Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus - F questions (FRA-BKG-FRA)

Hi all,
here is my first post in the ROP Forum, and all I have are questions...;)

We are flying F from FRA to BKG. As we are on the evening flight, I preordered the Lobster dinner. Still, is it worth making an extra effort to get to the LH Senator lounge before the flight?

For our return flight (midday) from BKG:
How much earlier "should" we be at BKG airport to make use of the lounge?
Is lunch better (i.e. choices offered/products used) in the lounge or on the plane?

Are there any general suggestions for optimizing the flight experience (e.g. requesting a second pillow, bringing my own movies, etc.).

Any response is most appreciated. I will of course reply with a trip report after we return!
Cheers,
Hansie

I recently flew from BKK-LHR on the 1225 flight. I'd arrive at least three hours before the flight to allow time for a decent breakfast in the lounge, a leisurely massage and shower afterwards and a drink before leaving for boarding. All the significant distances i had to cover in the terminal involved a buggy ride :D

I didn't eat anything beyond breakfast in the lounge and didn't regret it - I had a decent meal on board. My main complaint on the flight was that the first meal was served around an hour into the flight (including caviar), then the second came just under six hours in. On a twelve hour flight, the second meal would have been better served a couple of hours later.

I took a second pillow from an empty seat and was glad I did. If you need earplugs to sleep on a flight, bring your own; the same goes for facial moisturiser. And although the IFE selection was reasonable, I was glad i had my laptop and some decent DVDs.

Hey 27R,

Thanks so much. Will consider getting into BKG for breakfast, time would be approx. 9:00. Moisturiser is a given (can you imagine there was a time we males smeared mammoth blood in our face...). DVD/music is a good hint. Until now I have been very pampered by Emirates...fantastic on-board entertainment!

Double cheers,
Hansie

Arrive a good 3 hours early. You want to leave 75 minutes for the spa and to have a shower. Lounge service is lovely though the food itself isn't all that varied or impressive (though I have a personal taste for the wonton soup, and the cappucinos are quite good).

Use an extra blanket onboard as a sheet for the seat/bed. Grab an extra pillow. And second the comments on inflight entertainment.

Enjoy your trip to BKK.

As Gleff said, the only reason to arrive early is to have a full body massage (1 hour). But be aware that they only have three wonderful suites (massage, jacuzzi, showers) so it is not allways a sure thing, especially in the evening departures. A full body massage uses the suite for 90 min (between the time you undress, shower, massage, reshower, and their cleaning of the suite), so only a few lucky pax. Other wise you get the (fully dressed) shoulder and foot massage, good but nothing worth arriving 3 hours early just to get it.
Food is limited, only a choice of four light dishes (wonton soup, pad thai,...) of poor quality compared to what you can get from a street vendor. Other posts said that it was now frozen food, but I guess that it allways has been as I did not find any change last night from my previous experiences. And wines are awful. Food onboard is much better. Caviar is from an italian fishfarm, not much caviar taste, but compared to the soup or noodles that they serve in the F lounge....
I second the above comments. The film selection is poor, clearly TG does not pay for the "big" recent movies. And the seat is old-generation, not fully flat and disjointed cushions. But price reflects this.

And the seat is old-generation, not fully flat and disjointed cushions. But price reflects this.
Is that the 744 or the 747?

Well, the 747 has the old cloth close to lay flat recliner-style seats arranged 2x2.

The 744 is a much newer seat but is not the latest generation by global standards. Good seats, fairly open design, not a whole lot of privacy. It's pretty much lay flat but IMHO a bit lumpy.

It's not a true 'suite' product, but still very good.

I still think of old generation F seats as the sort on the 747 (or the SQ 772 and 773) - chunky, heavily padded, but not lie flat. I see the lie flat seats like the 744 as new generation and, as you say, some airlines have now gone for a suite style product. I still think it's misleading to describe the TG 744 F seat as old generation and not fully flat.

Hey Brunos, Gleff

thanks for your suggestions.

I am guessing that massages cannot be reserved in advance. We will try to make it to the lounge 3 hrs before dep, but will definitely not break a leg.

Weird that entertainment is not up to EK's ICE standard. I thought that inflight entertainment is pretty much standardised across all airlines with AVOD systems.

Oh, and thanks for correcting my BKG :o (wherever did I get that from...?)

Cheers
Hansie

I don't know about the FRA-BKK sector, but I did the BKK-FRA sector a couple of years ago - here are some photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwych/sets/72157603858958249/

There was no wait for the massage in the morning at BKK. Totally empty. The meals on the plane were not good, and the lunch was better than the inedible second meal. Oh, and the wines were not kept chilled. Warm Dom Perignon, anyone? The cabin crew put the blinds down in the hope that we'd all sleep, despite the fact it was a daytime flight and was not sleepytime in either origin or destination. My four fellow pax dutifully pretended to sleep (but I wasn't fooled) and when we got over Afghanistan they seemed to realize that the scenery was better than the back of their eyelids. Unfortunately, they soon got bored and put the shades down again.

I still think of old generation F seats as the sort on the 747 (or the SQ 772 and 773) - chunky, heavily padded, but not lie flat. I see the lie flat seats like the 744 as new generation and, as you say, some airlines have now gone for a suite style product. I still think it's misleading to describe the TG 744 F seat as old generation and not fully flat.

You are right, and my statement should have been "old-generation flat beds". Unfortunately, I agree with Gleff that these are really first-generation and not the best of those. Far better than the so-called lie-flat seats that we get in Biz, but not comparable to the suites that have been introduced a couple of years ago by many airlines (SQ, CX, ...) and not as comfortable as other solo flat beds. This forum always focuses on the comparison of the antique seats of the 747 and the "new" ones of the 744 and A346, but my comparison is with flat beds of other airlines. I flew extensively in F class on numerous airlines (AF, BA, CX, SQ, OZ, JL, LX) and the TG bed is the least comfortable. My criticisms are:
- Not flat, the back cushion remains at an angle of a few dergrees and the head rest does not lowere.
- Each of the four cushion is disjointed and at different height, usually the leg support cushion (the third one) is an inch higher than the foot rest (which is independent).
- no mattress provided
-No privacy.

This is too bad as the setup with only 10 seats in the nose of the 744 is quite spacious.
Dont take me wrongly; I do pay for F class on TG and enjoyed the experience for the price (I flew to ZRH early october). But the seat does have defects.

Hey Brunos, Gleff

Weird that entertainment is not up to EK's ICE standard. I thought that inflight entertainment is pretty much standardised across all airlines with AVOD systems.

Hansie

Not really true.

First there are differences in the computer system used. Some are much less reliable than others (TG is quite reliable). AF has been notorious for offering poor AVOD system. Many of their longhaul a/c are still equipped with a selection of only six movies (and sometimes the system fail), recent ones have 40 movies. And if you need to restart the movie, it takes ages to reach where you stopped viewing it. Great systems such as CX or SQ have hundreds of movies and very fast forward.
Also very important is how much the airline spends on copyrights. The opinion of many posters is that TG does not pay for the best (most expensive) recent movies. So the selection is second-tier recent movies and some old classic movies.

Not really true.

First there are differences in the computer system used. Some are much less reliable than others (TG is quite reliable). AF has been notorious for offering poor AVOD system. Many of their longhaul a/c are still equipped with a selection of only six movies (and sometimes the system fail), recent ones have 40 movies. And if you need to restart the movie, it takes ages to reach where you stopped viewing it. Great systems such as CX or SQ have hundreds of movies and very fast forward.
Also very important is how much the airline spends on copyrights. The opinion of many posters is that TG does not pay for the best (most expensive) recent movies. So the selection is second-tier recent movies and some old classic movies.

LH also has rubbish IFE.