Best Of

MotherOfPoodles - I've enjoyed all of the Asian tours (India; Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand; China) that I have taken including this one from the sights and activities perspective. I find the people, culture, history, architecture so different from what I am most familiar with (US/Europe) that they create a different level of fun.

That said, because the heat/humidity made it difficult to take on any extra activities or perhaps just being older now than when I did the others the heat/humidity impacted me more, but regardless due to that I rate this tour at the bottom of the list of Asian tours. Again, only due to the heat/humidity not anything about the sights or activities.

I tend to favor the 'exotic' tours, as such I generally rate the Asian, African, South American tours higher than the European tours. That said, I've enjoyed every tour I've taken. Rating them is somewhat like splitting hairs.

As an aside, I found the Indonesian people some of the most kind and gracious people that I've met.

Agree with you, Mike. I found most of VCT (except N and central Vietnam) borderline intolerable in January. In Bangkok, I spent some time walking the city during free time, and I was drenched from sweat after an hour. For that reason, this tour isn't on my to-do list. I'd rather do Yellowstone in Winter in shorts

Sam, nice review! Your logistics comments are a great summary of how to research when to go on a tour, without posting a "what's the weather like..." question on the forum

Good report. The heat would make the trip a problem for me.

I recommend the Botanical gardens in Singapore but go early. We found Vietnam more humid than Singapore
We had our own large private pool at Plataran bay and it was in shade!

Part 1b - Timing and Tips

Desire to include/exclude certain activities events within the tour window — This can be things like maximizing cherry blossoms on a tour of Japan; visiting so going to the Passion Play is possible, visiting so Oktoberfest is or isn’t in progress, etc. A few things on this trip to consider are holidays. Singapore Independence Day celebrations occur in early August, Indonesian Independence Day is August 17th. Holidays cause some activities to occur and may prevent other activities from happening. Researching holidays and their impact could drive your decision as to when to take this tour. Another thing is special events in the areas. There is a formula one race in Singapore in September. This impacts Singapore in more ways than you might think. Long before the actual race they have to race protect the streets, erecting safety barriers along the route. This takes time. Barriers were already in place in some places during our visit. This impacts you in ways you might not realize. I Google Mapped routes from the Raffle Hotel to various sights around the area that we might visit during free time. Well some of the Googled routes turn out to be no gos because the safety barriers sometimes prevent crossing roads where you might want to normally cross.

Cost and availability to/from the tour - Since this tour is so far from all locations in the US the airfare and routing is a much larger factor than for tours in North America or Europe.

Things people tend to factor in are desires to use favorite airline systems - Star Alliance, Sky Priority, or One World. Personally my desire is to use One World because it is the largest player in Tucson where we live. That said, cost and routing are bigger drivers. In discussions with other people on the tour some widely divergent selections were made. Several people had three or four stop routing. Depending on when you book widely divergent costs can happen. One couple commented that if they booked directly from Boston the fare would be several thousand dollars higher than is booking from LA. I found a similar effect from Tucson, but not quite that severe. For me, minimizing costs and stops is a major driver. Considering all the drivers for me, I decided to do a family visit in Seattle before and after the tour so as to get the best options for me to/from the tour.

We booked business on Singapore Air non-stop to Singapore and then from Denpasar to Singapore to Seattle on the way home. The fare was $4400 per person. The Singapore Air configuration was 1-2-1. That said the 2+ hour leg from Denpasar to Singapore had better seating than the 15 hour flights to/from Seattle/Singapore. They each were 1-2-1 configuration, but the shorter leg went to the lie flat configuration simply by pushing a button. The longer leg flights required that the seat back be manually unhooked and folded down to create the lie flat configuration. In addition on the shorter leg the lie flat configuration was all inline with the entertainment TV, while on the longer leg the lie flat configuration was at a diagonal from the entertainment TV. The long leg channel was offset from the TV whereas on the shorter leg it was under the TV.

Similar routing was available from LAX and perhaps JFK. The LAX option had a much better timing than the Seattle route on the return trip. They left the hotel at 10AM on departure day and only had a 3 hour layover in Singapore before heading to LAX. Our Seattle routing didn’t leave the hotel until 6:30 PM and required an 8 hour layover in Singapore. This meant we had to seek a late hotel checkout our book and extra day. We tried for a late checkout. None was available. That meant we had to hang out at the hotel, out of our room, until our departure time. We hung out at the poolside restaurant in the shade. The pool staff were great, providing us with our own fan and periodically providing ice laden towels for our necks. We considered the LAX option, but no good option was available to get us to Tucson, so a hotel stay in LA would have been required. That’s why we went the ‘Add a family visit before/after the tour’ option.

Depending on how important routing etc is this may require some detailed investigation or you may encounter some crazy costs/routing.

Part 2 - Hotels to follow.

I recently completed the Kingdoms & Dragons: Singapore to Bali tour. I thought I’d post a review in three parts. Part 1 - Timing and Tips; Part 2 - Hotels; Part 3 - Daily Sights and Activities.

Part 1a - Timing and Tips

This tour is offered from May through October. That establishes the general timing of when you can take the tour. Within that window several factors drive what 14 day window is the best for each person. Here are some factors to consider:
A) Personal availability
temperature/humidity/precipitation historical data
C) desire to include or exclude certain events, holidays, etc
D) cost and availability of desired airline routing

Per our Tour Director (Debra Grant), who has led these tours for years, July/August are the best months for the chance of lower temperatures, lower humidity, and lower precipitation as a whole. This statement, matched the research I had done and is why we selected the August 17 - August 30 tour.

Temperature/Humidity - this tour takes place from a few degrees north of the equator to a few degrees south of the equator. This tour was the most humid of any of the 20 tours (13 with Tauck) that I have taken. The humidity, for me, didn’t deter my enjoyment of any of the scheduled activities, but it did dampen my enthusiasm for doing additional activities in tour free time. I found myself enjoying hotel amenities (pools, A/C, etc) in tour free time to escape the humidity vs adding in extra activities. If you’re a veteran of humidity (eg. live on the east coast or in the southeast) then the humidity might not be a large factor for you. The temperature/humidity also impacted our decision on restaurants for meals on our own. We had identified a couple of restaurants to consider prior to the trip, but opted for hotel restaurants instead.

Another thing that drove some of our decisions was seeking routes to places that maximized the route within air-conditioned walkways.

I found myself taking a wash cloth from the hotel with me to help dry my brow. The TD provided cheap foldable fans for use throughout the tour. I used it a lot. One couple brought personal cooling devices (not sure what they are called, but they fit around the neck and provide a source of air). Other people brought portable hand held fans. I think some thought in this area as what would be the best option for you be considered.

One thing for people that bring SLRs or point and shoot cameras to keep in mind is that at the start of each day it took my camera about 45 minutes to come to equilibrium with the hot/humid weather. Sitting in the cool air conditioned rooms over night resulted in the lens becoming foggy and unusable until the equipment reached equilibrium.

Lastly, hydration is a key element to remember on this tour. A couple of times people got a bit light headed, likely due to lack of sufficient hydration. Water is provided on the buses that can be taken on activities and upon return to the bus following activities.

Precipitation - we weren’t seriously impacted by rain. We only had short rain showers on a couple of days. The only heavy rain we had was on our drive from the airport to the Raffles hotel in Singapore, so no real impact except slowing down the drive a bit. For dealing with the rain the TD provided cheap disposable ponchos on a couple of times. I put one on for a short while. Just remember that the area is hot and humid so adding additional clothing may not be the best option. On one other time I used a small, collapsible umbrella that I had brought with me. Some visited sites provide umbrellas as well, if needed.

Another thing to remember about rain is that it can impact activities in various ways.

If it rains very much during scheduled visits to areas where seeing monkeys is a highlight it could impact their availability. The local guides say that any significant rain tends to make the monkeys seek shelter, many fewer photo ops. We were scheduled to visit the Monkey Forest one afternoon. It rained some in the morning so we were worried, but the rain stopped by lunch and so the monkey viewings were plentiful.

We did have a minor impact due to rain because a portion of our Volkswagen Thing tour was cancelled due to rain. They were replaced by vans. Fortunately the bulk of the Volkswagen Thing drive was included. It turned out to be one of the unexpected treats of the tour.

Part 1b to follow