Brian
May 19, 00, 9:47 am
UA 1 May 11th
May 11th was my 40th birthday, so I decided to have a suit made in HK, and be a tourist for a week. This was my fourth Hong Kong trip in the last 5 years. I booked this flight on the Internet with a fare special, and reserved an upgrade with a 1k Systemwide upgrade certificate, to be taken at the airport (they weren't collected, in either direction!).
Pushback was on time, my seat was 22G (a favorite exit row in business), and we were off in no time. This was the first asian flight I have had with the airshow system, and it was most remarkable to watch... our general route of flight:
California coast, up through Oregon, and slightly out to sea abeam Seattle... up alongside the Inner passage, across Alaska at Anchorage and up past Nome, then over the dateline and down through Siberia, about 100-150 miles inland, and straight down through China. Total flight time was 14:30. Interestingly, on the outbound flight, minimal flight time was spent over water... our path was so far north we were mostly over or very close to land.
Food service was uniformly good... I have noted that the midflight snacks improved substantially in business over the last year or so on transpacific flights, and on this flight there was a nice array of sandiches, salty snacks, cookies, and fruit. A full and tasty lunch after takeoff, and hot breakfast was served an hour before landing, and it held up well during the long flight. Arrival was within 10 minutes of on time.
After the long flight, I elected to be wasteful and have a car from my hotel take me into Central. The airport express train, as many have noted, is fast, reliable, and cheap, but I didn't want to deal with a walk through two terminals and a wait for a cab at the Central station with my bags in a hot and humid Hong Kong night.
I stayed at, as noted, The Conrad in Central, and they were an amazingly good experience. I was on a six night Hilton award, and they upgraded me to the Executive floor. A few of the amenities:
-Free breakfast daily, either in the executive lounge, the full buffet in the cafe, or room service! This was an amazing benefit, but I had to remind them over and over at checkout to get it off my bill.
-Every day, they left a bamboo basket with handmade chocolates in my room, and a plate of a different fruit.
-They pressed 4 garments for me without cost on arrival.
-The lounge had a huge afternoon tea, and evening drinks and appetizers every night.
I had a busy week ahead, and I introduced myself to the concierge on arrival with a small envelope, and he was a buzzsaw of activity for me. I went to the French Horse Opera on Saturday night, to Shekou and Canton (anglicized for my lack of spelling ability), a trip to Macau, and many restaurants. The Conrad is attached to the huge Pacific Place shopping complex, and the Admiralty MTR station, which made getting all over Hong Kong a breeze. For those to whom the Island side is convenient, this is a superb hotel, with wonderful exercise and pool facilities, and delightful restaurants.
I had a suit made at W.W. Chan and Sons in Kowloon, who I had researched thoroughly prior to the trip, as it is an expensive proposition, and I was tremendously satisfied with the result. A total of four fittings were required, so the first thing I did the morning after arrival was show up at their offices to begin the process. I had a good idea of what I wanted, including some unusual detailing, and they were accomodating, and even more demanding in their tailoring standards than I was... and I am pretty picky. When I went back to pick up the suit, they didn't like the way two details were handled, so they kept the suit, fixed them, and the General Manager brought the suit back to The Conrad for me that evening. Total cost, with a "upgraded" Italian fabric, was just over USD$800... about 1/3 of the price in London.
All too soon, it was time to return. UA flight 2 on May 18th was booked rather full, and a Northwest flight cancellation filled every seat in the plane, and made us almost an hour late in departure. I was in seat 25B, as my exit rows were unavailable, and the service was quite nice on the 12 1/2 hour flight. Lunch started with smoked salmon, proceeded (for me) to a Martin Yan spicy Shrimp and Scallops in XO sauce, included a so-so salad with terrific asian sesame dressing, and wrapped up with a better than usual cheese and fruit plate. I cant say enough about how good all the fruit was on this trip. In fact, the unusual juices at the hotel were so good (Honeydew, Cantaloupe, etc.) that I am getting a juicer this weekend. Even in business, with the multichannel videos, United does not have enough entertainment for these long flights. In both directions, we ran out of interesting movies long before we ran out of flying time. I brought my laptop with an Empower system, and it worked perfectly in both directions.
Midflight snacks were similar to the outbound, except the sandwiches were even better and simply huge, and hot breakfast looked good, but I had the fruit one last time. We made up most of our delay in route, and arrived on time. Customs and immigration was fast in United's dedicated facility at LAX, since we beat another UA asian flight by five minutes, and $85 lighter for duty, I was on the street 30 minutes after landing.
An execllent trip, good flights, and a magnificient hotel and tailor.
[This message has been edited by Brian (edited 05-19-2000).]
May 11th was my 40th birthday, so I decided to have a suit made in HK, and be a tourist for a week. This was my fourth Hong Kong trip in the last 5 years. I booked this flight on the Internet with a fare special, and reserved an upgrade with a 1k Systemwide upgrade certificate, to be taken at the airport (they weren't collected, in either direction!).
Pushback was on time, my seat was 22G (a favorite exit row in business), and we were off in no time. This was the first asian flight I have had with the airshow system, and it was most remarkable to watch... our general route of flight:
California coast, up through Oregon, and slightly out to sea abeam Seattle... up alongside the Inner passage, across Alaska at Anchorage and up past Nome, then over the dateline and down through Siberia, about 100-150 miles inland, and straight down through China. Total flight time was 14:30. Interestingly, on the outbound flight, minimal flight time was spent over water... our path was so far north we were mostly over or very close to land.
Food service was uniformly good... I have noted that the midflight snacks improved substantially in business over the last year or so on transpacific flights, and on this flight there was a nice array of sandiches, salty snacks, cookies, and fruit. A full and tasty lunch after takeoff, and hot breakfast was served an hour before landing, and it held up well during the long flight. Arrival was within 10 minutes of on time.
After the long flight, I elected to be wasteful and have a car from my hotel take me into Central. The airport express train, as many have noted, is fast, reliable, and cheap, but I didn't want to deal with a walk through two terminals and a wait for a cab at the Central station with my bags in a hot and humid Hong Kong night.
I stayed at, as noted, The Conrad in Central, and they were an amazingly good experience. I was on a six night Hilton award, and they upgraded me to the Executive floor. A few of the amenities:
-Free breakfast daily, either in the executive lounge, the full buffet in the cafe, or room service! This was an amazing benefit, but I had to remind them over and over at checkout to get it off my bill.
-Every day, they left a bamboo basket with handmade chocolates in my room, and a plate of a different fruit.
-They pressed 4 garments for me without cost on arrival.
-The lounge had a huge afternoon tea, and evening drinks and appetizers every night.
I had a busy week ahead, and I introduced myself to the concierge on arrival with a small envelope, and he was a buzzsaw of activity for me. I went to the French Horse Opera on Saturday night, to Shekou and Canton (anglicized for my lack of spelling ability), a trip to Macau, and many restaurants. The Conrad is attached to the huge Pacific Place shopping complex, and the Admiralty MTR station, which made getting all over Hong Kong a breeze. For those to whom the Island side is convenient, this is a superb hotel, with wonderful exercise and pool facilities, and delightful restaurants.
I had a suit made at W.W. Chan and Sons in Kowloon, who I had researched thoroughly prior to the trip, as it is an expensive proposition, and I was tremendously satisfied with the result. A total of four fittings were required, so the first thing I did the morning after arrival was show up at their offices to begin the process. I had a good idea of what I wanted, including some unusual detailing, and they were accomodating, and even more demanding in their tailoring standards than I was... and I am pretty picky. When I went back to pick up the suit, they didn't like the way two details were handled, so they kept the suit, fixed them, and the General Manager brought the suit back to The Conrad for me that evening. Total cost, with a "upgraded" Italian fabric, was just over USD$800... about 1/3 of the price in London.
All too soon, it was time to return. UA flight 2 on May 18th was booked rather full, and a Northwest flight cancellation filled every seat in the plane, and made us almost an hour late in departure. I was in seat 25B, as my exit rows were unavailable, and the service was quite nice on the 12 1/2 hour flight. Lunch started with smoked salmon, proceeded (for me) to a Martin Yan spicy Shrimp and Scallops in XO sauce, included a so-so salad with terrific asian sesame dressing, and wrapped up with a better than usual cheese and fruit plate. I cant say enough about how good all the fruit was on this trip. In fact, the unusual juices at the hotel were so good (Honeydew, Cantaloupe, etc.) that I am getting a juicer this weekend. Even in business, with the multichannel videos, United does not have enough entertainment for these long flights. In both directions, we ran out of interesting movies long before we ran out of flying time. I brought my laptop with an Empower system, and it worked perfectly in both directions.
Midflight snacks were similar to the outbound, except the sandwiches were even better and simply huge, and hot breakfast looked good, but I had the fruit one last time. We made up most of our delay in route, and arrived on time. Customs and immigration was fast in United's dedicated facility at LAX, since we beat another UA asian flight by five minutes, and $85 lighter for duty, I was on the street 30 minutes after landing.
An execllent trip, good flights, and a magnificient hotel and tailor.
[This message has been edited by Brian (edited 05-19-2000).]