suspended flights to Frankfurt via Singapore in 2013, and focused on only point-to-point destinations between Australia and Asia.

In its announcement of the return, Qantas also announced the extension of the partnership with Emirates, which means that Qantas and Emirates customers can still enjoy the benefits of both airlines’ extensive networks in the Southwest Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa respectively.

Qantas’ return to Singapore is also a win for customers in Southeast Asia, who can now also choose from First and Premium Economy classes when travelling to Sydney, Melbourne or London on the A380.

In an announcement last month, Qantas also unveiled a refurbishment programme for its A380 fleet, which will be completed by 2019.