redcentreflyer
Jul 1, 06, 7:55 am
This is my first trip report. I had planned to write some long winded essay, but have lost some of my notes. Hope it passes the test.
Thanks!
PART I ASP-SYD-DEN
Trip Report
ASP-SYD-DEN-SDF-MEL
April 6, 2006 – May 2, 2006
April 6, 2006
Qantas (QF) 791
Boeing 737
Seat 20C Economy
Scheduled departure time: 1305
This trip was undertaken by my wife, two daughters age 4 and 5 and myself. This was a trip to visit my family in the USA.
The first boarding call for flight QF791 was a general boarding call. To board the aircraft, one must walk a couple hundred meters outside and enter the plane through either the front or rear stairs. Being in row 20, we climbed the rear stairs and were met by a friendly flight attendant.
Our children were given some sort of small kids item, which consisted of pencils a pencil sharpener, and some cards to write on. I felt this a nice touch, and it kept the kids busy for a little while.
We quickly found our seats, 20A-D.
As is customary on Qantas, we were given free headphones to listen to the audio/video program. The screens for the video program were approx 10-inch LED displays that dropped from underneath the overhead bins. The screens were located about every three rows. I was able to watch the movie, which happened to be PROOF, but the children were unable to see the screens.
After a quick taxi to the runway and a little U-turn at the end of the runway, we were off. The seatbelt sign came off very quickly, within 4 minutes of take off. I notice that in Australia, the seatbelt sign is turned off very quickly when compared to flights in the USA. On our trip, it took between 3-5 minutes on average for the seatbelt sign to be turned off on our Qantas flights. We were still in the climb to altitude. In the US, it seemed to take forever for the seatbelt sign to come off, 15-20 minutes or more. Is this due to regulations? I’ve always wondered this.
Anyway, we were served a light lunch. There was a choice in economy of a chicken Cesar salad or a ham sandwich. I chose the Cesar salad, which was a small portion, but had several nice sized pieces of white chicken meat. The children had preordered children’s meals, which consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread, an apple, and a drink box.
The rest of the flight to Sydney was uneventful. I watched the movie while the kids colored or read books.
After landing, we quickly gathered our bags and made our way to our hotel in Darling Harbour. I’ll note that to get to the USA from Alice Springs, Australia requires an over night in either BNE, SYD, or MEL as flights from Alice don’t arrive in the international gateway cities until after flights to the US have departed. This was a welcome stop anyway as Sydney is a great city which I love spending time in.
7 April 2006
QF11 (we were ticketed on code share AA7363)
SYD-LAX
Boeing 747-400
Seat 18B Business class.
Scheduled departure time 1325
We arrived at the airport about 3 hours 20 minutes before departure. Check-in for international flights open only 3 hours before departure. We were able to wait in a pseudo lounge area within the ropes to the business class check-in area. This gave us time to make sure our immigration departure cards and bag tags were all filled in.
We were quickly checked at the business class counters once they opened. Check in was quick and efficient. Our bags were tagged through to Denver and we had all the boarding passes we needed.
We made our way to the gate via the Duty free shop as the wife wanted to get a few things for the trip. After about 20 minutes of looking around we strolled to immigration and security. At immigration we had our passports stamped with our departure date and then we were off to security. The line to security was almost non-existent. We quickly cleared the metal detector and X-ray machines.
Our next stop was the Qantas lounge. It had been several years since I had visited the lounge in the international terminal, and it had been remodeled since. The lounge seemed rather large and there were several areas or rooms. We found a corner table in the wine bar area. We were out of the way and had room for the kids to lay on the floor with their coloring books while we read the paper and magazines. I think the food service in the lounge has deteriorated since the last time I was here, but the wine bar was a pretty good addition. During the 2 hours we were in the lounge, my wife had a bottle of white wine and I polished off a nice Australian red. Made the time fly. The kids had some biscuits or cookies and a few pieces of fruit along with some soft drinks.
We made our way to the gate about 30 minutes before departure. Boarding was well underway. Business class and First class were boarding through one jet way and economy were boarding through another. I was eager to get on board and check out the new sky bed seats.
We were met at the door to the aircraft by a flight attendant who pointed up stairs when the kids shown their boarding pass. I always prefer to sit on the upper deck if I am able to fly business class, as the cabin seems a bit calmer then the business class cabin on the lower deck.
I was seated in 18B paired with a child in 18A. My wife was in front of us in 17B with the other child in 17A. My first impression of the cabin was that it seemed crowded. The
Shell around the sky bed seats seemed rather large and bulky, something I wasn’t quite expecting. I started to have a look at the reading material about the flight. We were given menus and a breakfast pre order form, which was quickly filled out and handed back to a flight attendant.
We had some pre-departure drinks of champagne while the children had some OJ. We quickly learned of an issue with the compartment down in the hold where some dogs were being transferred. They were going to off load the dogs so we could get under way, but as it turns out, the owner of the dogs wouldn’t travel if his dogs didn’t. I guess they thought it was quicker to fix the problem then try to get the dogs off and find the owners bags to off load. We were pushed back at 1430, and hour and a half late.
After taking off, the seatbelt sign came off. It gave me time to play around with the seat, something the kids obviously had already started doing. The seat was comfy when sitting up or slightly reclined. I found the “bed” position to be a bit of a pain. It seemed I was always sliding down toward the bottom of the seat. On both Qantas international flights, the children, after sleeping an hour or so had to be pulled up back as they slid down until the seatbelt under the arms stopped them sliding off the end of the seat.
I also found the seats a bit noisy, but over all they are a lot better then the old style seats that I last had flown in.
Anyway, we had our amenity kits handed out and had already been given our noise canceling headphones. The kids were given another Wiggles activity bag, which they quickly opened and dropped all the pencils to.
The audiovisual program had been started and that kept the kids busy for hours. They watched some Nickelodeon programs over and over again. We didn’t have video on demand, which is a bit of a pain when a movie finishes and you don’t really know how long it is until another one starts. I played a few of the games during the flights and was able to waste some of the flight time with the movies and games.
Lunch was served about an hour and 45 min after take off.
LUNCH
Entrée
Smoked Tarragon Chicken Salad with Rocket, capers and mayonnaise dressing
Main Courses
Roast Beef Fillet with Ratatouille, Crushed white beans and lemon zest
Red Braised Pork with ....ake Mushrooms, Fragrant Rice and Bok Choy
Seared Blue Eye with Potatoes, Broad Beans, asparagus and Black olive sauce
All served with green leaf salad with herb vinaigrette
Desert
Selection of seasonal cheese and dried fruit
Nice cream strawberry and vanilla ice cream with spiced strawberries
Sliced fresh fruit
Chocolates
Valrhona chocolates
Panton’s macadamia chocolates.
The menu listed is truncated. I left off the part about making toasted sandwiches during the flight and the express lunch.
I ordered the Roast Beef, which was quite tasty. The children had their pre-ordered kids meal, which I forgot to write down in my notebook. We finished with the ice cream for desert. I thought the ice cream must have been frozen in some sort of super freezer. It was solid as a rock, but it was a hit with the kids anyway.
We found time to get a few hours sleep before breakfast was served. Breakfast was pre ordered way back before we were pushed back from the gate in Sydney. I had scrambled eggs with toast and some coffee and yogurts. Once again the kids had their kids breakfast, which I forgot to write about.
We started our decent into Los Angeles while everybody made the final trips to the toilets to freshen up before landing. The kids were amazed to be in “another world” as they looked out their window at the sea and finally Los Angeles.
Our flight landed and we cleared customs in terminal 4, which was nice. Beats TBIT any day. We found rechecked our bags and headed outside for some fresh air (in LA?). I guess that’s what we gotta do when we have a smoker in the family. I believe our first mistake was to leave the secured area as the line to get back through security was overwhelming. It took us a very long time to get back into the terminal. Now I remembered why I hate flying in the US. Surely somebody would figure out that things are broke and need fixing.
We made our way to the AA lounge in terminal 4. I don’t recall ever being in this lounge, but it was a lot nicer then I thought it would be. I enjoyed the large windows over looking the tarmac. We were given a 4 drink coupons for us adults at the front door. Seemingly hung over from 13 ½ hours of flying and little sleep and a few too many red wines we didn’t get anything but a few soft drinks. We sat down in the kid’s area so the kids would be occupied. I applaud AA for having a kids area, makes the traveling a lot easier when one has the children with them. My one gripe with the lounge was that you had to be served all drinks, soft and alcoholic, by the bar tender. There was one bar tender and a lot of thirst travelers around. I understand that with the US drinking laws, you wouldn’t want under age kids at a self serve bar, but there could have been another bar tender working.
7 April 2006
AA 1458
LAX-DEN
MD-80
Seat 6E, First class
Scheduled departure time 1458
We had made our way to the gate, just to get on the plane and try and get some sleep. We were starting to notice the little sleep we got on the flight over. Boarding was a bit delayed for whatever reason, and we ended up not departing LAX until 1340pm. We were one of the first on board the plane. The kids did well to get right to sleep before we even were pushed back from the gate.
I’ve recently read some articles on boarding procedures being trailed by the various US airlines in order to ease boarding. I’m still amazed that people Rush to get on board, but with the competition for overhead bin space I can understand why people want to get on board. On previous trips in First class, I always wanted to get onboard first to get that pre departure drink which seems non-exisistant these days in the US. I don’t mind not having a pre departure drink if it means we get airborne quicker. It stalls the boarding process to have a flight attendant taking orders and going back and forth the the galley to serve drinks to first class passengers while people in economy are trying to get by to their seats.
Soon after departure, we were given a hot towellete that gets stuck in the 5 o’clock shadow if used on the face. We had a choice of turkey wrap or chicken salad I believe for our snack. I at the turkey wrap, which wasn’t too bad, but the kids didn’t like it at all. Luckily we had brought snacks to get them through the US flights where they didn’t get kids meals. I had a glass or two of read wine and the kids got some more sleep on the short flight to Denver. FEBO was the order of the day.
One item of note, I believe I had the best view ever of the Grand Canyon. I had never seen it before on all my flights within the USA. It was spectacular.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. The crew was friendly and very attentive. We landed in Denver and made our way to the baggage claim to get our bags. It took quite a while for the bags to come out.
Thanks!
PART I ASP-SYD-DEN
Trip Report
ASP-SYD-DEN-SDF-MEL
April 6, 2006 – May 2, 2006
April 6, 2006
Qantas (QF) 791
Boeing 737
Seat 20C Economy
Scheduled departure time: 1305
This trip was undertaken by my wife, two daughters age 4 and 5 and myself. This was a trip to visit my family in the USA.
The first boarding call for flight QF791 was a general boarding call. To board the aircraft, one must walk a couple hundred meters outside and enter the plane through either the front or rear stairs. Being in row 20, we climbed the rear stairs and were met by a friendly flight attendant.
Our children were given some sort of small kids item, which consisted of pencils a pencil sharpener, and some cards to write on. I felt this a nice touch, and it kept the kids busy for a little while.
We quickly found our seats, 20A-D.
As is customary on Qantas, we were given free headphones to listen to the audio/video program. The screens for the video program were approx 10-inch LED displays that dropped from underneath the overhead bins. The screens were located about every three rows. I was able to watch the movie, which happened to be PROOF, but the children were unable to see the screens.
After a quick taxi to the runway and a little U-turn at the end of the runway, we were off. The seatbelt sign came off very quickly, within 4 minutes of take off. I notice that in Australia, the seatbelt sign is turned off very quickly when compared to flights in the USA. On our trip, it took between 3-5 minutes on average for the seatbelt sign to be turned off on our Qantas flights. We were still in the climb to altitude. In the US, it seemed to take forever for the seatbelt sign to come off, 15-20 minutes or more. Is this due to regulations? I’ve always wondered this.
Anyway, we were served a light lunch. There was a choice in economy of a chicken Cesar salad or a ham sandwich. I chose the Cesar salad, which was a small portion, but had several nice sized pieces of white chicken meat. The children had preordered children’s meals, which consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread, an apple, and a drink box.
The rest of the flight to Sydney was uneventful. I watched the movie while the kids colored or read books.
After landing, we quickly gathered our bags and made our way to our hotel in Darling Harbour. I’ll note that to get to the USA from Alice Springs, Australia requires an over night in either BNE, SYD, or MEL as flights from Alice don’t arrive in the international gateway cities until after flights to the US have departed. This was a welcome stop anyway as Sydney is a great city which I love spending time in.
7 April 2006
QF11 (we were ticketed on code share AA7363)
SYD-LAX
Boeing 747-400
Seat 18B Business class.
Scheduled departure time 1325
We arrived at the airport about 3 hours 20 minutes before departure. Check-in for international flights open only 3 hours before departure. We were able to wait in a pseudo lounge area within the ropes to the business class check-in area. This gave us time to make sure our immigration departure cards and bag tags were all filled in.
We were quickly checked at the business class counters once they opened. Check in was quick and efficient. Our bags were tagged through to Denver and we had all the boarding passes we needed.
We made our way to the gate via the Duty free shop as the wife wanted to get a few things for the trip. After about 20 minutes of looking around we strolled to immigration and security. At immigration we had our passports stamped with our departure date and then we were off to security. The line to security was almost non-existent. We quickly cleared the metal detector and X-ray machines.
Our next stop was the Qantas lounge. It had been several years since I had visited the lounge in the international terminal, and it had been remodeled since. The lounge seemed rather large and there were several areas or rooms. We found a corner table in the wine bar area. We were out of the way and had room for the kids to lay on the floor with their coloring books while we read the paper and magazines. I think the food service in the lounge has deteriorated since the last time I was here, but the wine bar was a pretty good addition. During the 2 hours we were in the lounge, my wife had a bottle of white wine and I polished off a nice Australian red. Made the time fly. The kids had some biscuits or cookies and a few pieces of fruit along with some soft drinks.
We made our way to the gate about 30 minutes before departure. Boarding was well underway. Business class and First class were boarding through one jet way and economy were boarding through another. I was eager to get on board and check out the new sky bed seats.
We were met at the door to the aircraft by a flight attendant who pointed up stairs when the kids shown their boarding pass. I always prefer to sit on the upper deck if I am able to fly business class, as the cabin seems a bit calmer then the business class cabin on the lower deck.
I was seated in 18B paired with a child in 18A. My wife was in front of us in 17B with the other child in 17A. My first impression of the cabin was that it seemed crowded. The
Shell around the sky bed seats seemed rather large and bulky, something I wasn’t quite expecting. I started to have a look at the reading material about the flight. We were given menus and a breakfast pre order form, which was quickly filled out and handed back to a flight attendant.
We had some pre-departure drinks of champagne while the children had some OJ. We quickly learned of an issue with the compartment down in the hold where some dogs were being transferred. They were going to off load the dogs so we could get under way, but as it turns out, the owner of the dogs wouldn’t travel if his dogs didn’t. I guess they thought it was quicker to fix the problem then try to get the dogs off and find the owners bags to off load. We were pushed back at 1430, and hour and a half late.
After taking off, the seatbelt sign came off. It gave me time to play around with the seat, something the kids obviously had already started doing. The seat was comfy when sitting up or slightly reclined. I found the “bed” position to be a bit of a pain. It seemed I was always sliding down toward the bottom of the seat. On both Qantas international flights, the children, after sleeping an hour or so had to be pulled up back as they slid down until the seatbelt under the arms stopped them sliding off the end of the seat.
I also found the seats a bit noisy, but over all they are a lot better then the old style seats that I last had flown in.
Anyway, we had our amenity kits handed out and had already been given our noise canceling headphones. The kids were given another Wiggles activity bag, which they quickly opened and dropped all the pencils to.
The audiovisual program had been started and that kept the kids busy for hours. They watched some Nickelodeon programs over and over again. We didn’t have video on demand, which is a bit of a pain when a movie finishes and you don’t really know how long it is until another one starts. I played a few of the games during the flights and was able to waste some of the flight time with the movies and games.
Lunch was served about an hour and 45 min after take off.
LUNCH
Entrée
Smoked Tarragon Chicken Salad with Rocket, capers and mayonnaise dressing
Main Courses
Roast Beef Fillet with Ratatouille, Crushed white beans and lemon zest
Red Braised Pork with ....ake Mushrooms, Fragrant Rice and Bok Choy
Seared Blue Eye with Potatoes, Broad Beans, asparagus and Black olive sauce
All served with green leaf salad with herb vinaigrette
Desert
Selection of seasonal cheese and dried fruit
Nice cream strawberry and vanilla ice cream with spiced strawberries
Sliced fresh fruit
Chocolates
Valrhona chocolates
Panton’s macadamia chocolates.
The menu listed is truncated. I left off the part about making toasted sandwiches during the flight and the express lunch.
I ordered the Roast Beef, which was quite tasty. The children had their pre-ordered kids meal, which I forgot to write down in my notebook. We finished with the ice cream for desert. I thought the ice cream must have been frozen in some sort of super freezer. It was solid as a rock, but it was a hit with the kids anyway.
We found time to get a few hours sleep before breakfast was served. Breakfast was pre ordered way back before we were pushed back from the gate in Sydney. I had scrambled eggs with toast and some coffee and yogurts. Once again the kids had their kids breakfast, which I forgot to write about.
We started our decent into Los Angeles while everybody made the final trips to the toilets to freshen up before landing. The kids were amazed to be in “another world” as they looked out their window at the sea and finally Los Angeles.
Our flight landed and we cleared customs in terminal 4, which was nice. Beats TBIT any day. We found rechecked our bags and headed outside for some fresh air (in LA?). I guess that’s what we gotta do when we have a smoker in the family. I believe our first mistake was to leave the secured area as the line to get back through security was overwhelming. It took us a very long time to get back into the terminal. Now I remembered why I hate flying in the US. Surely somebody would figure out that things are broke and need fixing.
We made our way to the AA lounge in terminal 4. I don’t recall ever being in this lounge, but it was a lot nicer then I thought it would be. I enjoyed the large windows over looking the tarmac. We were given a 4 drink coupons for us adults at the front door. Seemingly hung over from 13 ½ hours of flying and little sleep and a few too many red wines we didn’t get anything but a few soft drinks. We sat down in the kid’s area so the kids would be occupied. I applaud AA for having a kids area, makes the traveling a lot easier when one has the children with them. My one gripe with the lounge was that you had to be served all drinks, soft and alcoholic, by the bar tender. There was one bar tender and a lot of thirst travelers around. I understand that with the US drinking laws, you wouldn’t want under age kids at a self serve bar, but there could have been another bar tender working.
7 April 2006
AA 1458
LAX-DEN
MD-80
Seat 6E, First class
Scheduled departure time 1458
We had made our way to the gate, just to get on the plane and try and get some sleep. We were starting to notice the little sleep we got on the flight over. Boarding was a bit delayed for whatever reason, and we ended up not departing LAX until 1340pm. We were one of the first on board the plane. The kids did well to get right to sleep before we even were pushed back from the gate.
I’ve recently read some articles on boarding procedures being trailed by the various US airlines in order to ease boarding. I’m still amazed that people Rush to get on board, but with the competition for overhead bin space I can understand why people want to get on board. On previous trips in First class, I always wanted to get onboard first to get that pre departure drink which seems non-exisistant these days in the US. I don’t mind not having a pre departure drink if it means we get airborne quicker. It stalls the boarding process to have a flight attendant taking orders and going back and forth the the galley to serve drinks to first class passengers while people in economy are trying to get by to their seats.
Soon after departure, we were given a hot towellete that gets stuck in the 5 o’clock shadow if used on the face. We had a choice of turkey wrap or chicken salad I believe for our snack. I at the turkey wrap, which wasn’t too bad, but the kids didn’t like it at all. Luckily we had brought snacks to get them through the US flights where they didn’t get kids meals. I had a glass or two of read wine and the kids got some more sleep on the short flight to Denver. FEBO was the order of the day.
One item of note, I believe I had the best view ever of the Grand Canyon. I had never seen it before on all my flights within the USA. It was spectacular.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. The crew was friendly and very attentive. We landed in Denver and made our way to the baggage claim to get our bags. It took quite a while for the bags to come out.