5 red-eye flights in a week, an interesting RTW trip.

Part One

Having read during years all the excellent trip reports found on FT, I have finally to signed up and decided to post mine.

Because of my limited English skills, I would like to apologize in advance for any possible mistake I could have written down there.

Also, I tried to embedded some pictures but having experienced trouble while publishing, I am still unsure about all this will end up on your screen. Be patient, I am learning... Spring Chicken.

So, just to give you a little background about this trip, I always loved flying and I felt less isolated the day I found FT. I was not alone anymore with my passion.

Last 5 years I had interesting trips with my wife with up to 15 flights in 3 weeks during vacation time.

Well, with a spare week to fill up at the end of June and with the approval of Mrs SC, I decided to raise up a bit the challenge and make something more substantial this time.

In this case, I started to look for an interesting trip enabling me to improve my Mile account and go around the world in a relative comfort.

My criterions were the following.
• Round the World
• Maximum 7 days
• Night flights preferably
• Cost efficient
• Travel Comfortably
• Sky Team focused

Some of you understand how trying to find a good balance between all this is an exciting challenge.

So I worked hard with the help of KVS and ended up with the following routing:
CDG-BUD-IST-DXB-KUL-SEL-HNL-SLC-CUN-NYC-LHR-CDG

With MA, MH, KE, DL, CO, VS, BA airlines and all in J except for MA and BA flights (that were award tickets and flights below 2 hours anyway). For your record, VS flight was ticketed CO.

Thus at the end, my trip was made of 3 hotel nights (IST, KUL and NYC) and 5 red eye flights (DXB-KUL, KUL-SEL, SEL-HNL, HNL-SLC and NYC-LHR) including 3 in a row. Scary isn’t it?
I wish the lounge has showers!

This was the best combination, I have found in order to spend some full day dedicated to visit Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Honolulu and finally make some shopping to buy my wife a gift on the way back in new York.

I packed a small hand luggage compliant with our restrictive liquid regulation, took a laptop, headset, good books and after a good night sleep; here I am ready for the big day.

Day 1:

I started up my trip from the old CDG 2B with MA for CDG-BUD-IST.
Smooth flight of 2x2 hours with a full 737-700 plane in Y and likely empty in J.




The good thing to know with Malev is they generally downgrade their 3rd and 4th raw from biz to Econ. So you can get a C seat with a good pitch for a cheap price.
I arrived in Instanbul in the afternoon after a short stop in BUD and spent my time wandering around between the blue Mosque and Saint Sophia in the old quarter. It was not my first time in turkey but surprisingly this was my first time downtown in Istanbul and I enjoyed it a lot.
I stayed in the old quarter for its very good location and I can confirm this is a good pick.
For those who want to know, I stayed at the Crown Plaza.



I spent my evening touring again and had dinner and a couple of drinks on a roof top restaurant overlooking the Bosphorus and Asia. I thought, I’ll be there tomorrow!

Day 2
I headed myself to the airport to catch my flight to KUL with a stop in DXB.
After a quick visit to the lounge (no wifi available can you believe it), I made my way to the pier.




This was a 333 with old fashion cradle seats. No Avod but a real premium service.
Actually, the missing avod was not a problem as I read/slept or eat most of the time during this flight.



Warm Malaysian welcome and we have been pushed back on time.
We have been served a lunch (a good one but this is all I can remember) and then I went for a good nap.
By the time I woke up, we were starting our descent to DXB for a 80 min stop.


We were parked at the (not so) old terminal. At this time of the day 6PM, it was quiet and peaceful.
I have been many time in this terminal before and I was not incline to make bargain so I went to the lounge after some walk for my late afternoon tea and catch up with my e mails.



We went back to the same plane with probably 4 or 5 more passengers. This leads us with a 40 seat or so C cabin for 12 passengers !








Again, the dinner served quickly after take-off was excellent and few hours later I was asleep.
Surprisingly I slept very well (the wine effect) as I do not even know if a breakfast has been served before landing.
Anyway, here I am in KL 6 AM.


Day 3:

Needless to say, KL airport is not a busy airport and this is even truer at 6 AM on week end.
All the customs controls were like a breeze and I went directly into the fast train going to downtown KL.



30mins later I picked a taxi (an old Malaysian very nice guy) and made my way to my hotel.
I picked up my room key and went for a nice breakfast overlooking Petronas and Menara towers.
Again, I spent my exciting day visiting KL city I did not know before.





Later in the evening I went back to my hotel for the SPA treatment I booked on the morning.
I opt for a 2 hours package. So relaxing, I have even slept during some minutes I thought.
So good, gosh, I have booked again for another treatment the next day.
After this, I had dinner in the restaurant and fell asleep a quick as you cannot believe. No need for pills.

Day 4:

After my second day in KL spent with visits of Chinese Quarter, Botanical Garden, I decided to waste some relaxing time by the hotel pool just before my 2nd Spa treatment as later in the evening I was meant to go back to the airport to catch my leg to Seoul.


A nice Hibiscus from the garden (Reminding me Aircalin for those who now)



Back to KLIA with the fast train, I went into the MH lounge where I had my diner as I knew there was no diner service on my flight later on. I had Asian noodles with chicken which was nice and tasty.




Time went fast and some hours later, it was already time for me to board for my next leg to Seoul.

My bedroom for this night would be a 333 KE metal nearly empty. Too bad! Old seats again without AVOD.

Not a big deal anyway as 10 min after take-off I was gone again to sleep with the stars, making myself good for my day trip in Seoul tomorrow.



To be continued…