10 September 2022 – Singapore and Phuket, Thailand

The day finally arrived! Jessie had been counting down the sleeps for a week, and she was so pumped! Personally I feel that Singapore Airlines departs Christchurch at a great time – 10.50am, so we weren’t feeling at all rushed this morning, my dad came over with coffees at 8am and drove us to the airport, and it was just nice and relaxed (apart from when we were walking out the door and someone dropped their entire hot chocolate down their front and on the floor).

The Christchurch Airport experience was pretty seamless, I have to say! It was very quiet though, some shops weren’t open, and there was a lack of stock at the duty free store – I’ve been after a new iPhone (not the 14, just a newer version to the one I’ve currently got) but there was only one in stock and nobody seemed to be able to tell me the price.

Moving right along…

Craig had told every man and his dog about how gutted he was that we were seated in front of the toilets (that’s what happens when you’re on a cheapie fare and choose not to pay for pre-seating), but luckily he managed to get that changed at check in to some excellent seats in the bulkhead – from toilet seats to extra legroom… what a score!

Jessie did really well on the flight – she did chop and change between her activities a lot (glad I brought so many) and told me she was hungry a lot (wish I’d consulted with her on what to put in her lunchbox) out of boredom, but the flight seemed to pass fairly quickly and it didn’t feel like long before we were rushing through Changi Airport catching the Sky Train between terminals and gates (admittedly in our tiredness we did miss one of our stops and had to go back… lucky we had such a long connection time (not!)).

Outside our gate was a wee playground which, although it was past 10pm New Zealand time, Jessie was excited to have a play on it before our last leg.

In no time at all we were on the (much smaller) Boeing 737-8 to Phuket and man you realise how smooth the A350 is, in terms of turbulence, in comparison! I was looking out the window and the cloud formations were absolutely wild – it’s so different in these humid countries!

Nicely re-fitted plane though, the last time we flew this route (or similar… might’ve been to Siem Reap actually) it was still Silk Air, but has since been changed to Singapore Airlines.

I forgot we’d be getting a third meal on the flight to Phuket which I couldn’t do myself, but the kids meal was so good – it even had cheezels… who knew they were still a thing!

Jessie finally couldn’t hold off the sleep any more, and nodded off about 30 mins before landing in Phuket, so going through immigration involved a 1000 point turn (partly due to the Thai immigration officer having a mask on, making understanding what he needed quite tricky) so that they could get photos of her while she slept on Craig’s shoulder.

Every time I’ve been to Thailand the queues for immigration and customs have been massive, and a very long wait, so while it was pretty sad to see it so quiet, it was also very convenient to just be able to walk on through… and our bag been made it with the short transit time, which I wasn’t really expecting!

Walking outside the airport to meet our hotel transfer the humidity hit us like a tonne of bricks, and poor Craig still had his jersey on which he couldn’t remove with Jessie asleep on him, so it was a huge relief to get into the air conditioned van with waters and chilled jasmine towels waiting for us. Bliss!

We were very excited to arrive back at the resort, which we’ve been to before almost ten years ago, and can’t wait to get into it all today! They even had some bubbles and cake waiting for us in our room to celebrate Craig’s birthday

See you tomorrow! Laus ❤