Me and the girls had a flight with Singapore airlines booked for 12:30pm, so we didn’t have to rush in the morning. I did most of the packing last night, so just had a few last minute things to put into the suitcase.

The original plan was to take the hotel shuttle to the airport express train, but that hit a snag when we realized it was Saturday so the shuttle wasn’t running when we thought. Easy enough, we took a taxi down to the airport express train station. Everything went according to plan (because I’m a control freak and plan everything), so we got to the airport with lots of time to spare. That was fine, because we were able to use the Singapore Airlines lounge, due to my Star Alliance Gold status! Yay!

We actually got through security quickly, although the line looked really daunting as we arrived. The lady at the airport express check in took pity on us and changed us to bulkhead seats, too, so the flight was painless.

So, I’ve heard many good things about Singapore Airlines, but even that hadn’t prepared me for this flight. First off, let me say that we travelled Economy class, cattle class, back-of-the-bus class, and it was fantastic. The hostesses could not have been nicer, right from the minute we set foot on the plane. They wear beautiful long dresses that Emily loved. We were offered hot towels to freshen up, and then a menu—to CHOOSE our food. In Economy. For real. While we were reading, we were served lovely icy cold orange juice and given a newspaper.

The flight was 3hrs45min long but passed very quickly. The lunch for me was a choice of a western style chicken meal, or fish and rice, which I chose. The food was quite good as airplane food goes.

The kid’s meal was crazy! Fish sticks with potatoes and veggies, plus about 75 desserts!!! Chocolate cookie, chips, crème caramel and Haagen Daz ice cream. For real! Best freaking meal my kids have ever had on a plane.

And for the rest of the info—the washroom was fully stocked with toothbrushes, combs, mouthwash, etc. In Economy.

As we neared Singapore, they gave the kids some small gifts—a hat, a stuffed toy and a colouring book with crayons. And the hostess posed for a photo with the kids. The service truly was fantastic, on all fronts. I can honestly say I’ve never had that level of service, even in first class, with any other airline.

Arrival in Singapore was a bit of a pain in the butt. The lineups at Immigration were ridiculous. Apparently mainland Chinese are really scrutinized by Singapore, and we were right behind a flight full of them. Every second or third person was taken away by a guard for further inquiry. Seriously. Conversely, when we finally got to the front of the line, we were through in about 10 seconds. Canadians don’t even require a visa, so it was painless.

Luggage was already waiting for us, by the time we got to the carousel, and we only had to find a taxi. The lineup was long and moving very slowly, so that was frustrating too. Oh well, once we finally got in a taxi, it was a short painless ride to our hotel.

We are at the Pan Pacific Singapore. Five full stars. Our room doesn’t disappoint, and the service level is over the top. It will be hard to go back to Hong Kong and Air Canada later in our vacation after this.

Danny’s cousin emailed as we landed to ask if we’d meet her and her family for dinner. Truly, I wanted to politely decline, having just arrived at the hotel with two tired kids, but I sensed that would be the wrong answer. The kids here are back at school already, so she really wanted it to be tonight. So we agreed.

This is where things went off track. She called our hotel about 20 minutes later to retrieve us, and walked us to the shopping mall across the road. Singapore has more shopping malls than I’ve ever seen, and many are joined together, making for huge complicated complexes, a bit like walking the PATH in Toronto, but about 10 times as huge!! Believe it or not, she couldn’t find her way back to the restaurant that she’d left her husband and kids at. She dragged our tired butts around for over 30 minutes before giving up and calling them. They left that restaurant and walked to meet us instead. By this point, Stephy was crying as we walked, and Emily was begging to just go to the hotel and forget about dinner. Not an option, unfortunately, though I felt about the same.

Things got a bit worse when she decided that we’d go into a dead empty Japanese noodle restaurant. Dead empty when everything else was packed couldn’t be a good sign, and my kids don’t like Japanese food. Great. Not.

We ordered some noodle concoctions and sat and waited. Food took a while, and my kids were ratty and tired and silly. Their 15yr old just kept telling Emily to use “better restaurant behaviour”. Lovely.

Food finally came and I knew they weren’t going to eat. It was awful. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the 15yr old pipes in with “eat it all and don’t waste, Japanese is the most expensive food in Singapore”. Yeah, that really makes me want to eat with you. Geez, get a grip. Felt like paying for our meals myself, just so she’d shut up.