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| NAIA T3, whilst waiting for the boarding gate to open. Feet selfie. |
26th April '16
Four hours prior to our flight we checked in at The Wings Transit Lounge which is located at the 4th level of NAIA Terminal 3. My sister and I usually book a hotel room few days prior to our flight to save us from all the worries getting stuck in traffic. Our flight was pretty late around past 10:00 PM so we just chilled first at the TWTL since we came from a six hour bus ride. It was seriously exhausting. My sister booked our room about a month ago online, got an email confirmation and we're good to go.
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| the key to your capsule/room |
Our check in time: almost 4:00 PM
We were welcomed by the staff as soon as we got there. My sister handed a print out copy of our reservation and we were ushered in to our room. There was a quick tour along the way, they showed the lounge amenities etc. They have a small pantry with limited food selection (cereals, sweets, lomi, bread, milk, coffee, etc.) Since it’s just a lounge and not a hotel, it’s understandably small yet good enough for short stays such as flight cancellations, lay over or you just simply wanted a place to rest. You can only stay by the way for a maximum of eight hours.
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| Our bunk bed in our twin room, and we're twins lol 😂 |
We were advised initially that the room temperature may not be too cold inside the room because of the centralized air conditioning. It was actually a little warm inside the room when we got inside and I’m hoping that they improve this someday. We overheard one of the guests outside requested to be transferred to a different room because the one she and her family have is quite unbearable. The staff gladly granted because they’re not too packed for the day anyways.
Overall, it was still a good experience staying at the The Wings Transit Lounge. Not bad especially if you’re not really a finicky person and you just need a place to stay for a little while with basic amenities. Now, if you’re a business traveller and you will require total peace and quiet, I would suggest you go for a hotel since there are tons of hotels around NAIA anyways. It may not be too quiet at TWTL experience wise because it’s quite audible when people outside your room are talking. The room is soundproofed, but, since the sliding door is made of wood, you
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| Guests lounge with free snacks... |
The Wings Transit Lounge is by the way really close to the food court and there are tons of food chains to choose if you're starving.
Amenities:
- Pantry with snacks
- Oven Toster
- Hot soup
- Hot & cold water dispenser
- Cold Drinks/Juice dispenser (Iced Tea, Lemonade)
- Cold milk & bottled water from the fridge
- Free hot coffee from the coffee machine
- Free Wifi
- Free use of Desktop computer and printer
- Fresh Towels
- Slippers
- Toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste)
- Air-conditioned Rooms/Capsules
- Reading Lamp
- Common Bathroom
- Common Restroom
- In-room safe
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| toiletries |
Check in Counter
We paid the usual hefty travel tax first which is still P1,620.00 (per head) before we head straight to the check in counter to avoid going back and forth. After paying the tax, we lined up at the web check in counter (which is not queuing compared to the regular counters), provided one of our e-tickets and print out of our boarding passes. Checking in online is a breeze because they no longer weigh your luggage. Cebu Pacific trust that you understand the rules for web check in (7 kilos, no dangerous/sharp objects/drugs in your luggage). We were given our actual boarding passes afterwards and off we go to pass through immigration and final security check.
The currency exchange counter is to your left before the boarding gates which is actually quite easy to find. We split our tasks, my sister bought the Vietnamese Dongs whilst I got myself some more USDs. I kind of noticed though that the exchange rate at the airport is way lower compared to the black market or money changers found in malls. The conversion outside for instance is Php1.00 = 470-480VND, inside NAIA it's somewhere around 300+VND per peso. So, the Php 3,000.00 my sister exchanged to vietnamese dong after conversion only became 1M+ VND, oh my! Whilst it could’ve been 1.3-1.4M VND outside had not it was so effin difficult to find. Nevertheless, we’re good with that like we have a choice. We bought some snacks first then headed off to final security check. We we’re told at the check in counter that our boarding time is at 8:45 PM, it was 8:00 PM that time so we got a little puzzled. After double checking our boarding passes we figured that the guy at the check in counter might’ve just overlooked the time and so we were right, boarding time is supposedly at 9:45 PM, we’re extremely early lol.
An hour before boarding
We just surfed the net using NAIA’s free wifi whilst waiting. We kind of noticed that the plane bound to Hanoi isn’t too packed compared to Hong Kong or other destinations and most of the passengers were caucasians and very few Pinoys like us. The boarding gate area looked desolate until they started boarding, herds of passengers came around.
It was a three hour flight and Vietnam is an hour behind us. My energy was still up when we boarded the plane so I just watched this eccentric movie called Stoker from my macbook so I won’t hear the loud engine sound since i sat close to the window (my sister took the window seat going to Hanoi and on the way back I will be taking the window seat) this is what we do when we book our flight, we pre-select our seats and we take turns when it comes to who’s going to take the window seat first because we both love sitting right next to the window to see the view from above while the plane takes off. Our plane took off around 10:30 PM which was 15 minutes behind schedule.
The seat beside me was empty, our Mom in heaven might’ve reserved it for her so she could accompany us to Vietnam on our birthday. We owe this trip to her. She made it really possible despite all the troubles along the way. 🙏
Hanoi, in a few!
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