Escape into Fantasy Land!

       Travelling has always been the love of my life, as much as music and novels are. In fact, if I can get these three at once, travelling around the world with earphones on and some amazing novels to carry with me, I would feel I have lived my life to the fullest. But it's always been dad who planned the trips and the ones I didn't go with family were the ones arranged by schools and colleges. Never did I get a chance to plan my own trip and travel on my own terms. Of course I do love my family and friends a lot but sometimes breaking rules and having fun is an exciting experience in itself. So I decided that I would go on a trip to Singapore with my best friend and this time, I would plan it on my own.

         I was super excited. I started making list of the places I wanted to visit. The marvelous Sentosa Island, The Art Science Museum, Universal Studios, Marine Life Park, Underwater World, Escape Theme Park, Wild Wild Wet Water Theme Park and what not!! The list would go on but I decided to restrict the list to these places. I didn't have much time in Singapore after all! The places were decided and now was the arrangements part that was left.

         

       But as they say, the grass on the other side always looks greener. The same happened with me. All the excitement waned off as I started planning this trip. There was so much to be done! Planning a perfect date and booking flights, finding hotels and cabs to aid our journey, expenses to be managed and what not! Soon enough my spirit was dampened and I almost gave up this whole planning thing! Almost! Then came an angel in my life who held my hand and guided me through everything with great expertise and ease - Sky Scanner. Flights, hotels, cars and buses; name it and Sky Scanner has it all! We instantly became best of friends.

      "First things first. For how many days you want to stay?" asked the Sky Scanner Wizard. I calculated the days I would be able to spare with the budget I had in hand. After lot of thinking and discussion, we decided to keep it to 5 days and 4 nights. Once the number of days and dates were decided, I booked the flights. I just had to name the place and dates, and within seconds the Sky Scanner Wizard had listed number of flights, at different times and different rates. It also helped me to select the best available rate. So with this, the journey, both to and from was booked with ease.

First I selected the destination and the dates. Also the number of travelers.

Then it listed the options I have as per my requirement.

I selected the best one

       So after booking tickets both ways, I had Rs.64,071.82 left in my hands. So next came another big decision to make. Where to stay? Since we were only two girls going all by ourselves, I wanted to make sure the hotel was good and in the center of the city. So after looking at all the options, and if I might add drooling over all the awesome choices the wizard had offered, I selected the one that was both good and fit in our budget. The wizard smiled over the wise choice made by me.

These were some of the amazing hotels we saw

This hotel in particular appealed to me a lot and it fit into our budget as well

The hotel we selected had following facilities. I totally loved it.

       This hotel, named Days hotel at Singapore, is at 4.9 miles from the airport I would be arriving. So it seemed a wise choice. Also it was just 85m away from the center and had a good review of 7.8/10. All in all it appeared as an ideal choice. This costed me Rs. 24,864 for my 4 nights stay. At first we had decided to stay in a hotel with less cost but soon we wanted to enjoy all the luxury we could. So why not? Thus the hotel was selected and I was left with Rs. 39,207.82. "Not bad" said the wizard.

       Since we were going on our own, we were supposed to go on sight seeing all by ourselves. We debated a lot about bus and cars, then finally decided to hire a car. We hired Toyota Corolla Altis from rentalcars.com. They agreed to pick us up daily at 8 am and drop us by 8:30 pm for the 5 days of our stay. This fit with the arrival and departure time of our flights too. We also hired the car driver of 35 age. I was dumb stuck by the amount of details provided by the Wizard!

Our choices

The options we got with price/day

        I was happy with the Toyota Corolla Altis. I loved the whole experience of planning the trip. I still had Rs. 16,615.47 left. "What will you do with it now?" asked the wizard. "Well there are things to be considered such as tickets for amusement park, money for breakfast, lunch and dinner" I said and smiled naughtily. Curious the wizard asked "And? what else is that you are looking forward to, that is making you this happy?" I grinned and replied "Shopping! Two girls are going and you expect them to return empty handed? Of course we are going to shop to our heart's fill and bring some souvenirs for our family too" The wizard was satisfied with my answer. "Wish you a safe and happy trip" the Wizard said as I bid good bye to it. 

       I felt happy. It was my first time planning a trip; yet I had managed to plan everything precisely, without much effort, thanks to the Sky Scanner Wizard. Now all that was left is to enjoy the holiday planned.

PS: This post is a part of Sky Scanner Travel Wizard activity at BlogAdda.com 

Until the next post,

Keep Smiling :)

Love,

Swathi :)