Lux
Nov 23, 03, 5:39 pm
Well I’ve spent lots of time reading various trip reports and thought it was about time I wrote one myself. I recently started a RTW trip from Cairo and had some interesting experiences in the city, so it’s more interesting (for me!) than the usual domestic runs. This report is based on an email I sent to my GF, hence should be reasonably easy for me to tailor for you lot, although it’s loooong. I’ve also put a handful of photos here (http://www.geocities.com/weekendincai/). This reports more about what happened in Cairo than the flights themselves – you have been warned!
I’m off to spend new year in upside downland, and thanks to the folks on the oneworld board learnt that I could fly business class around the world for less than twice as much as a direct economy return. It’s pretty expensive but I’ve had a good year and decided I should treat myself.
The flight was booked through BA Cairo with reasonable ease, and I organised a oneway economy flight with Swiss to get me to my starting point. Come early November I booked a day off work and planned a long weekend in Cairo.
1. LHR-ZUR-CAI
An early start; the flight from LHR left at 0620 and I needed to revalidate my eticket at the Swiss ticket desk. I parked at the QPark on the perimeter road at Heathrow – this is newly opened but recommended as it only £8 a day and close to the airport, being based in the old Budget car rental facility. I was at T2 a few minutes later.
Swiss have a strange outsourced callcentre in the UK, which meant I had to pay at the airport to change my eticket – I thought one benefit of couponless tickets was to get around this! More annoying was being told that the desk opened at 0500, when the sign says 0530. In reality it was somewhere between the two, and despite their stony faces the staff were friendly and efficient (unlike my fellow travellers fighting for a space!).
I normally fly with BA out from T1, so T2 was a bit of a shock. Cramped checkin area, poor retail outlets and only a couple of places to buy a nasty coffee. Seems that any airline apart from BA and BD suffers at Heathrow. I needed a good latte at that time of the morning and remembered there’s a secret passage to T1 from T2 – turn left past the shops and follow the signs for the low numbered gates, and you’ll be in the big T1 lounge in a couple of minutes. Costa Coffee in hand, I headed for the departure gate.
The short flight left promptly and was comfortable, despite being pretty busy. The seats had probably 34” seat pitch and my coffee was enough to keep me going to Zurich, lucky as LX now charge for food and drink on this route. I know that they are losing suitcases of cash but no ‘proper’ airline should need to lower itself to the low cost carrier level; how much can it cost to provide a cup of dodgy coffee and a muffin?
Arrived in Zurich and headed straight to security. Having breezed through an empty Heathrow, I was stunned that there were only three machines in operation at this busy time of day and the queues were hardly moving. It took 20 minutes to clear a 100m queue, frustrating when it was only a 40 minute connection, but made it to the plane on time. From the little I saw Zurich is a very attractive airport in a beautiful setting, a stylish interior and reasonable selection of ways to spend waiting time. A complete contrast to Heathrow T2!
Onto the LX flight to Cairo. The plane has a reasonably pleasing interior in economy, although the seat pitch seems about 31” pitch which is rather tight for a 6’ chap like me. I’d like to tell you about the food and in-flight entertainment but to be honest I can’t remember anything about it. The staff were young and attentive, and the meal was nothing bad, but instantly forgettable. Unusually I spent most of the flight talking with my neighbour, an Egyptian on secondment to Nestle in Switzerland. He was working away from home for 14 months, leaving his wife and young children behind; I can’t imagine how difficult it must be. The things we do to further our careers…
And so we arrived in Cairo. I remembered the trick of buying the visa stamps from the bureau de change before immigration, plus changed some money, and cleared Egyptian immigration faster than Zurich security!
2. CAIRO
I first went to Egypt about ten years ago after a long summer of work during my college vacation. I didn’t really enjoy it as it was the first time I’d gone for this sort of independent travel and I didn’t know how it all worked. Plus Egypt was a dirty and dusty country with some amazing sights, but it had come a long way downhill since the time of the Pharoes. But I was ready to give the country a second chance.
Now I like to live a life of dichotomies, hence flying to Cairo to start a business class RTW but trying to find the cheapest place to stay. Hence, rather than pay for a taxi I looked for public transport – plus learning to use public transport is a great way to learn about a city.
I’d read in the Lonely Planet that there is a bus that goes straight to the centre of Cairo from somewhere in the car park, although it must have taken me fifteen minutes to find the bench from which it departed. The bus is 2 Egyptian Pounds (LE) which is about 20p, beats the taxis that were twenty or thirty times that. Although as you’ll see later, I needed the cash I’d ‘saved’.
Got talking on the bus to an American girl who was doing Europe, ‘the Europe’, and whose boyfriend was arriving in Cairo the next evening. She’d managed to book a room at the LP’s favourite hostel/pension, and offered to split the cost for the Friday evening. Got off at Midan Tahir, and started walking the streets of this crazy city.
Sometimes it seems that everyone in Cairo is on the make and wants your money, so no surprise that a bloke offered to show us where the Pension Roma was – doubtless in return for a little baksheesh. He took us down some streets, stopped outside a crappy old building and introduced us to a little old man with a Pension Roma badge. But this was clearly not the building – he insisted it was until I pointed out that the guidebook said the pension was on the sixth floor, and this building only had three floors – so we managed to find our way to the real place instead. The curse of the Lonely Planet recommendation had struck again.
The hotel is located on the easy of the Nile, perhaps half a mile from the river. This area was developed by the French in the 1920s, and has dozens of beautiful buildings from this period. But things have changed here a lot in the past eighty years, and most are now rundown or falling down. The Pension Roma itself is a well run budget place with secure rooms and friendly English speaking staff. This is definitely not the Sheraton… but at the equivalent of £3 a night en-suite including breakfast, it’s good value. As I only had my daypack and was staying just one night, I wasn’t too worried about where stayed.
Went for a stroll around the streets. Now it turns out that I was visiting during Ramadan, which is good and bad. Good as it is a time of celebration, but bad for Westerners in lots of other ways – especially that one should not eat, nor even drink, during daylight (although I had to sip water at some point), and that almost all of the bars were closed for the whole month. After darkness falls the streets become incredibly lively, reaching a peak around midnight. This is definitely a 24 hour city.
My memories of Cairo were of a dirty, dusty city where everyone is on the make. I have to admit that this second visit showed I was wrong on most counts. Yes, it’s dusty but it’s not actually that dirty, compared with other places I’ve been. And not everyone is trying to make money – in fact one can generally spot these pretty quickly, and politely reject them – whilst the majority of those who talk with you are just being friendly.
That’s how we met Sameh, his mate Fego and one of their girlfriends. We were walking through one of the squares and these young Egyptians just started chatting with us, talking about celebrating Ramadan and all of the stuff you end up discussing with foreigners i.e. the Premiership and the decline of Liverpool, learning English etc. (this is the only point in life when people get to use their textbook phrases, ‘for how many years have you been learning English’ etc.). Sameh’s English was very good, and he showed us to a local restaurant for a very tasty meal of meat and vegetables. Was this guy on the make? Well he seemed genuine enough, and wasn’t asking for money, so lets stick with him for now.
After that we strolled the streets some more, my new American friend went back to the Pension and I walked a bit more with the boys. They were going to take a felucca ride, on which they invited me but I declined partly as I was a little suspicious about getting ripped off, remember this is Cairo, but also because I was knackered.
I must have left about 11, and the streets were still getting busier – it was like a shopping mall on the last weekend before Christmas – but nothing was going to stop me sleeping. It was so interesting wandering the side streets to get back to the pension, with the geographical clustering effect clearly visible. Some streets would specialise in car repairs, with mechanics working in the road and tyre fitters blocking the pavement. There was even an old Fiat getting a complete strip down and respray in the street! Another street will specialise in artificial limbs. Remarkable. And then there are the posh shopping streets with their windows full of some of the gaudiest polyester lingerie you can imagine. So much for being a strictly Muslim country.
Woke up next morning and relaxed on the balcony. Quite a view as you can see from the photo, although roof gardens have some way to go in Egypt.
Sameh came by and took us out to a little visited attraction, the zoo. Glad that he was there to help us with the public transport as, unlike going to say Europe, Arabic writing is all squiggles to me so catching bus, say. 365 is a bloody mystery… Anyway, off to the zoo and what a squalid place it is. Not many happy animals there, especially lions, although for a little baksheesh I was encouraged to go and stand by the lions and get my photo taken. These boys have BIG mouths and there was no way I was going to get too close.
After that we were taken behind a locked gate and a keeper showed us a lion and lioness he was training using a big stick. Nasty. One of the tricks he’d trained the lion to do was repeatedly roar on command. Argh! It’s difficult to describe how it feels to be four feet from a roaring lion. The sound is much deeper than I’d expect from an animal of that size, and the bass made my stomach vibrate. It was a sad sight, but an incredible noise. Just… incredible.
Sameh still hadn’t scammed us and instead was inviting us to his family home to share their meal after sunset – in Ramadan they call it breakfast. I have no idea how they can go all day without even a drink in this dusty dry climate. We took Sameh up on his generous offer and we had a forty minute minibus ride (not that I thought it would be that far) to Halwen, about 25k from the centre of Cairo. It’s at the end of the metro line so I suppose it’s the West Ruislip or Epping of Cairo.
We gave Sameh some money (more than he needed, really, but he deserved it) to go and get some fruit as a gift for his mother, than into another taxi and finally arrived at his flat. We wondered if he’d come back from the market, but he returned in five minutes – this was a genuinely friendly guy.
It was fascinating to get a glimpse of life for ordinary Caireans, and an unusual honour. Unsurprisingly there were few adventure playgrounds for the kids and no Tesco Express – as the photos from the apartment balcony show - but the family was very welcoming and the food was good. Before sunset, most neighbours would be on their balconies waiting to eat and drink, and we provided a little diversion for them.
Up on the roof was a real menagerie of goats, chickens, ducks, dogs and pigeons. Everything for the dinner table of course. There were ducks, chickens, pigeons, even goats – all living under the blazing sun. And from the roof we could allegedly see the pyramids, although I couldn’t, and that’s as close as I got in the whole weekend.
Later we returned to Cairo, and went to the old Islamic quarter. Although incredibly, incredibly busy this was somewhat different to what I expected – there were no covered bazaars or soukhs, perhaps these are more Moroccan, instead there are open markets and tight alleyways.
Nothing really took my fancy, so finally left empty handed. But not before wandering back through the spice market, a place to which a picture can never do justice to the smells and the colours.
And after that off to the airport. I proudly bartered a taxi down to 20LE and road off into the night. Cairo being the bustling city it is, with the worse driving in the world – crossing the road is best done by walking out and hoping nothing hits you – this was always going to be a scary journey, and I can still remember looking at the driver as he turned to me in the dark, a headlight illuminating his one tooth for a second. It was like a horror movie!
I was sure that it was Terminal 2 at the airport, but the signs on the road were confusing and I changed my mind to Terminal 1. Stupidly, as it was T2 all along. And there are no shuttle buses here so I spent as much to get a taxi from one terminal to another, as I did to get to the airport from the city centre. What an eejit.
Despite this, it was an inexpensive weekend. I’d changed fifty quid when I arrived and had to sell thirty quid back to the bank as I’d spent so little!
3. CAI-LHR
I spent the night sleeping on an airport bench – well, trying to sleep – and picked up my ticket at 0600. Remarkably, I just mentioned my name and was given the ticket, there was no request for ID or credit card, quite something bearing in mind it cost £2.5k. I went through to departures and was desperate for a shower, having a day and a night of Cairean grime on me and my white t-shirt. But no showers, so I had to have a strip bath in the toilets.
The BA lounge is a shared Egyptair facility, rather a contrast to Zurich airport, perhaps best described as Middle Eastern chic, but coffee and pastries were available and that was about all I needed. It did get very crowded, however.
We were called for boarding and it was obvious the plane was oversold. Rather than spitting out upgrades at the gate, BA staff were checking each passenger’s ticket in the queue and handing over new boarding cards. Imagine how galling this was for me; I was flying in business class with my own money and the cabin was full of upgrades!! For once I got to the airport not worrying about whether or not I’d get the nod, and it turns out I was in with a good chance.
I’ve flown in BA business on the 777 and downstairs on the 747 in business class, but this was my first time in the bubble and I was pretty excited about it. I like the bed, indeed I find that BA J compares very favourably with Virgin’s upper class, but was particularly impressed with the sense of space the layout gives on the upper deck. There are only twenty seats up there, so in no way cramped. In comparison I found the Virgin bed uncomfortable, and their overall product is definitely not between J and F.
The flight finally took off and it was a short hop across the Med back to London – I believe this is the shortest long haul trip BA operate, luckily it gives 120 tier points which means already one-fifth of the way to BA silver. Again, entertainment and food were fine and the service was good. I had a chat with the cabin crew (admittedly partly as I wanted to subtly point out I wasn’t an upgrade!) who were friendly, interested to hear the comparisons with VS –surprisingly unaware of the new VS suites – and gobsmacked by the cost of the RTW ticket. I was back in my seat and could hear one telling the other the cost of the ticket – wonder how much longer the CAI value can last.
Once back in London, popped into the arrivals lounge and had a nice shower but was disappointed by the food – nothing hot, no toast, had to ask for two slices of bread to make a cheese sandwich. Come on BA, you boast of your arrivals lounge but I must say that Virgin’s service in much better in this area.
Well for those of you who have skimmed this far, thanks for reading. Wherever you stay, Cairo is a tremendous destination and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. Plus on balance BA’s business class product is a good one, mainly with a high level of service
With another 14 segments coming up in the next few months, there may be another trip report coming soon...
[This message has been edited by Lux (edited Nov 23, 2003).]
I’m off to spend new year in upside downland, and thanks to the folks on the oneworld board learnt that I could fly business class around the world for less than twice as much as a direct economy return. It’s pretty expensive but I’ve had a good year and decided I should treat myself.
The flight was booked through BA Cairo with reasonable ease, and I organised a oneway economy flight with Swiss to get me to my starting point. Come early November I booked a day off work and planned a long weekend in Cairo.
1. LHR-ZUR-CAI
An early start; the flight from LHR left at 0620 and I needed to revalidate my eticket at the Swiss ticket desk. I parked at the QPark on the perimeter road at Heathrow – this is newly opened but recommended as it only £8 a day and close to the airport, being based in the old Budget car rental facility. I was at T2 a few minutes later.
Swiss have a strange outsourced callcentre in the UK, which meant I had to pay at the airport to change my eticket – I thought one benefit of couponless tickets was to get around this! More annoying was being told that the desk opened at 0500, when the sign says 0530. In reality it was somewhere between the two, and despite their stony faces the staff were friendly and efficient (unlike my fellow travellers fighting for a space!).
I normally fly with BA out from T1, so T2 was a bit of a shock. Cramped checkin area, poor retail outlets and only a couple of places to buy a nasty coffee. Seems that any airline apart from BA and BD suffers at Heathrow. I needed a good latte at that time of the morning and remembered there’s a secret passage to T1 from T2 – turn left past the shops and follow the signs for the low numbered gates, and you’ll be in the big T1 lounge in a couple of minutes. Costa Coffee in hand, I headed for the departure gate.
The short flight left promptly and was comfortable, despite being pretty busy. The seats had probably 34” seat pitch and my coffee was enough to keep me going to Zurich, lucky as LX now charge for food and drink on this route. I know that they are losing suitcases of cash but no ‘proper’ airline should need to lower itself to the low cost carrier level; how much can it cost to provide a cup of dodgy coffee and a muffin?
Arrived in Zurich and headed straight to security. Having breezed through an empty Heathrow, I was stunned that there were only three machines in operation at this busy time of day and the queues were hardly moving. It took 20 minutes to clear a 100m queue, frustrating when it was only a 40 minute connection, but made it to the plane on time. From the little I saw Zurich is a very attractive airport in a beautiful setting, a stylish interior and reasonable selection of ways to spend waiting time. A complete contrast to Heathrow T2!
Onto the LX flight to Cairo. The plane has a reasonably pleasing interior in economy, although the seat pitch seems about 31” pitch which is rather tight for a 6’ chap like me. I’d like to tell you about the food and in-flight entertainment but to be honest I can’t remember anything about it. The staff were young and attentive, and the meal was nothing bad, but instantly forgettable. Unusually I spent most of the flight talking with my neighbour, an Egyptian on secondment to Nestle in Switzerland. He was working away from home for 14 months, leaving his wife and young children behind; I can’t imagine how difficult it must be. The things we do to further our careers…
And so we arrived in Cairo. I remembered the trick of buying the visa stamps from the bureau de change before immigration, plus changed some money, and cleared Egyptian immigration faster than Zurich security!
2. CAIRO
I first went to Egypt about ten years ago after a long summer of work during my college vacation. I didn’t really enjoy it as it was the first time I’d gone for this sort of independent travel and I didn’t know how it all worked. Plus Egypt was a dirty and dusty country with some amazing sights, but it had come a long way downhill since the time of the Pharoes. But I was ready to give the country a second chance.
Now I like to live a life of dichotomies, hence flying to Cairo to start a business class RTW but trying to find the cheapest place to stay. Hence, rather than pay for a taxi I looked for public transport – plus learning to use public transport is a great way to learn about a city.
I’d read in the Lonely Planet that there is a bus that goes straight to the centre of Cairo from somewhere in the car park, although it must have taken me fifteen minutes to find the bench from which it departed. The bus is 2 Egyptian Pounds (LE) which is about 20p, beats the taxis that were twenty or thirty times that. Although as you’ll see later, I needed the cash I’d ‘saved’.
Got talking on the bus to an American girl who was doing Europe, ‘the Europe’, and whose boyfriend was arriving in Cairo the next evening. She’d managed to book a room at the LP’s favourite hostel/pension, and offered to split the cost for the Friday evening. Got off at Midan Tahir, and started walking the streets of this crazy city.
Sometimes it seems that everyone in Cairo is on the make and wants your money, so no surprise that a bloke offered to show us where the Pension Roma was – doubtless in return for a little baksheesh. He took us down some streets, stopped outside a crappy old building and introduced us to a little old man with a Pension Roma badge. But this was clearly not the building – he insisted it was until I pointed out that the guidebook said the pension was on the sixth floor, and this building only had three floors – so we managed to find our way to the real place instead. The curse of the Lonely Planet recommendation had struck again.
The hotel is located on the easy of the Nile, perhaps half a mile from the river. This area was developed by the French in the 1920s, and has dozens of beautiful buildings from this period. But things have changed here a lot in the past eighty years, and most are now rundown or falling down. The Pension Roma itself is a well run budget place with secure rooms and friendly English speaking staff. This is definitely not the Sheraton… but at the equivalent of £3 a night en-suite including breakfast, it’s good value. As I only had my daypack and was staying just one night, I wasn’t too worried about where stayed.
Went for a stroll around the streets. Now it turns out that I was visiting during Ramadan, which is good and bad. Good as it is a time of celebration, but bad for Westerners in lots of other ways – especially that one should not eat, nor even drink, during daylight (although I had to sip water at some point), and that almost all of the bars were closed for the whole month. After darkness falls the streets become incredibly lively, reaching a peak around midnight. This is definitely a 24 hour city.
My memories of Cairo were of a dirty, dusty city where everyone is on the make. I have to admit that this second visit showed I was wrong on most counts. Yes, it’s dusty but it’s not actually that dirty, compared with other places I’ve been. And not everyone is trying to make money – in fact one can generally spot these pretty quickly, and politely reject them – whilst the majority of those who talk with you are just being friendly.
That’s how we met Sameh, his mate Fego and one of their girlfriends. We were walking through one of the squares and these young Egyptians just started chatting with us, talking about celebrating Ramadan and all of the stuff you end up discussing with foreigners i.e. the Premiership and the decline of Liverpool, learning English etc. (this is the only point in life when people get to use their textbook phrases, ‘for how many years have you been learning English’ etc.). Sameh’s English was very good, and he showed us to a local restaurant for a very tasty meal of meat and vegetables. Was this guy on the make? Well he seemed genuine enough, and wasn’t asking for money, so lets stick with him for now.
After that we strolled the streets some more, my new American friend went back to the Pension and I walked a bit more with the boys. They were going to take a felucca ride, on which they invited me but I declined partly as I was a little suspicious about getting ripped off, remember this is Cairo, but also because I was knackered.
I must have left about 11, and the streets were still getting busier – it was like a shopping mall on the last weekend before Christmas – but nothing was going to stop me sleeping. It was so interesting wandering the side streets to get back to the pension, with the geographical clustering effect clearly visible. Some streets would specialise in car repairs, with mechanics working in the road and tyre fitters blocking the pavement. There was even an old Fiat getting a complete strip down and respray in the street! Another street will specialise in artificial limbs. Remarkable. And then there are the posh shopping streets with their windows full of some of the gaudiest polyester lingerie you can imagine. So much for being a strictly Muslim country.
Woke up next morning and relaxed on the balcony. Quite a view as you can see from the photo, although roof gardens have some way to go in Egypt.
Sameh came by and took us out to a little visited attraction, the zoo. Glad that he was there to help us with the public transport as, unlike going to say Europe, Arabic writing is all squiggles to me so catching bus, say. 365 is a bloody mystery… Anyway, off to the zoo and what a squalid place it is. Not many happy animals there, especially lions, although for a little baksheesh I was encouraged to go and stand by the lions and get my photo taken. These boys have BIG mouths and there was no way I was going to get too close.
After that we were taken behind a locked gate and a keeper showed us a lion and lioness he was training using a big stick. Nasty. One of the tricks he’d trained the lion to do was repeatedly roar on command. Argh! It’s difficult to describe how it feels to be four feet from a roaring lion. The sound is much deeper than I’d expect from an animal of that size, and the bass made my stomach vibrate. It was a sad sight, but an incredible noise. Just… incredible.
Sameh still hadn’t scammed us and instead was inviting us to his family home to share their meal after sunset – in Ramadan they call it breakfast. I have no idea how they can go all day without even a drink in this dusty dry climate. We took Sameh up on his generous offer and we had a forty minute minibus ride (not that I thought it would be that far) to Halwen, about 25k from the centre of Cairo. It’s at the end of the metro line so I suppose it’s the West Ruislip or Epping of Cairo.
We gave Sameh some money (more than he needed, really, but he deserved it) to go and get some fruit as a gift for his mother, than into another taxi and finally arrived at his flat. We wondered if he’d come back from the market, but he returned in five minutes – this was a genuinely friendly guy.
It was fascinating to get a glimpse of life for ordinary Caireans, and an unusual honour. Unsurprisingly there were few adventure playgrounds for the kids and no Tesco Express – as the photos from the apartment balcony show - but the family was very welcoming and the food was good. Before sunset, most neighbours would be on their balconies waiting to eat and drink, and we provided a little diversion for them.
Up on the roof was a real menagerie of goats, chickens, ducks, dogs and pigeons. Everything for the dinner table of course. There were ducks, chickens, pigeons, even goats – all living under the blazing sun. And from the roof we could allegedly see the pyramids, although I couldn’t, and that’s as close as I got in the whole weekend.
Later we returned to Cairo, and went to the old Islamic quarter. Although incredibly, incredibly busy this was somewhat different to what I expected – there were no covered bazaars or soukhs, perhaps these are more Moroccan, instead there are open markets and tight alleyways.
Nothing really took my fancy, so finally left empty handed. But not before wandering back through the spice market, a place to which a picture can never do justice to the smells and the colours.
And after that off to the airport. I proudly bartered a taxi down to 20LE and road off into the night. Cairo being the bustling city it is, with the worse driving in the world – crossing the road is best done by walking out and hoping nothing hits you – this was always going to be a scary journey, and I can still remember looking at the driver as he turned to me in the dark, a headlight illuminating his one tooth for a second. It was like a horror movie!
I was sure that it was Terminal 2 at the airport, but the signs on the road were confusing and I changed my mind to Terminal 1. Stupidly, as it was T2 all along. And there are no shuttle buses here so I spent as much to get a taxi from one terminal to another, as I did to get to the airport from the city centre. What an eejit.
Despite this, it was an inexpensive weekend. I’d changed fifty quid when I arrived and had to sell thirty quid back to the bank as I’d spent so little!
3. CAI-LHR
I spent the night sleeping on an airport bench – well, trying to sleep – and picked up my ticket at 0600. Remarkably, I just mentioned my name and was given the ticket, there was no request for ID or credit card, quite something bearing in mind it cost £2.5k. I went through to departures and was desperate for a shower, having a day and a night of Cairean grime on me and my white t-shirt. But no showers, so I had to have a strip bath in the toilets.
The BA lounge is a shared Egyptair facility, rather a contrast to Zurich airport, perhaps best described as Middle Eastern chic, but coffee and pastries were available and that was about all I needed. It did get very crowded, however.
We were called for boarding and it was obvious the plane was oversold. Rather than spitting out upgrades at the gate, BA staff were checking each passenger’s ticket in the queue and handing over new boarding cards. Imagine how galling this was for me; I was flying in business class with my own money and the cabin was full of upgrades!! For once I got to the airport not worrying about whether or not I’d get the nod, and it turns out I was in with a good chance.
I’ve flown in BA business on the 777 and downstairs on the 747 in business class, but this was my first time in the bubble and I was pretty excited about it. I like the bed, indeed I find that BA J compares very favourably with Virgin’s upper class, but was particularly impressed with the sense of space the layout gives on the upper deck. There are only twenty seats up there, so in no way cramped. In comparison I found the Virgin bed uncomfortable, and their overall product is definitely not between J and F.
The flight finally took off and it was a short hop across the Med back to London – I believe this is the shortest long haul trip BA operate, luckily it gives 120 tier points which means already one-fifth of the way to BA silver. Again, entertainment and food were fine and the service was good. I had a chat with the cabin crew (admittedly partly as I wanted to subtly point out I wasn’t an upgrade!) who were friendly, interested to hear the comparisons with VS –surprisingly unaware of the new VS suites – and gobsmacked by the cost of the RTW ticket. I was back in my seat and could hear one telling the other the cost of the ticket – wonder how much longer the CAI value can last.
Once back in London, popped into the arrivals lounge and had a nice shower but was disappointed by the food – nothing hot, no toast, had to ask for two slices of bread to make a cheese sandwich. Come on BA, you boast of your arrivals lounge but I must say that Virgin’s service in much better in this area.
Well for those of you who have skimmed this far, thanks for reading. Wherever you stay, Cairo is a tremendous destination and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. Plus on balance BA’s business class product is a good one, mainly with a high level of service
With another 14 segments coming up in the next few months, there may be another trip report coming soon...
[This message has been edited by Lux (edited Nov 23, 2003).]