While most people spend Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at home with their families, we've typically used those times to travel. This year will be no different, with a short trip over Thanksgiving weekend to Europe planned.
Last year, we booked a last-minute trip to Hong Kong and Macau where we enjoyed a front-row seat to the amazing fireworks over Victoria Harbor from the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. The full trip report links are below, and the post below starts with our First Class flight aboard my favorite airline, Cathay Pacific.
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We would have preferred to catch the
night time flight but weren't able to get seats on the smaller 77W, so
the daytime 747 it was. Like a kid on Christmas day I woke up excited to
try out another new airline. Our flight was at 11:50am and we arrived
at the airport around 9:30am. Check-in was very quick, and we headed
over to the "A" side of the international terminal where I had actually
never been before.
By now I know Terminal 3 and International Terminal G like the back of
my hand, but today I actually had to read and follow the signs which
took us up the escalator and down the hallway to the CX lounge. We were
one of the first passengers to arrive and the lounge felt very new and
fresh as I believe it was recently remodeled. There was a little bit of
food set out at the buffet, as well as a noodle bar where I had a bowl
of wonton noodles and dan dan noodles which were both just OK.
Cathay Pacific lounge at SFO
Buffet spread
Not much of a view from the lounge, just a single Korean Air plane
We headed toward the gate around T-60 so that we could stretch our legs
and do a bit of shopping in the terminal before getting on the long
flight. As we were leaving, the lounge agent said "please wait sir,
your flight is not ready for boarding yet" which is a similar reaction
that we've gotten when leaving the lounge prior to boarding commencing
for our flight. I guess that most first/business class passengers have
the mindset of wanting to be able to wait until the last possible minute
to board, but for me I'm perfectly happy being one of the first people
to board which gives me more time to relax and get settled in (of course
much to my wife's chagrin).
We arrived at the gate and an announcement was made that *gasp* boarding
would be delayed by 10 minutes. The number of sincere apologies for
this delay, you would have thought that the plane was several hours
delayed or even cancelled. Perhaps I'm just used to standard boarding
procedures with domestic airlines, where only a 10 minute delay in
boarding would be a blessing.
We headed on board and were escorted to our seats 1A and 1K. As much as I
enjoy reading FT trip reports, I guess I will say that part of the
excitement of entering a new cabin for the first time is diminished as I
basically knew exactly what to expect for the flight, all the way from
the seat to the IFE to the food and even to the amenity kit/pajamas.
But that's not to say that I still very much enjoyed experiencing all
this for the first time.
The cabin load was only 4/9 for the flight and even though the suites
don't have doors, 1A and 1K felt extremely private, yet close enough to
still feel like we were traveling together. During the boarding
process, pajamas and amenity kits were distributed. Cathay just
switched from the Shanghai Tang pajamas to the new Pye pajamas which
were amazing. The material was very comfortable and felt like it was
very high quality. As an added bonus, there is a slip inside the pajama
bag for a free gift at any Pye store, and we picked ours up at the
store in Hong Kong inside Pacific Place which was a nice boxed set of 5
pocket squares. The amenity kit is Zegna branded but the contents were a
bit underwhelming.
General impressions about the first class product were that it felt
warmer than Emirates, and the seat width was fantastic and was the first
we've come across that matched the seat we had on Singapore. But the
suite is definitely more low-tech than some of the other first class
products we've tried. It would have been nicer to have a little bigger
TV screen, and the IFE offerings were just ok, but may have been
influenced by the fact that we had been traveling just the month before
and had seen most of the movies already.
Being a day time flight, I expected to be up for most of the ride and
actually ended up staying up the entire time as I just couldn't get
myself to fall asleep. Part of it was the fact that the cabin was just
too hot , but I think that's par for the course on most of the flights
I've been on. Also, the mattress padding wasn't particularly
comfortable.
Anxiously waiting at the gate to board
First class cabin
Seats 1A and 1K
Seat width matches that of SQ's
IFE screen
Seat and IFE controls
Storage compartment for headphones
Pye pajamas
Free gift, make sure not to throw away the slip
Zegna amenity kit for men
Trussardi amenity kit for women
Great views after take-off
View of the office, much happier where I'm currently sitting
Just like taking a road trip down Highway 1
Menus were passed out and we were very excited for the lunch as we've
heard the food on CX is a highlight. We each started with caviar, then
had the Chinese ginseng soup, scallop salad, and then for me back to the
Asian menu for the chicken and abalone entree which was fantastic. The
wife had the herb-crusted sea bass and really enjoyed it. Lastly, we
finished up with cheese, dessert, and then tea and pralines.
Service throughout lunch was extremely attentive and efficient, with the
pacing determined by each person, not at the slowest eater in the
cabin's pace which can happen at times. The perfect example of this, was
that since I'm an extremely fast eater, I finished my entire meal just
as my wife was starting her entree. Normally, we will always be +/- 1
course from each other, which means that I'm often waiting around for
long periods of time for my next course.
Menus
Lunch, snack, and dinner menu
Wine menu
Champagne and nuts to start
Caviar
Chinese ginseng soup
Scallop salad
Sea bass
Chicken and abalone
Cheese
Berries and cream dessert
Pralines and milk tea
After lunch I requested turn down service and got comfortable for the
remainder of the flight. Since it was a daytime flight and I have
trouble sleeping on planes in general, I pretty much gave up on trying
to take a nap. A few hours later I had a snack of the hot pot rice
which was really delicious, and ice cream.
I had burned through all of the movies I wanted to watch on the IFE
system, but had come prepared with my own entertainment and watched a
movie and a few episodes of Summer Heights High on my iPad. About 2
hours out from HKG, dinner was served which consisted of some fruit, and
for my entree I had the pork chop which was again very delicious. I
had some cake, pralines, and one last Hong Kong milk tea to finish.
Turn down service
Mid-flight snack
Hot pot rice
Cathay Delight, really good
Pork chop
Mango cake
Overall, we really enjoyed our first flight on Cathay. We both felt
that the food was probably the best we have ever had on board a plane,
and the service was very attentive but not quite as warm as what we had
experienced on SQ or EK. The only negative was that the suite just felt
so dated and low-tech compared to the others we've experienced
recently, otherwise CX very well may have shot to the top of our lists.
So for now, the king stay the king, and SQ still sits atop the totem
pole for both of us.
