United747

I've been less than stellar at finishing my previous trip reports, in fact, I think I have two or three that are still unfinished. Lets just say this is my FT lenten goal to finish this one.

The idea for this trip started in my head over 5 years ago when I got my first job in high school. I was a bus boy at the local Pei Wei (little sibling of PF Changs). Being in high school, I didn't really have any expenses per se, so I could start saving.

That all stopped in college, since I had a hard time getting an on-campus job even though I was approved for work study. But I digress, I interned the past two summers, am currently interning, and saved up the rest for this trip.

I have always been interested in Asia, I first went to Tokyo a few years ago and had a blast, and I wanted to go back. So after saving the money and miles, I could finally realize my dream of a week in Asia.

The booking started in April of 2016, I secured the outbound Cathay flights in F, from ORD-HKG and a few days later, up to HND. I was also able to snag an SQ award which morphed into the final routing of SIN-SFO via HKG.

Anyway, I should probably get to the actual trip, so the two of you still reading will have something to show for it.

My day started with an Uber to ORD with my roommate and his GF, they were headed to MCO for their spring break trip and just ended up being the third wheel on the way to ORD. I left early, 9:45 am, for my ~2pm departure to HKG. I had printed my BP at home and finagled my way into the AA Flagship Check-in and then onto the Flagship Lounge in T3 for a little bit to let my roommate see a lounge for the first time. It was neat to see his reaction, to me, they're just a nicer place to wait. But he thought it was really cool and was blown away by the self-service booze.

Anyway, I bid them a safe, fun trip and made my way to T5 via the landside train system, because we would never want people to have a convenient transfer. Chicago never ceases to amaze me with the stupid decisions they make. But rumors are that there may be an airside transfer coming, so fingers crossed!

Check-in at T5 was nothing special, the lady just swiped my passport and printed the boarding pass. No offer for an escort, and I did not ask. But I did see a gentleman get one later, so I'm guessing you just have to ask. Security did not take long, maybe 15 minutes and I was then at the BA Flounge. I've been once before, and it seemed even smaller this time.

Juice and a view

I didn't take any further pictures of the lounge since it was already getting quite full. I left about an hour before boarding to walk around and because it was just too crowded for my liking.

T5 itself is an interesting terminal, besides the main core of about 4 gates, the rest of the terminal was empty and rundown - the FIDS were all broken, seats were torn and gates were completely empty. There were some good views of some of the planes only using the terminal as a customs facility (T5 is the only terminal at ORD with CBP).


My ride

Air India to Delhi and onto Hyderabad

Beautiful Lufthansa 747-8I

My contacts are telling me to go to sleep, so I am headed out to buy macarons and find caffeine, I'll leave you with this to keep you tied over in the meantime:

AAtticus

All the images seem to have hotlink protection so are not working.

United747

Sorry, I was having trouble with it. I'll check them later.

United747

I think I fixed it, let me know if it works.

kevincrumbs

Nope

United747

OMG, I'll try again. Sorry

United747

Alright, I think I got it. I apologize for the problems.

krazykanuck

Yep - seem to be working now.

United747

Thanks for confirming. I'll post about CX this afternoon.

United747

Boarding was delayed to about 13:45 for the 14:05 departure. Those needing assistance were allowed a few minutes before announcing the boarding of first and business class along with certain elite members of Marco Polo Club.

Boarding itself took about 15 minutes since there were so many people allowed at once. If I was paying $11k USD for the flight, I would not be happy with the ground services, but I did not really mind since I had 16hrs of sitting coming up.

Upon presenting my boarding pass to the FA at the entryway, she passed it off to the ISM who welcomed me aboard and escorted me to my suite. I was given a few minutes to get settled and then the rest of the F FAs came by to introduce themselves and offer everything from Krug to the amenity kit, and PJs. At every interaction, I was addressed by name and before the door closed, I could tell it would be a great flight.


2A

Ottoman

Belly cam

PDB Krug and hot nuts

Amenity Kit

Before we took off, I was already two glasses into the bottle of Krug. Unfortunately, I let macabus down. I didn't even make it through two bottles of Krug on this 16hr flight. Upon last count, it was only 10 glasses.

The menu for the flight was as follows:
I waited about three hours to enjoy lunch, so it turned into dinner. The caviar was good, and I am a sucker for it. I skipped on the soup and went on to have the salad, veal cheeks, bleu cheese with honey, berries with cream and chocolate truffles. Overall, the meal was great. Veal cheeks are a good meal to have on a plane because they are like short ribs, they are extremely tender. The carrots served with them were not cooked long enough, but still good. The celeriac puree was gross.


Caviar

Duck salad

Veal

Bleu cheese

Berries

Chocolate

I was well looked after throughout the meal, my glasses never got low and they were always ready to take my plate after I finished.

After the meal, I watched more movies and as we approached the half-way mark, I decided to have the burger from the snack menu which was served with chips. The burger was overcooked, but I understand it's tough to get a medium rare burger on a plane!


Burger

Prior to arrival, I again asked for the veal cheeks since nothing else on the menu sounded good. At this point, not a whole lot sounded good since I had been up the whole flight and up for about 22 hours at that point. But in the true spirit of FT, I forged on and finished the meal.


Fruit starter

Veal

I cannot explain how awesome the crew was, they truly went above and beyond in making sure everyone had a good flight. Nothing was too much trouble and they even checked on me about every 30 minutes to see if I needed anything.

We landed a bit late into HKG because of traffic, but the taxi to the gate was only a few minutes and after stepping off the jetbridge, the Peninsula experience started.