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A trio of firsts - Hong Kong, CX J and CX F

A trio of firsts - Hong Kong, CX J and CX F

Old Feb 11, 2014, 4:22 am
  #1  
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A trio of firsts - Hong Kong, CX J and CX F

Welcome dear reader to my first trip report of 2014, one that’s a bit different to what I was expecting it to be (more on that in a mo). As any regular reader (both of them) will know, my reports tend to be more word orientated than picture orientated in terms of the flying part, so if you’re here for photos of Cathay’s excellent J product then you may want to turn back now – I didn’t take any photos (the reason why will become evident), and neither did Mrs Lem. I may sneak a stock one in. There will be a few photos of F though, simply because it made my jaw drop.

Part one – And in a change to our scheduled flight…

Anyway, as I was saying, this TR is a bit different from what I was expecting – mainly because it’s of Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong, as opposed to BA’s Club World London City and New York, where we were originally booked to go.

The basic gist of it is that I have to go to Melbourne with work and was trying to find a way to get Mrs Lem out there using Avios (knowing we’d have to cancel our NY trip to do this). It was early, I was tired and I put the dates of the NY trip in while searching for flights to HKG, and left it for 2 passengers, without realising. "Oooh, what’s this, 2 seats in Cathay’s J to HKG, on the exact dates we need? Oh, hang on, no that’s when we’re in NY."

Then it really, really snowed in NY again. The temperatures were set to plummet again. Hong Kong was warm. The seats were still available. A wave of spontaneity crashed over us and with only a few days until we were scheduled to go, we’d ditched New York and were off to Hong Kong instead. Where we’d never been and knew almost nothing about. Fortunately my sister and her husband had lived there a few years previously, plus the internet is marvelous for such things, and less than 24 hours later we were fully furnished with what to do and where to go.

Hotel wise we used hotels.com as we had a free night with them, and there was an offer for The Langham in Kowloon which was excellent and we snapped up. A quick search found me a site that gave me instant membership at one of their 1865 Club’s top tiers, meaning room upgrades, welcome gifts etc, and once the number was confirmed I sent it over to the hotel to ensure it was already on the booking (hopefully meaning the upgrade was sorted before we arrived – which it was).

Seats on the plane were selected, and two days out we were checked in. Now all there was to do was wait.

Well, almost.

The day before we flew I was up very early as I wasn’t well. Searching reward availability on our dates to see if anything else had opened up (was actually looking for F on the BA A380) showed 2 seats in F on the CX flight home. One quick phone call to the Gold line when they opened and it was booked – due to the nature of my booking (the Avios + cash redemption type), my original booking had to be cancelled and it rebooked. But it was done, J out, F back.

And then I couldn’t check us in.

Cathay advised it was because the original booking was still checked in on the system, and I’d have to go to the airport to sort it out. In the meantime they’d allocated me two seats right down the back of the cabin.

So, more time in Heathrow Terminal 3 – deep joy…

Coming up in the next part – the joy of public transport to the airport, finally getting checked in and a bit of lounge hopping.

Last edited by darthlemsip; Feb 11, 2014 at 5:42 am Reason: Spelling correction
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Old Feb 11, 2014, 5:04 am
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Part two - I have NEVER been so happy to be getting on a plane

I've mentioned before that I no longer do any of our packing as I have been declared 'rubbish' at it. Which is fine by me - I leave out what I want and Mrs Lem activates Mary Poppins mode and gets it all in a suitcase, along with enough of her clothes and shoes for approximately three times as long as we're away for. I lug this downstairs, into the back of our waiting car and then don't worry about it again until the other end of our journey.

Except this time our flight was at 10pm, I was working at home during the day and was taking the public transport route, as the M25 would be a nightmare in rush hour.

Some people like to have a home away from home - I can only assume that Mrs Lem is one of those people and had packed our actual house brick by brick. It's the only plausible explanation for our case weighing as much as it did. So, at 6pm, some 90 minutes after leaving home and having navigated the bus, a train, a tube and then the Heathrow Connect, I arrived at the Cathay check-in verging on exhaustion, with one arm now about 4 inches longer than the other. I should have just got a cab.

But we were at the airport and excited to be off on holiday. We just had to get checked-in first.

As you can imagine, it wasn't that easy. We used the F check-in as it was empty and were faced with some very confused looks - "You seem to be on the plane twice" etc. Explained what had happened, met some more furrowed brows, confused looks, and finally defeat from the check-in agent who escorted me over to ticketing. Long and the short of it was BA were to blame for not correctly processing the cancellation, which she was able to do there and then. Just as I was about to leave, it occurred to me that I'd like our original seats - cue more telephone calls (as the seats were now blocked), one of us in the original seat and one in the old, then that switched around, before finally we were both in our original seats. I thanked the check-in and ticketing staff profusely, before we headed off to security, some 40 minutes after arriving at the airport.

T3's fast track was surprisingly quick for a change, although I did get that one jobsworth officer who was insistent that I went through my hand luggage to make sure there were no liquids in there (I'm perfectly aware of what I packed thank you) and if there was, she would personally make sure that I spent an hour waiting for a secondary check. How pleasant. I just smiled, said "OK, thank you" and walked through, leaving her to repeat the same spiel at the guy behind me.

Having navigated the zombie infested shopping centre you're forced through, with the promise of shiny things making people forget basic motor control and awareness of their surroundings, we reached the sanctity of 'Lounge Corridor' and went hopping - BA's GF lounge for some pink bubbles and a delicious pork belly, before heading round to CX's F lounge just after the preceding flight had boarded for a shower and some more bubbly. I have to say, CX's F offering wasn't that great to me, and the quiet was ruined by someone watching TV shows on their laptop without headphones, ignoring numerous requests to at least turn it down. It did, however, have a very good view of the runway at take off point though, it was incredible how much noisier a 747 is at takeoff than an A380!

Before too long it was time to board, and we headed off to the seemingly different postcode that the plane was waiting for us in. Much like VS impressed me in my previous report, CX use two doors for boarding, with first and business passengers embarking at their leisure, while premium and economy passengers are held back in the waiting area.

Coming up next (as someone at work has just rudely interrupted me with some actual work), our first time on Cathay (which certainly won’t be the last), a miracle, and arriving into HK. Maybe a picture as well

Last edited by darthlemsip; Feb 11, 2014 at 6:53 am
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Old Feb 11, 2014, 5:08 am
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Looking forward to the pictures and the rest of the story!
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Old Feb 11, 2014, 6:44 am
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Part three - Miracles can happen

I'll start this part with a very bold statement.

Cathay Pacific's new business class is the best J seat I have ever flown in.

In the last few years I've flown Emirates (inc the A380), BA, AA (old seat) and VS in J and none of them compare to this. The closest is Emirates on the A380, but that was a little too narrow for me.

Everything was spot on, from the crew, through the food, to the seat itself. To me, it was like a slightly reduced version of BA's New First seat - but with better storage options.

Here's a few stock photos for those who don't know what it looks like







It was just brilliant.

From trip reports before I've brought up my inability to sleep on planes, but was hoping that the late departure combined with a couple of glasses of bubbly would get me on my way to the land of nod. After a final glass of champers before departure, I got changed into my pj's - I was going to attempt the impossible feat! We were airborne bang on time, and it struck me how quiet the 77W was (actually, a fourth first for this trip - I'd never flown in one before, only a 777-300 on a day flight) - another good sign. So, eye mask on, ear plugs in and seat set to bed mode - would it work, would I be able to sleep?

Next time I opened my eyes, the countdown said we had just over 5 hours to go. It had happened - 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep on a plane. Well done Cathay, top of the class.

This is also why I didn't have any photos of the seat - nobody wants to see it after someone's just woken up...

Now, 5 hours doesn't sound a lot when you're on an 11 hour flight, but I was happy just to have slept at all, and didn't really want that much more as we were landing in Hong Kong early in the evening, so would be trying to sleep again then. I bravely decided to wake Mrs Lem up. I got her 'look', regardless of her having agreed beforehand that sleeping the whole flight was a bad move.

A couple of hours out from Hong Kong, the breakfast run started. I'm assuming it's a Cathay thing that their top tier members and other OWE's get their choice first? When the bread/muffin/croissant basket came round, I was approached and took a blueberry muffin. As I said thank you and the basket went off down the aisle I realised I was getting daggers from the woman opposite me (not Mrs Lem in this instance, the other side). When the basket came back to her, naturally enough there were no muffins left. This was the worst thing ever. She made quite a scene. This was repeated when I got my choice of hot breakfast and she didn't. The cabin manager dealt with it very well, but I could feel this womans' lasers boring into me whenever I became visible to her!

All too soon we were descending into Hong Kong. I don't want to sound too gushing, but I cannot praise Cathay enough - every moment of the flight was a joy, the seat was superb and the biggest compliment I can pay is that it in no way felt like a long flight at all (and yes, I know I'd been asleep for half of it).

After a breathlessly efficient immigration process, and our case was already on the conveyor belt waiting for us, we headed to our hotel desk to catch their shuttle bus - which we'd just missed and there wasn't another one for about half an hour. For an extra 500HKD we could have our own Mercedes S Class take us to the hotel instead, and would be much quicker as it doesn't stop anywhere else along the way. Sold, to the man with grey hair and glasses!

As we were driven to Kowloon, we were both just in awe of the scale of the engineering - we've both been to some fairly crazy cities before, but the density of the high rises and the offices was staggering. I love seeing modern style buildings in amongst an older style architecture - so I knew from just this short journey I was going to like it here.

As we approached The Langham, our driver called ahead to let them know we were arriving - nothing could prepare us for the assault on the sense we were about to receive. No fewer than six different people took care of various aspects of getting us out of the car, taking our luggage, opening doors, escorting us to our room, checking us in there, delivering our luggage and then turning down the bed - each one of them welcoming us by name, asking if we'd been to Hong Kong before, what our plans were and if we needed any help. In the space of about three minutes, It was bewildering to say the least.

The gentleman who did our in room check-in explained that as an 1865 Voyager member, we'd been upgraded to a Club Langham room, which was five classes above the one we'd originally booked - combined with the offer on hotels.com it was an absolute steal (checking now, we would have paid around five times as much if booking direct through the hotel for that room).

After a quick freshen up, we popped out for some dinner at a dim sum place recommended by the concierge (after another asking if we'd been to Hong Kong before, what our plans were and if we needed any help), marveling at the sheer volume of people everywhere, and the staggering wealth on show - starting with the cars parked at our hotel



With tiredness and timezone confusion setting in, we headed to bed at about 10pm. Naturally enough we woke up at 4am anyway...

Coming up next: Stupidity! Lights! Action!

Back soon

Last edited by darthlemsip; Feb 13, 2014 at 12:49 pm
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Old Feb 11, 2014, 6:55 am
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Great start as expected. After reading your previous reports I'm looking forward to how this one turns out.
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Old Feb 11, 2014, 7:03 am
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Good start! Look forward to the rest of the trip and the photos!
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Old Feb 11, 2014, 12:42 pm
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I assume that if you liked CX J, you should love CX F! I've never flown CX J long haul, only F.

Eric
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Old Feb 12, 2014, 6:57 pm
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Awesome seats dude, enjoy your trip.
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Old Feb 12, 2014, 10:56 pm
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Wonderful CX report!

Haha, actually I was expecting some pics on food...but anyway...really excellent seats!
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Old Feb 13, 2014, 2:33 am
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Originally Posted by ZFW-ATC
I assume that if you liked CX J, you should love CX F! I've never flown CX J long haul, only F.

Eric
Oh yes, very much so - I'm back in CX J next month and will be looking longingly at the curtain hiding F away from me...

Originally Posted by twydeutschland
Wonderful CX report!

Haha, actually I was expecting some pics on food...but anyway...really excellent seats!
Surprisingly after our Chicago and NY trip last year, we didn't get that many pictures of food - fear not though, there are some that will appear

And thanks for all the kind comments so far, should be able to put the next part up tonight
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Old Feb 13, 2014, 3:32 am
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Loving your TR so far, have not done CX at all, but must say those seats in J look jolly amazing, and so glad that you were able to sleep for so long. looking forward to reading the rest of the TR, and hopefully some pics of food.^
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Old Feb 13, 2014, 11:12 am
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Nice report! Any pics of the food on Cathay?
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Old Feb 19, 2014, 6:25 am
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Apologies for the delay - Macbook Air + Water (not mine) = trip to Apple store

Back up and running now (Time Machine is a life saver), will post the continuation up tomorrow
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Old Feb 27, 2014, 8:18 am
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A lot has happened between my last update and now, so apologies for the lengthy delay.

Part four - When the big hand is on the 12, and the little hand is on the...

I may have mentioned before that I am jetlags ......

When I left you last, it was 4am and we were both awake and looking at the ceiling. This was not good, it would bring the day to a premature end. However, after a few of hours of trying to get back to sleep, failing, dithering about, looking up what to do that day, we gave sleep one more attempt at about 8am - and was woken up by the maid at 12.30pm. Whoops...

So, as is traditional with our first day somewhere new, it was time for orientation. Our plan was to walk to Kowloon station in order to change up the vouchers we'd bought on the plane for 2 airport express passes + 72hrs unlimited use of the MTR (Quick sidenote here - it says in the literature with these vouchers that you have to go to an Airport Express station to exchange them - this is not correct, turns out most MTR stations can do it. Naturally we found this out AFTER we'd walked to Kowloon). So off we headed.

As mentioned previously, there were people EVERYWHERE. I've been to a lot of places around the world, and never thought I would see anywhere that beat the sheer volume of people as Mumbai, but Hong Kong seemed to beat it. I have no idea if this was due to the forthcoming Chinese New Year so there were a lot of people on holiday, or if it's just always like this - maybe someone that's been there more frequently can answer?

One thing we particularly enjoyed was that here we were in late January and it was lovely and warm. And just think, we would have been shivering in New York instead...



Blue skies and everything!

Although while we were warm, we noticed almost everyone else was wrapped up in heavy coats, hats and scarves - eventually it occurred to us that when the locals are used to 30-40 degrees C in the summer, 18 degrees is going to feel a bit sharp. The 2 degrees we'd left behind in London would probably be the end of them...

We found ourselves on the other side of the road from Kowloon station, which is directly underneath these buildings



Unfortunately on that road was one of the biggest construction sites I have ever seen (and I lived in Docklands when they were ramping that up), where a new terminal for an inter-Chinese railway is under construction. As with nearly all construction sites I've encountered (far too many for my liking), it smelt like a sewer. Having successfully navigated our way through it - as it's still a functioning roadway that you can walk along - to the station, we collected our travelcards and headed into the shopping center for some lunch.

Speaking of shopping centers, there's a lot of them in Hong Kong aren't there? Couldn't move without tripping over one. And the shops! Good lord there's some money over there!

With Chinese New Year fast approaching, there were a lot of clues as to what animal the year to come represented



Can you tell what it is?

We took a walk back down towards the waterfront as the sun fell away, aiming to get there in time for the symphony of lights, grabbing a few more shots along the way



Don't go towards the light...





Oddly, given how popular the show was supposed to be, and how well lit-up the opposite shore was, it was strangely deserted round there, which we just couldn't figure out. Still, gave us time to capture some snaps of the wonderful scenes in front of us









Yet there was still almost nobody around, and there was no light show going on - what was happening? After all, it was past seven o'cl... Ah! We got the time wrong - it had just gone 6pm. Rather embarrassed, we headed to the nearest bar and had a very large drink, before returning at just before 7pm, where it seemed like the population of a small country had packed themselves along the waterfront. The drums rolled, the trumpets blared and we were off...







And, errr, that was about it. Think we may have hyped it up a little, but even so it was a pretty poor showing.

Still getting our bearings a little, we headed back in the direction of our hotel, taking in various markets and braving some street food - the Lobster balls I had were rather on the hot side, and that's coming from someone that loves a curry! Ended up back at the Langham at around 10pm, which was a welcome oasis of calm following the bedlam outside and had a couple of drinks in the bar as the tale end of jetlag kicked in, before heading off to bed at around midnight.

6am wakeup the next day - not too bad!

Coming up next - Mountains! Trams! Poxy fear of heights!

Stay tuned, be back soon

Last edited by darthlemsip; Mar 1, 2014 at 7:58 am
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Old Feb 27, 2014, 12:19 pm
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Loving it so far.

Was the light show not at 8? A couple of years ago they turned down the brightness of the lights in order to 'save' energy.

The sky lounge in the Sheraton is a good spot to watch it.

Love the langham as well. It is a great location.

Good irish bar just round the corner. Delanneys
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