Is Air Travel Coming Back Soon?

Its been 1.5 years since COVID-19 struck us. Air travel had completely come to a halt when many countries announced border closures. Airports were left empty and airlines had to cut flights and retrenched staff as a result. 

However, things seem to changed recently with higher rates of people being vaccinated. In the US, their government have started to relax measures and air travel is definitely back in the United States. Their airports are full again and flights are also full.

This is a stark contract from last year where airports are empty and flights were relatively empty too. Studies have shown that higher vaccination rates reduces COVID-19 infection rates significantly as seen in the chart below.

Minister Lawrence Wong has also said that "With a higher vaccination rate, compliance with social distancing and safe management measures, regular testing, and faster and more comprehensive contact tracing, Singapore will ease restrictions and gradually restore "our normal lives, both within Singapore and at our borders", said Mr Wong, who is co-chair of the multi-ministry task force tackling Covid-19. Mr Wong said: "As we progress through these stages (of reopening), we will ease our restrictions and gradually restore our normal lives, both within Singapore and at our borders. Then we will move to phase three, and even beyond phase three, to a new normal phase of living with endemic Covid."" This was reported in the Straits Times article here. We have a chance of going into endemic mode once we achieve vaccination rates of above 75% in October, which is the target set by the government. 

Shares of US airlines such as Delta Airlines and United Airlines have went up steadily in the past 1 year. It may still have some run up over the next 1 year as air travel progressively resumes. 

Here's a video on the situation of US airports and its airlines where we can see clearly how packed and crowded it is currently:

Elsewhere in Singapore and Asia, it doesn't seem that air travel is resuming soon as COVID-19 infection rates is still high in countries such as Malaysia. But, as vaccination rates pick up, more air travel bubbles will be formed in the next few months and we will see some form of air travel and tourism back in action. 

As an investor, it may probably be a good time to accumulate some travel related stocks such as Hospitality REITs. Their prices are still depressed and those who are early in the game may be able to reap some rewards in the future. We shall see how situation develops from here on. 

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6D5N Cruise on Royal Caribbean Quantum of the seas - Part 1

The year 2019 is coming to an end. I managed to go for another cruise holiday this time with Royal Caribbean's Quantum class ship, Quantum of the Seas. It is the first time this ship is home ported in Singapore until April 2020 next year and the ship will be here for another season probably starting end 2020 again. Previously, Royal Caribbean has its older fleet of ship in Singapore such as Voyager of the seas or Mariner of the seas.

Last year, I went for a shorter cruise trip on-board Genting Dream cruise and it was a really relaxing and good trip. You can read my previous post on my Genting Dream's cruise here. I liked the trip so much that this year I decided to go again with my family for a longer cruise trip on a different ship. Royal Caribbean cruise is more catered to those who like western offerings as the food, shows and activities are more towards western choices. Genting dream on the other hand is more catered to Asians. The 6D5N trip covers Port Klang (KL), Penang and Phuket. I will review the ship on all aspects in this post.

Day 1 - Embarkation day

On day 1, the ship was due to depart Marina Bay Cruise Centre at 5pm but we could get on the ship as early as 10am. I did all the check in online and my appointment was  scheduled at 10:30am. I reached the cruise terminal slightly before 10:30am and went straight to the departure gate.

There were people every where and it was quite a chaos but everything still went rather in order as they have lots of staff at the cruise terminal to direct the crowd. I was supposed to check in my luggage but somehow missed the luggage drop of point and ended up having to drag my luggage along all the way up the ship. Check in was rather fast, they just needed our set sail pass and passport and used their ipad to scan on our documents and off we go. They lead us to the waiting area where everyone is separated by colors to wait for our turn to board the ship. I waited about 1 hour then we were directed to board the ship.

Our room was not ready at 11:30am when we boarded the ship. It was only ready at 1pm so we went to Windjammer market place, which is a buffet area for lunch. There were plenty of seats at that time. Crowds started to come in after 12pm. The food offerings were good and food is always available as they refill it very fast when its left about 20%.

Balcony Stateroom

After lunch, we went to our room. For this cruise, I booked a balcony stateroom. The room was relatively big and it looks totally new and clean. They cleaned the room twice every day so it always looked fresh when we came back to our rooms. 

View from the balcony

Time to explore the ship

There are plenty of things to do on the ship. Quantum class ships are the 3rd largest fleet among Royal Caribbean's many ships. Quantum of the seas can fit a maximum of 4,905 passengers and is 348 meters in length compared to 3,840 passengers and 311 meters for Voyager of the seas. However, the ship doesn't feel really big as compared to the Genting Dream which I went to. 

Quantum of the seas just completed a multi million dollar refurbishment in Nov 2019 so everything in the ship looks very new and clean. The ship has a technology theme and the design inside is sleek and elegant, giving it the luxurious feel. 

Outdoor running track

Outdoor pool area

The North Star

Outdoor lounge area

Solarium pool

Bumper cars on a ship

Fine dining dinner on the ship every night

The dinner setting on this ship is fine dining every night. It consist of appetizers, entrees and desserts.  For Quantum of the Seas, instead of the usual Royal Caribbean main dining room, this ship has 4 dining rooms with the same restaurant. You can choose either traditional dining where you will be assigned 2 timeslots either 5:30pm or 8:30pm for dinner or the MyTime dining where you can reserve your own dining timeslot from 6:30pm to 9pm. I went for MyTime dining and booked my dinner timings on cruise planner 1 month before. I see long queues outside for those who did not make reservations so its advisable to book all your dining in advance. Here's the menu for the first night:

The menu changes every night which is a good thing. Food is good with occasional misses as sometimes the meat is too dry and hard. 80% of the time the food is great. Service is exceptional in the dining rooms and the waiters are friendly and try to make you feel at home. They try to assign you to the same waiters/waitress every night so you get personalised service. For my family, we were assigned the same waiters most of the time and they could remember us. 

Bay Scallop Gratin

Slow Roasted Prime Rib

Classic Fish & Chips

Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

Key Lime Pie

Apple Blossom A La Mode

Pear & Blueberry Cobbler

The food was exceptionally good for the first day. Everything we ordered was cooked to perfection. 

Day 2 - Port Klang, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

On day 2, we reached Port Klang. It was a distance away from KL so we did not get off the ship but enjoyed the facilities on the ship itself. Buffet breakfast is provided everyday at Windjammer marketplace or Solarium Bistro. You can also opt for breakfast in the main dining room, order room service where continental breakfast is complimentary or go to Cafe@Two70 for small bites. 

The most relaxing place on Quantum of the Seas is the Solarium. It is an adult only pool area with hot tubs, a terrace pool and good views of the sea. It was quiet on day 2 morning when I went there as probably not many people know of the existence of this place yet. Solarium was open to suite guests only when the ship was sailing out of China. Its good that they decided to open to everyone when the ship came to Singapore. 

Starwater Show

In the evening, we went to watch the starwater show just before dinner at Jamie's Italian which is a specialty restaurant on the ship by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Starwater show has to be booked because there are limited seats available. I booked 2 days before my cruise date on the cruise planner to secure my slots. 

Starwater show is the anchor show on Quantum of the Seas so its a must watch if you're on this cruise. Its more of a technology show with robotic screens, great visuals, combined with singing and aerobics. However, I couldn't really appreciate the show as there is not much story line to the whole production. Genting Dream's voyage of a lovers dream production was much better in comparison.

Specialty dining at Jamie's Italian

After the show, we went to Jamie's Italian for dinner. It cost USD $40 per person to dine here on top of the cruise price which we already paid. The restaurant setting is casual with an Italian feel. 

Entrance to the restaurant

Inside the restaurant

Here's the menu of the restaurant and we could order anything we wanted with no limits:

For starters, we ordered the baked chestnut mushroom and the famous cured meat plank. The baked chestnut mushroom is really good with juicy mushrooms topped with mozzarella cheese and a crispy bread. It was quite a big portion, good for sharing. The cured meat plank was good too. I liked how the meat was seasoned and it tasted really fresh. Quite a unique dish which I have never tried before in this kind of presentation. 

Baked Chestnut Mushroom

Cured Meat Plank

For mains, we ordered 2 pastas, one pork and one lamb chops. 

The first starter is the famous prawn linguine. All their pasta are handmade fresh everyday so its guaranteed freshness. The prawns in this dish was very fresh too. The sauce was quite unique with some spiciness in it. I really liked their pasta. The springiness was really good and its different from the pastas I ate before at any other places.  

The famous prawn linguine

The next pasta is the truffle tagliatelle. Similarly, the pasta is really fresh and the sauce was good as well with good amount of truffle and cheese in it. If you like cream based pastas, this is the dish to try.

Truffle Tagliatelle

The next main we ordered is the slow roasted porchetta. This is a pork belly stuffed with garlic, chili and herbs. Its quite a unique dish and the pork belly was good if you liked some fattiness of it. However, the skin was too hard and it was impossible to cut it even with a knife so it was difficult to chew as well. Other than that, the pork belly is really juicy and tasted good!

Slow Roasted Porchetta

 The next main was the lamb chops. It tasted good just like other lamb chops I've ate before outside.

Lamb Chops

Overall, the dining at Jamie's Italian is good. If you were to choose to dine there, I would recommend going for the pastas as its really good as compared to the other dishes. Too bad my stomach couldn't fill in more if not I would have ordered more pastas to try. 

Lastly, its desserts. We ordered everything on the menu and it came on a plank. Presentation looked really good. Some of it were too sweet for me though. 

After dinner, there was another show to watch called sequins & feathers. This is a glitz and glamour musical and its quite worth to watch. 

That's the end of day 2. Will continue the rest of the days in part 2 of the post. 

Read part 2 here

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The Most Cost Effective Way To Plan Your Travel Without Compromising on Quality

Travelling is the most common hobby which we as Singaporeans have. I see most people travel at least once a year and increasingly people are travelling multiple times a year. I love travelling also and its really to see more of the world outside as we live in a really small city in Singapore.

In this article, I'll share how I plan my travel for this coming year and some tips you could follow to really get some good deals out there. Its not about getting the cheapest option to travel as it would mean compromising on quality but its about finding the most cost effective way to plan a good relaxing travel experience.

Booking the flight

When it comes to travelling, booking the flight is always the first step. I use the website skyscanner to search for flight to the destination I want. Its easy just key in your destination and dates and click search and this website will search for the best flight across almost all airlines in the world. You can also filter base on your budget, preference for direct or transfer flights or the airlines you want.

Flexible on your dates? You can also choose to find the lowest flight tickets for the whole month by searching using the whole month as shown below:

After selecting the month (eg June), click search and it will show you a calendar view of the lowest flights available for the whole month:

That's it. You can find the best deal for your flight by using the method above.

Another tip is all airlines have several promotions at certain periods. You can subscribe to email alerts on the airlines website and you will get notified when there are promotions ongoing.


Booking the Hotel

The next major step for your travel plan is to find a good hotel to stay in. Trivago is a good website I always use to find the best deals out there. This website search for hotels in any destinations and then compares the best price across all other hotel websites such as Expedia, booking.com, hotels.com, Agoda and many more. Most of us may just search our hotels on one website such as Expedia but with Trivago, you can compare across all websites with just a click.

For hotels, besides the price as a comparison, I always emphasize on the location as well as the reviews. To me, staying in a good location will save time and also good reviews means a better stay and better travelling experience. With Trivago, you can sort the hotels by ratings and even see them on a map view.

After you find a hotel in a good location with good reviews, just select view deal and it will take you to the website which has the best deal to book your hotel.

Getting good hotel deals doesn't just stop here. If you own credit cards, banks do offer special deals for hotel bookings also. For example, Citibank card holders get 10% off hotel bookings on Expedia with any Citi card. Do note you can get this offer only if you book through the URL www.expedia.com.sg/citibank with promo code CITIEXPSG. I'm sure other bank credit cards do have such promo also so do check out the banks website for more information.

*Apply for Citi Cash Back card and get $300 worth of vouchers here

Buying travel insurance

The next thing to consider is travel insurance. To me this is quite important to get a peace of mind and its not too expensive also. NTUC is so far my favorite travel insurance as I've made claims before due to an unexpected cancellation of trip and they refunded me for all the expenses I incurred on flights and all that. NTUC almost always have discount on their travel insurance plans. The highest I've seen is 45% discount while most of the time is around 30%-40% discount.

FWD is another increasingly popular travel insurance which you can consider. They are the cheapest so far in the market but I'm not sure how good the claim process is? If you've claimed travel insurance from FWD before, do leave a comment below to share your good or bad experiences.


Getting internet in a foreign country

Wifi/data is extremely important for us now who can't live without our phones. Its also important when we need to use it to navigate around in a foreign country. If you're travelling in a group, you can consider Changi Recommends portable Wifi device which is quite affordable in my opinion. This device can connect multiple devices at a time to use the internet. Its as low as $4 for Asian countries including Japan and sometimes they offer promo with 2 free days off which they have currently. The best thing about Changi Wifi is you can collect and return the device  at the airport in all terminals.

Another alternative is to use your own Telco's mobile roaming plans. Singtel offers data roaming at $5-$12 per month for 1GB of data in up to 9 different countries. If you're travelling to multiple countries, this is a good choice. Starhub also has this happy prepaid card which has data roaming plans you can choose. I used this when I went to Australia 2 years back and it was quite affordable with good coverage.


Book travel attractions and transportation on Klook

While you're planning your travel, you would also need to book transportation or maybe local travel packages to enjoy your travel experience more. I always book any additional travel plans I need through Klook where I get can discounted tickets to attractions and transportation options.

For example, if you're going to Tokyo, you can book the train tickets on Klook at a discount and collect at Tokyo's airports on the day you arrive. You can also book Disneyland tickets in advance at a discount.

If you're new to Klook, you can get $5 immediately on Klook using my link here. Now you can book your travel experiences easily without any hassle.

Get additional cash back on Shopback

To push it even further, we can get additional cash back through Shopback. Shopback is my favourite cash back site to use not just for travel but for online shopping and almost any other things as well.

You can get cash back on flight bookings, hotel bookings as well. Look at all the places you can get cashback below:

I've got almost $50 in my Shopback account for me to cash out so far. You can use my lin6k to sign up and get $5 in your account straight away. I get $5 in return too.


Summary

Planning for travel becomes easier with all the resources out there. Let me summarise the complete travel plan below:

1. Search flights on skyscanner
2. Search for hotels using trivago or check your bank credit card privileges
3. Buy travel insurance with discount
4. Get wifi/data with Changi wifi or your Telco's data roam
5. Book travel attractions and transportation with Klook ($5 giveaway here)
6. Use credit card to pay for all the above to earn miles or cashback (Get $300 worth of vouchers when you apply here)
7. Get additional cashback with Shopback ($5 giveaway here)

That's a comprehensive travel plan! Any other ideas? Leave your comments below.