Changi Airport Terminal 1

Simply put, Changi is a really great airport!
The Good: Consistently clean, efficient, friendly, helpful. They really do everything right. Most airports are slightly dreadful, but Changi breaks the mold.
The Bad: No matter whether I am departing or arriving — my gate always seems to be the furthest away from ticketing, immigration, & baggage claim. Coincidence?
The Verdict: Changi is possibly the best airport in the galaxy

The three terminals at Changi do not really seem that separated as it is possible to move freely between them all so I have seldom even considered which terminal is which but when checking it seems I often departed from terminal 1 when traveling from Singapore. So when I started thinking of what actual is in each terminal I realized that Terminal 1 got some pretty awesome stuff.
In terminal 1 you have both the Cactus Garden and the Water Lilly Garden. That is pretty neat for an airport. In addition they actually also have a swimming pool where one can watch the planes land and take-​off. Actually never used it but pretty cool.
The terminal offers a range of shopping options as well and of course you can find all the usual duty free stuff but my favorite shops in T1 are probably Uniqlo, Charles & Keith and the Adidas store. I am also occasionally dragged along to the Shanghai Tang store.
The Thai lounge in T1 is also pretty nice (check my separate review on that). In general the airport is also efficient both in immigration and security so altogether a pleasant experience.

How can you go wrong with this airport? Tons of food options, shopping, seating, space and awesome fun décor. Always try to arrive with time to roam around before the flight.
There is a butterfly garden, movie theatre, and food court areas to grab your final asian meal before you leave :)

Aloha from Bangkok,
Sitting in Bangkok, at a hair salon, waiting for my little sister to get her hair «did» I find time to write a review.
The most appropriate thing to say about this airport is that I’m not sure why no one else is doing this?
The airport is amazing, top notch security working flawlessly without lines and hassle. The place works like clockwork. It’s also one of the most amazing shopping malls I have seen in my life, nearly every boutique and high end store as well its counterpart within the restaurant business.
The decorations and staging is worthy of the opening to the winter games in Russia, the lighting and props would make you think you are on the stage somewhere.
If you have to travel and need to choose on a connection, choose this hub.
Ps. Unilocal has no service in Thailand ;(
Bogs

Ok so I forgot my immigration card, but they were happy when I quoted the flight number on my arrival– thank god!!! There is Free wifi. Lots of shops and restaurants… A lively airport. I got the taxi because MRT only runs from 5.30am.

Really nice terminal with a lot of options. It’s very large and spread out, so you’ll need time to get around. I did buy some stuff, which I normally do not. Yeah I needed $ 350 cufflinks apparently, oh well :)

I don’t consider myself a seasoned traveller. That means I’ve only been to a few airports and changi airport is the best amongst all of them. I can just come over here to have a nice dinner or just hang out. I always love sending people off and picking people up at this airport coz I know I won’t get bored.
From food shops to gst absorbed shopping to squeaky clean wash rooms, this airport has a lot to offer!

I don’t mind getting to the airport early if it’s Changi! There’s a ton of shops, places to eat, a 24 hour food court and the airline lounges. It is certainly easy to navigate around and security is a breeze with plenty of lanes and people to help. Flying through here is actually enjoyable. Plus there’s free wifi. Yay.

I wouldn’t normally write a review for an airport, they are usually variations on a theme of incompetents where you dread having to go in or out of them but this airport was different.
I would like to be able to beam to my destination via a transporter but until that day arrives I wish all airports ran this smoothly. Now you are going to think I am exaggerating but I kid you not. On arrival I disembarked the aircraft, went through immigration, picked up my luggage, made it through customs, picked up a sim card and had my phone up and running with a Singapore number and data working, walked out the door and was in a cab, all of this and only about 30 minutes had transpired. They have it down to a science here!
On my departure is was the same story, we are all conditioned to get to the airport very early… Just in Case! I arrived early as I always do, got my baggage checked (almost instantly). I had made a purchase while in Singapore and needed to get a tax refund at the airport, they have a couple of rows of machines dedicated to just that task, you scan your passport into it, click a couple of boxes, run the card you made your purchase with, and you are issued a receipt with the amount that will be credited to your account, that took all of 3 minutes.
So I next found myself at the gate with too much time to kill, I decided to look for something to eat. Finding what you want here is no problem, signs are everywhere pointing you in the proper direction. I followed the signs to a place called the 24 hour Good Gallery. I found it easy enough and got something to eat. I till had plenty of time so I just looked around for awhile. Plenty of shops selling whatever you may need, more restaurants, Starbucks, and what have you.
I went back to the gate, went through the check point, and was waiting to board with a little time to spare.
Every airport on earth needs to send representatives here to see how they do it, it would take a lot of the pain out of what is usually the worst part of traveling.
There is a point of interest at the entrance of Terminal 1 and that is the world’s largest kinetic sculpture called Kinetic Rain. I posted a photo of it but you really need to see it in action. Click this link
to see a short video I took while I was there. The sculpture is fascinating!

Awesome airport with a lot of nice amenities. If I were to be stuck in an airport for more than 4 hours on a layover or what not, this is would be in my top 5. It is spacious with a lot of different areas to relax, nap, or enjoy some shopping therapy. There is a transit hotel within the airport but I have not used it. The one time I did, it was full and told check back later. At the time, you could a room for a 6 hour interval. Long enough for a nap and shower if you had a super long lay over.
There is free wifi. Look for the computers where you can scan your passport and it will give you a password to use on 1 device. Unless you can recieve a local text, this is the only way I could find to access the wifi. A coffee shop outside secruity offers free wifi with a purchase. The access code prints at the bottom of the receipt. I wish you could sign up online for a free wifi password or just make it free to everyone.
There are several garden exhibits that break up the inside of airport terminal so it does not remind you it is just an airport terminal. Pretty decent food options. Better than a lot of airports I have been to. Being a 24 hour airport, there is always something open.
One thing to note, secruity is at the gate so allow for time to board the plane. Bad, it is at the gate. Good, everyone in line is just for your flight and not the whole airport.

Nice international airport with good shopping and food options. We didn’t spend too much time at the airport, so we didn’t take advantage of all of the activities there. When we departed from Changi to go back to Hong Kong, I was, at first, surprised that you don’t go through any metal detectors before heading into the terminal and gates itself (coming from America, how can security be so lax!?!). However, you soon find out that the security actually takes place right at the gate. Definitely keep this in mind when you are busily eating and shopping once you get here (i.e. save some time to get through security). Although they have free WiFi, you need a Chinese or other closer country cell phone # in order to get the text with the code (US #‘s are out of luck, at least when I tried it).

Terminal 1 has a disappointing food selection; not many healthy options available. The relax areas are great though! There are several small gardens and lying down chairs available.

The only terminal with a decent viewing mall but still it can’t beat the old one, which you can also see an overview of runway 02L/​20R (gate C1, C23, C25… etc). I prefer this terminal to the others as its smaller (doesn’t have lots of wasted space) and to get to your gates from the immigration to the furthest gate in this terminal 1 isn’t as far as other terminals.
There is good food at the staff canteen located beside the Burger King (staircase forwards it), Saboten and Astons are among my favourites.

Sehr angenehmer Airport. Der Teppich ist zwar gewöhnungsbedürftig für Europäer, aber der Vorteil ist, dass es ruhiger ist und nicht so schallt. Es geht sehr ruhig und relaxt zu, es gibt gute Shopping– und Gastromöglichkeiten, es ist alles gut beschildert, Wlan ist die free. Lange Wege lassen sich mit den Rollbändern gut überbrücken. Ein Airport, wo man gerne auch mal wartet…

Not as nice as Terminal 3, but still has shopping and lounges. Since I was flying Cathay Pacific, I was in terminal 1. I’m not very impressed with the Cathay Pacific lounge and left early to walk around because it wasn’t very comfortable and there weren’t good food/​drink options. I think I have been spoiled with the Singapore Airlines lounge in Terminal 3. However, I was able to get my GST refunded in the terminal and do a bit of shopping.

This airport is pretty nice and super clean I love it when airports are really super easy to manage as well. Going from one place to another to me didn’t seem like such a far walk or anything like that.
The only negative thing I thought or weird thing was that the way they check your bags were before you get to your airplane thingie. Yes of course you can’t get through without them checking your airplane ticket but they don’t check your carry on bags by x ray until you get all the way to the boarding area of the plane. So before that no one does get checked. I thought that was a little bit of an issue if someone really wanted to do something bad.
But besides that I felt pretty alright it felt safe and everything was very well organized. There are plenty of shops to shop in or if you are hungry and want something to eat you can try some traditional bread with the infamous kaya toast.

Remember that movie where Tom Hanks loses his passport or something and gets stuck in an airport for weeks?
Well if that happened to him in LAX he’d be screwed. If it happened to him in Changi, however, he’d have lived like a king. There are sleep chairs and a kids zone and a pool — a freakin’ pool, yo! Complement that with Uniqlo, Cotton On, laser-​fast wi-​fi, Duty Free urrwhere, actual, honest-​to-​God carpet (ever try sleeping on tiles? Bleargh.) and staff so friendly you just know they’re on Xanax.
Fierce rivals with Schiphol in Amsterdam for world’s best.

You really couldn’t ask for a more flawless immigration and customs experience. It’s the way it should be done everywhere. Also the spot where I finally snagged my Unilocal Singapore badge

For those who are new to my reviews, I try to make every 100^th review about a 5-​star business or a place that managed to impress me. After racking my brain (and realizing it’s been about a week since I’ve written anything) I figured I’ve taken long enough and that #500 will be about the time I had a lovely experience in Terminal 1.
So I was heading to Kuala Lumpur, which is really not that far, nor a big deal. However, I walked in a hot mess and unprepared. It was just a busy week, and I didn’t have time to do all the things I normally would before heading out of the island. After a seamless checkin with AirAsia and breezing through immigration, I had about an hour to kill before heading to the gate.
Within that one hour timeframe, I was able to:
— Have dinner (it was fast food but still, it was dinner)
— Stop by Charles and Keith and buy a clutch (I surprisingly didn’t have one to match my outfit for the wedding I was attending)
— Exchange my Sing to Ringgit (I know I’m probably getting ripped off but I had zero time to go to Mustafa)
— Buy contact solution at Watsons (it was the ONE thing I left at home)
— Go through security with 20 minutes to spare at the gate. What’d I do with my 20 minutes? Write a Unilocal review, of course!
What I’m trying to get at is that if I were to do all of the above in the real world, it would definitely take a lot longer as I’d most likely be walking or taking a bus to each place. Could I do the same thing at a US airport? I’d probably spend most of the hour just getting past security! Bottom line: Changi is this mystical land where shit gets done with time to spare. And to think– you get to go somewhere in the end! 5 stars!

Strangely, there are parts of this terminal that literally feels exactly the same as it did when I lived here more than 20 years ago. Structurally the arrivals area, the small gates etc. it all feels the same. But I do like some of the touch-​ups they did to this terminal that sort of makes it feel more up-​to-​date versus many other terminals in Asia.
One thing that still bugs me though, is the fact you get your bags/​luggage screened right before the boarding gate. You basically get stuck in an enclosed area once you commit yourself to your gate and if your flight gets delayed or if you suddenly feel the need to take a serious leak, you’ll have to exit and get screened again by security. Not very logical, but whatever.
Otherwise, it’s your obligatory clean, pleasant, Asian terminal though I do like the fact they have some food stalls inside to satisfy any last-​minute laksa fix. Funny how way back in the day, this was the best airport terminal in the world, but it has somehow managed to hold up against the test of time.
Btw if you’re heading downtown, the MRT would be a better option than a taxi. First off it’s more cost-​effective, and second of all traffic can be total dogshit at times, so save yourself the aggravation and take a MRT to the city.

De la moquette dans un aéroport ça existe encore. Et oui. Et je né sais pourquoi je suis fan de cette couleur orange/​marron qui parsème les sols jusqu’à la parcelle d’embarquement.
Côté service je n’ai pas à dire grand chose. Le personnel était agréable.

Changi used to be cool. Its still a great airport, but it needs something new. The old airport-​dutyfree mall idea is cool but boring.
The security in this place is super high. I think I showed my passport to 5 agents before I got to the immigration desk. After then, 2 more times before I got into the waiting area for my flight to SFO. I appreciate the security but, this is a little too much.
There is a Delta lounge, and it was very good. Warm food, juice, booze. and even congee. which was delicious.