Kremmen
Apr 14, 03, 8:02 am
My usual Easter trip to Perth and, again, on FF points in J.
In the past, when you could get free stopovers, I used to try interesting routes like MEL-ADL-DRW-PER-MEL, but this time it looked like one would be foisted upon me. When I was booking, the closest I could leave before Easter was Sun 13th MEL-SYD-AYQ-PER. Since the MEL-SYD was a 2-class int'l 767, I went ahead with the booking despite it being an early morning. I chose seat 4A and was really looking forward to my first trip in the front cabin of an int'l service.
However, it was not to be. About 4 days before my departure, they cancelled my SYD-AYQ and re-booked me for an earlier one, in Y(!), and therefore an even earlier MEL-SYD, a plain old domestic one at 7am. I was very lucky that I happened to book another QF flight and checked my bookings online, or I don't know when QF would have got around to even telling me.
Of course, I checked out other flight availability online before phoning them to inform them that, no, I don't no consider SYD-AYQ in Y, nor the 7am MEL-SYD, to be adequate replacements for my original itinerary. When I got the "we don't have anything else available [for rewards redemption] Melbourne to Perth that day" line, I replied with "QF481 still shows availability in business class on your web site". As the attempt to fob me off had failed, she went off to her supervisor and said that they'd request a J seat be released on that flight. 2 days later, QF481 appeared on my itinerary.
Arriving at the airport, I thought I'd try out the new electronic checkin machines. Amazingly, there was a big (30 people?) queue at the Y agents, but only 2 people at the machines. J queue was empty, but there are some prizes possible by checking in by machine, so I thought I'd try them. Unfortunately, while my new itinerary was in my booking, the e-ticket number was not correctly attached to the PNR, so I had to wait about 15 mins after the helpful gentleman at the counter had phoned someone to get it fixed. After that, all worked well. I was assigned seat 4A. Had a few other options to change to, but I kept it.
QF481 Sun 13/4 1810-2010 (really 1839-2012)
Boarding through the front door, I have no idea what the load was like down the back, but 2 seats were free in J. The seats were quite comfortable: Nice and firm, with good support and nice, solid footrests that don't wobble all over the place like some others. Not much leg room, but adequate. Overhead luggage bins are woefully inadequate and much time was wasted as people tried to rearrange everything to fit. Video screens are also woefully inadequate: 3 across the front bulkhead and 1 drop-down in the centre near the front. Those in rows 3-4 have a hard time reading text on the little screens and it'd be very hard to watch the video at all in rows 5-6. A very cheap and nasty aspect of an otherwise quite good cabin.
The flight itself was very good. Pre-dept OJ & H2O offered. Menus given out. Drinks service and mixed nuts. "All Aussie Adventures" comedy series on video. Entree of smoked salmon with soba noodle salad and soy chilli dressing. I hate salmon, but the dressing and the rest of the salad were not bad. The bread rolls were ok, but could have been hotter. Of the 3 mains, I had the marinated chicken with lemon potatoes and herb tomato, which was very nice.
The guy sitting next to me was pleasant to chat to. He was off to Perth for just one day for work and used some QF points for the upgrade. The movie, "Catch Me If You Can", was quite good, but run about 10 mins less than its quoted time, so some of it must have been cut. Some of the beginning seemed disjointed, further leading to that conclusion. (In some ways, this was lucky, since they waited so long into the flight to put it on.)
While the main course was quite nice, things only got better after. The lime ice cream with almond biscuits was excellent, yet even better was to come next. To my surprise, not only was the usual bottle of port on the dessert trolley, but also a bottle of Orlando Gramps botrytis semillon! While it would certainly benefit from a few years cellaring, this was a wonderful improvement on the QF evening meal to me, a lover of sweet dessert whites and semillons in particular. One of the FAs came by and topped up my glass up once with what was left of one bottle and then brought me some more later from the other.
The A330 almost caught up on lost time, but we landed well away from the domestic terminal and were towed in. I was met by two friends at the gate. (... so lovely to be travelling in relative normalcy, where friends can still meet you at the gate, rather than the stupid US mess.)
Assuming I don't get really lazy, I'll add to this when I return to MEL on another A330 in a couple of weeks.
In the past, when you could get free stopovers, I used to try interesting routes like MEL-ADL-DRW-PER-MEL, but this time it looked like one would be foisted upon me. When I was booking, the closest I could leave before Easter was Sun 13th MEL-SYD-AYQ-PER. Since the MEL-SYD was a 2-class int'l 767, I went ahead with the booking despite it being an early morning. I chose seat 4A and was really looking forward to my first trip in the front cabin of an int'l service.
However, it was not to be. About 4 days before my departure, they cancelled my SYD-AYQ and re-booked me for an earlier one, in Y(!), and therefore an even earlier MEL-SYD, a plain old domestic one at 7am. I was very lucky that I happened to book another QF flight and checked my bookings online, or I don't know when QF would have got around to even telling me.
Of course, I checked out other flight availability online before phoning them to inform them that, no, I don't no consider SYD-AYQ in Y, nor the 7am MEL-SYD, to be adequate replacements for my original itinerary. When I got the "we don't have anything else available [for rewards redemption] Melbourne to Perth that day" line, I replied with "QF481 still shows availability in business class on your web site". As the attempt to fob me off had failed, she went off to her supervisor and said that they'd request a J seat be released on that flight. 2 days later, QF481 appeared on my itinerary.
Arriving at the airport, I thought I'd try out the new electronic checkin machines. Amazingly, there was a big (30 people?) queue at the Y agents, but only 2 people at the machines. J queue was empty, but there are some prizes possible by checking in by machine, so I thought I'd try them. Unfortunately, while my new itinerary was in my booking, the e-ticket number was not correctly attached to the PNR, so I had to wait about 15 mins after the helpful gentleman at the counter had phoned someone to get it fixed. After that, all worked well. I was assigned seat 4A. Had a few other options to change to, but I kept it.
QF481 Sun 13/4 1810-2010 (really 1839-2012)
Boarding through the front door, I have no idea what the load was like down the back, but 2 seats were free in J. The seats were quite comfortable: Nice and firm, with good support and nice, solid footrests that don't wobble all over the place like some others. Not much leg room, but adequate. Overhead luggage bins are woefully inadequate and much time was wasted as people tried to rearrange everything to fit. Video screens are also woefully inadequate: 3 across the front bulkhead and 1 drop-down in the centre near the front. Those in rows 3-4 have a hard time reading text on the little screens and it'd be very hard to watch the video at all in rows 5-6. A very cheap and nasty aspect of an otherwise quite good cabin.
The flight itself was very good. Pre-dept OJ & H2O offered. Menus given out. Drinks service and mixed nuts. "All Aussie Adventures" comedy series on video. Entree of smoked salmon with soba noodle salad and soy chilli dressing. I hate salmon, but the dressing and the rest of the salad were not bad. The bread rolls were ok, but could have been hotter. Of the 3 mains, I had the marinated chicken with lemon potatoes and herb tomato, which was very nice.
The guy sitting next to me was pleasant to chat to. He was off to Perth for just one day for work and used some QF points for the upgrade. The movie, "Catch Me If You Can", was quite good, but run about 10 mins less than its quoted time, so some of it must have been cut. Some of the beginning seemed disjointed, further leading to that conclusion. (In some ways, this was lucky, since they waited so long into the flight to put it on.)
While the main course was quite nice, things only got better after. The lime ice cream with almond biscuits was excellent, yet even better was to come next. To my surprise, not only was the usual bottle of port on the dessert trolley, but also a bottle of Orlando Gramps botrytis semillon! While it would certainly benefit from a few years cellaring, this was a wonderful improvement on the QF evening meal to me, a lover of sweet dessert whites and semillons in particular. One of the FAs came by and topped up my glass up once with what was left of one bottle and then brought me some more later from the other.
The A330 almost caught up on lost time, but we landed well away from the domestic terminal and were towed in. I was met by two friends at the gate. (... so lovely to be travelling in relative normalcy, where friends can still meet you at the gate, rather than the stupid US mess.)
Assuming I don't get really lazy, I'll add to this when I return to MEL on another A330 in a couple of weeks.