Aeroplan J: YYZ - VIE - IST - CDG - NRT - ORD - YYZ

Took a decent mini-rtw trip recently.

YYZ - VIE OS J
VIE - IST TK J
IST - CDG TK J
CDG - NRT NH J

Lots of train and road trips in Japan

NRT - ORD UA J
ORD - YYZ AC J

My trip report isn't as comprehensive as most others' here, nor is it as focused on actual flights etc. But it was my first ever, so now I know what to document next time around.

I hope it's kosher to just share the link to my tumblr post, so I don't have to re-type everything here. Check it out, it contains a very small sampling of pictures :- http://hairdontgrow.com/post/2284989...y-took-an-epic

I could not have built the trip without all the help I received in FT. Heck I wouldn't even have known to avoid YQ or to fly J or to use CC to accumulate aeroplan points or about Star Alliance lounges or about booking tools. So, thank you all so much! I will document the trip better from FT point of view.

Enjoy!

http://hairdontgrow.com/post/2284989...y-took-an-epic

Great TR!!

You are lucky you got the new longhaul business seats on TK.

What did you think of the business class seats and service on Austrian? Don't seem to see many reports on them and was wondering how you compare them to other *A J offerings out of YYZ to Europe.

Very nice, very comfortable. Could use a little more storage (not as much as ANA Nippon) but still small sections next to the screen (you can see the orange thing in the picture), section under foot rest where I put my bagpack. Then it had a magazine storage between foot rests where I put my kindle etc. Seats were very comfortable. I actually took magazines out and gave them to the attendant to make more room. Screen was very bright, I had no trouble watching movies even when shades up.







I must confess, I didn't like it too much (don't get me wrong, they had great service and very good food. Made-to-order omelets and coffee drinks).

First, the colour scheme gave me headache. Check out these two pictures, bright green carpet next to purple plastic and bright blue seat cover with bright yellow pillow, multi-colour blanket and flight attendants wearing red :-



It was basically too busy. My 10 year old daughter would love it, but I like muted colour schemes that help you relax. Compare above two pictures with the Turkish one above.

Then, seats were old. The TV unit was tiny. TINY. Basically probably the size of my smartphone. Also, it wasn't on-demand. It had a handful of channels playing whatever. I didn't know when the movie "started", so when I turned it on I had already missed half the movie. What AC has in Y in North America is a significantly better IFE.

I read some review that seats were very hard, like a cardboard. I felt the same. However, they did have lumbar adjustment and putting it on the softest setting helped. What helped most is that the seat had massagers!
Not the greatest I've ever experienced but not bad. They actually helped a lot.


Finally, the seats reclined at probably 160-degrees. Not bad honestly, but not lie-flat. I was very tired, so I slept well but I typically have trouble sleeping during flights. Rest of my legs were on ANA Nippon, new United, Turkish etc. and they had all lie-flat seats.

I have to rate ANA Nippon highest. Lots of storage, lie-flat seats, very comfortable. Great service to boot on top of that. The new United product wasn't bad, but honestly United doesn't know how to provide service.

Thanks for the report, good to see another WP7 user too.

Nice knowing I'm not the only WP7 user in the skies!

It makes three of us! I saw one guy in Turkey taking pictures of Hagia Sophia from his WP7. I wanted to sneak up behind him and take a picture of him taking the picture, but then decided otherwise.

My Nokia Lumia 900 is on order.

The sex shop at VIE is in an unusual position placed right next to the Chapel