Must-read Earlier Installments:

• Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney
  
• Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal
• Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong
  
• Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge, Hong Kong
  
• Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok
  
• Grand Hyatt Bangkok: Suite, Club Lounge, and Facilities
  
• Thai Molecular Gastronomy at Sra Bua in Bangkok
• Getting Custom Tailored Suits Made in Bangkok at Empire Tailors
  
• Nahm at the Metropolitan: the Best Thai Food in Thailand?
  
• Thailand’s Iron Chef Cooks Ancient Recipes in a Deserted Top Notch Restaurant
  
• Eating The Best Local Thai Dishes in the Bangrak Neighborhood of Bangkok
  
• Louis Tavern CIP Lounge and Cathay Pacific Business Class, Bangkok-Singapore
  
• Grand Hyatt Singapore
  
• Eating and Entertainment Like a Singapore Local
  
• Singapore Airlines ‘The Private Room’ First Class Lounge

I walked over to the boarding gate from The Private Room. I love Singapore’s gates, each with their own dedicated security screening so there’s never a line. You don’t get screened until you’re ready to board, more or less, and the jetway is within eye shot of the metal detector.

I walked up to the gate to board and my boarding pass beeped. “Uh oh,” I thought. And the agent at the gate looked for a moment and appeared very troubled. She told me that the reading light at my seat was marked as being out of service, so she wanted to offer me a different seat. Another agent stepped in, though, and let us both know that the light had been fixed and I was ok to board.

A possible burnt out reading light warranted stopping the boarding process and taking the attention of two gate agents. And there was actually an agent standing by aware of the situation with my reading light. That’s an example of Singapore Airlines at its best, I suppose!

I remember the days of flying United where it was assumed your reading light would be broken, it was even one of the radio button selections when you’d go online to claim compensation for a problem inflight (for which you’d be given a card by a flight attendant).

I walked onboard and was met at the jetway by a lovely Singapore flight attendant who showed me to my seat. That’s when I realized that I had boarded an A380 furnished with Singapore’s new first class interior! I hadn’t actually seen one of those yet.

The new interior means a somewhat more comfortable seat for lounging. The basic Singapore seat is fantastic as a bed but in seat mode doesn’t adjust enough to get really comfortable. The newer version of the seat has somewhat better recline but much more comfortable material.

I think think that Singapore Airlines has the single best looking product I’ve ever seen in their A380 first class seat (admittedly, I’ve yet to try the Etihad A380 First Class Apartment).

Here’s the inside of the suite.

There’s power and USB connections:

A compartment for a noise cancelling headset:

Here’s the seat controller and beneath that the video controller.

The view looking out at the next suite…

…and down the row of suites.

Flight attendants scurried around the cabin to make sure all of the preflight needs were met. That of course begins with champagne.

Menus were distributed (click each page to enlarge):

Pajamas were distributed, and given the short 7 hour overnight to Sydney I decided I’d change into them right away.

So I headed off to the lavatory.

On the way out, a flight attendant hung my clothes in the suite’s closet.

To balance the pre-departure champagne, and to accompany the nuts, I had a glass of water.

Here’s the Ferragamo amenity kit.

Dinner service began almost immediately in the air, since of course it was going to need to be completely quickly in order to leave time for a nap prior to arrival in Sydney.

I decided to begin with the caviar service, which I was surprised to find on the short supper flight.

I followed that with the fish maw and Chinese ham soup.

I had eaten in the lounge, and was very tired, so preferred an abbreviated meal service. So I asked if I could have my main course, I preferred the Indian fish curry, saved for later to be served with breakfast. That was not a problem.

I had decided against pre-ordering, and I’ll always find something that I like, but departing Singapore I do think it’s a good idea to at least consider the array of entree choices you can pick to have Singapore place onboard for you.

So I skipped the entree for the moment and had the ‘Gotham black’ dessert.

Once I had finished my meal, a flight attendant asked if she could make my bed. Yes please!

The Singapore Airlines first class bed really does have to be made, it isn’t just pressing a button to make the seat flat and then adding a sheet and maybe a blanket. The seat itself has to be flipped over so that the flat mattress comes out in place of the seat.

I laid down for a nap that lasted about three hours. I wasn’t going to wake up just to eat breakfast, but I didn’t have an especially deep sleep and I awoke naturally so I decided to have what was on offer.

I began with a bit of fruit

And then the Indian fish curry that the flight attendants had saved for me from the main meal, which was absolutely delicious.

During breakfast I signed onto the internet, buying 15 megs of data which cost half what unlimited data would have been if I was on a 777-300ER for the flight segment. That’s just enough data to let me download email, and check what I had missed overnight (daytime in the US) on the blogs. I wrote a post quickly, but couldn’t upload a small photo to go with it. Singapore’s systems kept blocking me from successfully uploading. No matter, I made a bulleted list for the post instead of using a graphic.

I changed back into my street clothes, and we were on the ground quickly. It was a short walk to immigration, and since US Global Entry gets reciprocity in Australia I was quickly through the ‘E-Gate’ system.

Ultimately I think there’s no more attractive cabin or better bed than Singapore offers in this A380. There’s no better inflight service, either, and the main meals especially departing Singapore are truly fantastic. The amenities and inflight entertainment (which I didn’t use on this flight) are top notch as well.

They don’t have the bling factor of Emirates with the onboard showers. And the seat could be better for lounging, though the new first class improves on what they had previously. For longer flights they could use a better snack menu.

Unquestionably, though, Singapore Airlines offers one of the very best first class products in the world with the suites onboard this aircraft.

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