Despite the previous negative experience, I opted for Starmart again for their Singapore to Kuala Lumpur midnight departure due to their high frequency and affordable fares despite being the start of a long weekend, and I’ve not experienced anything negative so far for the northbound journey, so here it goes.
I picked this journey to make it to KLIA for an afternoon flight the next day as the flight was a lot cheaper if I departed from there than from Changi Airport, and since I’m travelling light with some time to spare, this seems like a good combination.
As this was the start of the National Day long weekend, the staircase of Golden Mile Tower feels more like The Float@Marina Bay instead with the immense crowd.
The queue to check-in for the bus ride also u-turned itself. But thankfully, this was quite a quick procedure as always.
Probably to save time, the counter staff immediately printed my ticket out from the system and drew circles and boxes of the important details on it, and proceeded to get the next passenger to the counter before sending me off.
I’m used to transfer buses being labelled Bus 1 to Bus 4 or something, but today, I’m all the way on Bus 17. Wow.
When standing by at the driveway at midnight, the staff were calling for around Bus 4 to Bus 6 only, so I knew this was going to take a long while.
The bus calls went on until about 1am, when the staff came around to check for tickets of everyone left. This was followed by announcing for passengers to KL Sentral on Bus 17 that there will no longer be a transfer bus, but rather, a direct bus all the way from Golden Mile Tower to KL Sentral, and asked us to wait just a little while longer. The staff then came around to write the new bus number on all the tickets. Despite the huge crowd, they all seem to be able to maintain their composure and started to lighten up with us since we’re the last bus to depart.
About 10 minutes after that, the direct bus to KL Sentral pulled in, which formed the very last Starmart departure of the day.
Inside the rather full bus to KL Sentral.
The bus departed at 1.10am – 71 minutes delayed from schedule. But I guess with the amount of buses they had for this long weekend, and with the driveway only able to fit 2 buses at a time, this was to me quite understandable. Furthermore, they didn’t surge the fare for the long weekend, so I shouldn’t be complaining too much anyway.
The journey went without a hitch via Tuas Checkpoint and Tanjung Kupang CIQ. With the late departure, there wasn’t too much of a crowd at both checkpoints, which was a plus point.
The bus arrived at KL Sentral at 6.25am, thanks to the minimal crowd at both checkpoints, and dropped off at the entrance to the KLIA Ekspres departure side.
Overall, a simple and fuss-free journey to KL once again, with my faith in Starmart somewhat restored. Here, it’s just a short transit in KL for breakfast before I head off to KLIA to catch my flight.
