hairpeace

Ditto. ^

gleff

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) to Beijing, China (PEK)
11:05 am Thai Airways 0614, Boeing 747, First Class, Seats 2J, 2K
Scheduled flight time: 4h 25m

We left the Novotel around 7:45am and took the shuttle over to the airport. Another couple was on the shuttle with us, heading to a domestic destination, so we were both dropped off at the same point – Royal First/Royal Silk checkin comes first, right before domestic.

We got out of the shuttle, had only our carryons, so none of the porters stirred.

We approached the Royal First check-in room and as soon as we entered we were greeted and brought inside to sit down.


We turned over our passports, paid our departure tax (they dispatched a staff member to pay it and brought us our receipts), and gave us our boarding passes. Then they walked us – pulling our carryons for us -- through first class immigration (no line, right next to business class immigration, no line). Right on the other side of immigration was a golf cart waiting for us, ready to drive us to the Royal First lounge.


Now, a recent poster on Flyertalk described this part as especially decadent. The drive can’t be more than several hundred meters. They drive you through the business class lounge to get to the first class lounge, where they deliver you to lounge attendants who help you find a place to get comfortable.


Food is on offer. There’s an attended room with the various selections, much of which is made to order. You point at the items you’d like, and they’re brought to you in courses.


After some breakfast (absolutely wonderful shrimp wonton soup, by the way, perhaps my wife’s Taronga Zoo theory at work) we let the lounge attendants know that we’d like to visit the spa. We hadn’t pre-booked anything earlier in the morning, but fortunately that wasn’t a problem. It was 8:45am at this point, 2 ½ hours until our flight, so that was plenty of time for the full spa massage offering. It’s a 60-minute massage, but with a brief wait for the treatment, a shower, and relaxing over a cup of tea afterwards it’s best to leave an hour and a half for it.


After our treatments we returned to the lounge, checked our email, and the staff came over to bring us to our flight. Outside the lounge we were escorted through security, and then a golf cart was again waiting for us to whisk us (and another passenger) to the plane.


I realized that this was the second out of five flights so far this trip that I had never even looked to see what our gate was…

Load for the flight was 4 out of 12 seats in this old-configuration 747. No seat power (again, contra seat guru although I haven’t checked if my prodding has finally caused them to correct this). Old yet comfortable seats. Video isn’t on-demand, and (as I already knew) contra-Seat Guru there’s no seat power.


Still, this was one of the best flights I’ve ever had.

We started with a little pre-departure Dom and hot towels.


I’ve gotten incredibly used to indifferent service from Thai. I know that some people say they’ve had wonderful service on TG and they’re impressed, but with admittedly fewer than a dozen flights over the past couple years in premium classes I had yet to see it.

But this time, we had a true gem of a FA who made the flight absolutely wonderful, and the food was far better than anything I’ve had on Thai before too.

Amenity kits and menus were passed out. The FA knew that I had pre-ordered the Lobster Pad Thai. Mrs. gleff had the Thai Curry option. I had recommended against, since this was also what we ate on our DPS-BKK flight the day before so I figured it was just the repackaged business class meal. But it was a much more generous and flavorful portion.

The highlight of the meal had to be the cheese course. I initially had just some bleu and gruyere, but mrs. gleff had a cheese she told me I had to try… I tasted hers and then had a substantial portion for myself. It was the best cheese I’ve ever tasted, a combination of a triple cream and a center filled with truffle butter. We’re now on a mission to find a cheese like it at our local cheese shops in DC.


Arrival in Beijing was on-time.


This was the last day that a large number of airlines would be housed in the old Terminal 2, and the place was even more barren than usual. Just a couple of women hawking local SIM cards on the way to immigration. We were through quickly, though bags took awhile to come out. First and business bags were on the carousel at the start, we walked out the customs hall and over to the taxis for a cab to our hotel.

anc-ord772

This is an excellent report gleff. Thank you for taking the time to share your wonderful trip with us.

gleff

About 1h15m in traffic, the cab deposited us at the Westin for 118RMB. I had had a map to the hotel with the address in Chinese (which I had emailed the hotel for), but the dispatcher simply asked us our destination and communicated it to the driver and all was fine.

Upstairs to the club lounge to checkin (since Platinums have access to the lounge, they can necessarily check in there).

I had reserved the hotel on a cash and points award, US$60 + 4000 points a night. 500 point Plat amenity has already posted, along with points from two room service coffee orders, but no points for the cash portion of the rate – will have to followup.

We were informed the hotel was full (and it certainly was, with a huge American tour group of seniors) but that we had been upgraded to a suite that seemed to me something of a junior suite. They did offer to upgrade to something larger in the residences, but I was perfectly happy with what they had given us.

The lounge offers a very substantial breakfast and evening cocktails, appetizers, and desserts. There’s table service throughout for drinks as well as offers to bring things to you, but the main affair is the buffet. Some of the items were delicious, others sort of missed (the evening bagel with lox had mayonnaise instead of cream cheese on it, for instance).

The lounge had a few Americans, but seemingly mostly Chinese on business.


Club guests also receive a complimentary pressing during their stay, you just put the card that comes in your checkin folder into the laundry bag so that you aren’t charged.

The room had a bedroom, somewhat separated office area, walk-in closet area, and a large bathroom. There was a toilet room, dual sinks, shower, and beyond the shower a tub in the window with a shade that operated electronically. Toileteries were Ashford & Hall.


The lobby bar had both smoking and non-smoking, and our second evening there was a woman demonstrating martial arts and another woman offering complimentary back and shoulder massages.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Starwood property so keen on promoting “instant awards.” They have fully preprinted materials pushing the offerings, not of which represent enough value to entice me.

Kiwi Flyer

Fantastic report gleff ^^^

view

A very enjoyable read, thanks ^

gleff

Ok, I grant you most will find it crazy to fly up to PEK to spend just one full day. But we packed a good bit in, had a nice time, so why not?

At the suggestion of AZ Travels the World we booked a lovely and knowledgable tour guide named Alice. He had warned me that she wasn’t especially responsive to e-mail, but actually if I waited a couple of days she’d get back to me. I really do prefer to work by email rather than phone.

She called us at the hotel the night we arrived, and confirmed the time we’d be meeting in the hotel lobby. She did ask something we hadn’t discussed earlier – whether I’d have a car. I rather assumed she would! No problem, she assured, she would take care of it.

So in the morning after breakfast in the lounge we met her downstairs, she found us without difficulty.

She had brought a car and driver. That made the day more expensive, I suppose, but really quite reasonable. She said that the car would be RMB600 if we stayed in town, or RMB1000 if we also went up to the Great Wall. She charged RMB80/hr with a four hour minimum, so our 8 hour tour cost 640… and while this is China, she was a wonderful guide and I did tip her.

We started off at Tienanmen Square, then walked over to the Forbidden City.


From there we drove to Badaling to walk along the Great Wall. Then back to Beijing, driving by the Olympic stadium, for a street food market.


A very full day, I naturally bought a Mao watch (RMB40) and we ate some truly interesting street food, much of which our guide wouldn’t go near (like the grilled snake). We tried 10 different things, but didn’t go in for the scorpion…

gleff

Thursday, March 27, 2008

After breakfast in the lounge we checked out (removing the 8RMB opt-out charitable donation, as I’ve noted elsewhere I take my charity seriously and make gifts on my own, and don’t participate in these sorts of arrangements; separately my understanding of the empirical research is that the corporate giving level remains the same independent of guest participation, so the contribution really amounts to a contribution to the company rather than providing incremental dollars to a charity) and left for the airport around 8:30am. Traffic was bad getting out of the city, but clear afterwards, and we pulled up at Beijing’s new Terminal 3 at about 9:30am. Cab was 103RMB.

Beijing’s new terminal is certainly impressive. It’s an architectural marvel, if a little bit sterile, and it’s opening was certainly smoother than Heathrow’s new terminal 5. And of course Beijing T3 is larger than all 5 Heathrow terminals combined.

We walked inside, found check-in pier E for Lufthansa and walked up to the First Class line. There were plenty of staff around the airport directing people and providing general assistance, as well as several announcements looping in English, to help people figure out their way around this behemoth of a terminal. Most of the airlines had only moved in the day before, so for the vast majority of people there it was their first time in the terminal.


LH staff checked our bags to IAD, issued our boarding passes, and gave us lounge passes for the Air China first class lounge.

Stapled to the back of the passes was a map with quite clear instructions on what we needed to do – proceed forward into the terminal, down the escalator, to the train which the sign says comes every three minutes and drops you off at the E gates. Then through passport control followed by security, and you’re airside. Tons of duty free shopping and the lounges.


The Air China First Class lounge is large, like everything in this terminal. It’s airy. But it’s offerings really aren’t impressive. You’re greeted as you enter, hand over your passes, and there’s not much staff attention after that (except in the restroom). There are some (very) light refreshments. There’s wired internet only, though you can sort of pick up an unsecure wireless signal from the Cathay Pacific lounge.

There’s a buffet that looks as though it would be quite nice, but it doesn’t get set up until 11am – just a tad too late considering our 11:25am departure.

What they do have, though, is a bathroom attendant to get towels for you after you’ve used the sink.. and a small wall mounted LCD TV in the restroom as well.

I caught a glimpse of the ‘VIP rooms’ in the lounge, which I suppose are for high government officials not flying private, but it seems odd to have a first class lounge where first class passengers are not amongst the VIPs. (Yes, I know, there’s ‘special services’ all over the place that pay extra attention to VIP passengers above and beyond what first class folks receive, but this is an obvious walled-off do not enter zone inside the F lounge. Strange to me, anyway.)

braefoot

Absolutely superb report. WOW!

tominantarctica

Great Post!

My wife and I will be in Beijing for one day in September. Do you have
Alice's email so that we can contact her as well?

aSiAnRiCk

Again, nice report ^

Just want to say that I'm craving for sushi after looking at your meal pictures

gleff

YHPM.

gleff

Beijing, China (PEK) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA)
11:25 am Lufthansa 0721, Boeing 747, First Class, Seats 81C, 81A
Scheduled Flight time: 10h 10m

This was my best Lufthansa flight out of my four long-haul F segments – best food, best service, I didn’t sleep on the flight but the ten hours just flew by.

We had a 10 minute departure delay which the captain came on to tell us “was not because of the new terminal.” Rather, a checked-in passenger didn’t board and they had to offload bags.

Load in F was 5/16, and this time we had a wonderful crew eager to provide service and quick with every request.


In fact, they were happy to adjust the speed of each course or provide things whenever you wished. The man seated in row 82 took his first meal about 4 hours in. That may not seem worth mentioning, but the earlier two long haul LH F segments that would have felt like quite an imposition on the crew.

Menus, pajamas, and amenity kits were handed out. This was my 3rd set of LH PJs this trip, figuring I’m pretty well set on LH stuff for awhile (and mrs. gleff now has 3 already as well).

Shortly after takeoff the canapé was served, a teriyaki beef roll.


I spent some time working on this trip report and watched National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It has been on many many flights, but I’ve still never watched it. It’s actually my first time watching any inflight entertainment, other than a route map, this whole trip. Didn’t finish the movie, though, so I may fast forward an hour in on my FRA-IAD flight tomorrow.


The featured chef was Zhang Zai-Ping of the Pudong Shangri-La.


Incidentally, this was the only flight on which we were served all three non-caviar appetizers on the three-tiered appetizer tray. All other flights the appetizers were pre-plated and placed on the appetizer trays, but those trays were left on the cart and each appetizer that we were interested in was served individually.

I know the change in standard practice to the three-tiered trays is controversial, to me it’s just different rather than better or worse. The tiers trays are kinda cool, actually.

The spare ribs were some of the best plane food I’ve ever tasted, they were really good and flavorful.

A mid-flight snack was served, followed by dinner.



We arrived right on-time… so far 6 flights and not a single delay worth mentioning. ^

Since we had eaten so much on the flight, really the best food so far of our 3 Lufthansa long-haul F segments, we decided to forgo the F lounge on arrival and head over to our hotel. Sure, we had 22 hours or so in FRA but we really just wanted to relax, chill out, and watch some movies or such after freshening up. And knowing this would likely be so, I had booked us into…

gleff

Sheraton Frankfurt Hotel & Towers, Conference Center

We cruised through immigration with not a single person in line ahead of us and walked over to the departure level and up again to the escalator to the pedestrian bridge, and across the way to the Sheraton.

I had reserved the hotel on a cash and points award, US$60 + 4000 points a night.
Walked up to the check-in desk, though I suppose we could have headed up to the Towers lounge on the 9th floor for checkin.

We were given a room on the club floor. I asked if suite was available as a platinum upgrade (not that I cared, actually, on a one-night stay at the airport).

The woman checking me in said "We don't normally do that."

I asked, "Are you sure, I thought that if a standard suite was available, I might be able to have it for an upgrade?"

She went in the back, and came out after a minute or two and said, "You've already been upgraded (to a club floor room). If you'd like a suite, you have to pay for it."

Just to be clear on what she was saying, I asked "You have a standard one-bedroom suite available, not the Presidential suite or something, and I can have it if I pay for it?"

She confirmed this was the case.

I declined, took the keys to my club floor room, and I’ve already sent a note off to Starwood’s Corporate Customer Service – figuring there's a training opportunity in here somewhere.

We checked out the lounge, got online (18 Euros for 24 hours, fortunately that’s expensable), and quickly faded away…. About 5pm local time.

First, the lounge:


Then, the room:


Hotel corridors:


We were up by 2am, went up to the lounge to snag some drinks and bring them back to the room, and both got some work done. Dressed and up and about before 7am, we went up to the lounge again for a quick bite prior to checking out and heading over to the First Class terminal.

SanDiego1K

We have a lengthy thread in the Starwood forum about this practice at this hotel. Supposedly it was resolved with them no longer denying the suite upgrade. I guess not.