Slide away at Singapore’s airport

by Julie Gerstein on

Airports are always looking for ways to make their visitor’s travel time experience more enjoyable. And travelers to Singapore’s Changi Airport now have a new way to pass the time: On a super-long indoor slide.

The Slide in Singapore Airports Terminal 3 is considered the longest slide in Singapore, topping out at 40 feet tall, and reaching speeds of around 19 miles per hour. (Scary!). The airport also contains an outdoor butterfly sanctuary, rooftop swimming pool and spa. Can we move in?

Rides cost a pretty penny — each swish down the slide is around $11. It may not be as practical as the dental services offered at Sao Paulo -Guarulhos International Airport, or as time-consuming as the free Sony Playstation consoles at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, but we’ll take it.

Daily Pampering: Marina Bay Sands Hotel infinity pool over Singapore

by Melanie Nayer on

Some of life’s simple luxuries are downright cool and some are simply awe-inspiring, and then there are those that give us goose-bumps and test our vertigo to the limit. Enter: The Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore and its rooftop infinity pool.

The $5.95 billion hotel finally opened its doors in June and is being touted as the world’s most expensive hotel, but that’s not the purpose behind this pampering. The hotel’s main attraction is a 650-foot wide infinity pool situated at the 55th floor of the hotel, making it the largest outdoor pool in the world that high. The pool’s water spills over into a catchment and then recycles the water back into the hotel’s main pool area. We don’t really care where the water goes as long as it doesn’t spill over Singapore, which is exactly how the views from this sky-high pool look (stomach turning).

In addition to the hotel’s infinity pool, guests can spend the night in one of 2,560 rooms that cost around $520 a night. The hotel also includes a casino, an outdoor plaza, a convention center, a theater and a museum.

Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.

Daily Pampering: Orient Express tours through South-East Asia

by Melanie Nayer on

The Orient Express, the ultra-luxury train service, is launching a series of rides through Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia starting this November.

Each tour will be limited to 60 passengers (the trains can hold a maximum of 132 people) and will include overnight off-train stays, tours and lectures.

You can choose from three- and six-night excursions that journey from Bangkok to Singapore; Bangkok to north-east Thailand; Bangkok to Vientiane; and Singapore to Bangkok (which includes an overnight stay in the Cameron Highlands).

Prices for the three-night Orient Express tours start from $4200 a person; the six-night tours cost from $9600, a person. The cost for this luxury ride includes food and beverages (so you don’t have to worry about raiding the street markets for a quick bite).

Want more? Get your dose of daily pampering right here.

The world’s longest and shortest flights

by Andrew Evans on

Because you’re just apoplectic to find out how you can maximize your time on an airplane, right? We covered this a while back, but things keep changing: planes keep getting bigger, stronger, and faster, routes change based on demand and somehow, we keep increasing our tolerance for being locked up and pressurized like pringles in a can. Fortunately, the world’s many airline nerds have already done the technical legwork–we just had to fact check:

  • At present, the world’s longest non-stop commercial flight is Singapore Airlines SQ21 from Newark Liberty (EWR) to Singapore Changi International (SIN) clocking in at a whopping 18 hours 50 minutes! Thankfully, the huge all-business-class Airbus A340-500 and world-famous in-flight service makes the halfway-around-the-world jaunt from New Jersey quite bearable. (In that same time, you could drive from Newark to Kansas City.)
  • The world’s shortest regularly-scheduled, non-stop commercial flight is on Scotland’s Loganair, from the island of Westray (WRY) to Papa Westray (PSV) in the Orkney Islands, clocking in at a meager 2 minutes (so I’m guessing there’s no beverage service).There are plenty of other super short commercial flights all over the world, mostly inter-island and commuter connections. The Caribbean’s LIAT flight between the islands of St. Kitt’s (SKB) and Nevis (NEV) is scheduled at 15 minutes long but rarely takes more than 5 minutes from take-off to landing.

(Photo Flickr: William James Tychonievich)

Weekend travel media top five

by Alex Robertson Textor on

This weekend’s most interesting travel stories include a look at Egypt’s seldom explored coast west of Alexandria, a long weekend guide to Singapore, a travel guide to solar eclipse runs, a profile of Boracay, the Philippines’ popular holiday island, and a 12-day Great Australian Aircruise.

1. In the Guardian, Belinda Jackson takes a road trip from Alexandria to Marsa Matruh and on to the border town of Sollum. Highlights include the beaches of Marsa Matruh and friendly coastal Bedouin villages.

2. In the West Australian, Veronica Matheson outlines a three-night Singapore visit, full of good restaurant and neighborhood tips.

3. In the San Francisco Chronicle, April Orcutt describes her decades-long interest in solar eclipses, detailing eclipse-chasing trips to Hawaii, Chile, and Curaçao and closing with a calendar of five future total solar eclipses.

4. In the New York Times, Lionel Beehner writes about Boracay in the Philippines (see above), wondering if the island might be morphing into the next Phuket.

5. In the Australian, Judith Elen does an Australian Aircruise over the course of 12 days, exploring the awe-inspiring natural beauty and cultural eccentricity of Australia’s “Red Centre.”

[Image: Flickr/~MVI~ (surviving on globe tattoo)]