Just flew CX831 in J and my GF opped-up to F cabin. This is about it for the good news.

Cost cutting observations:

1) The taps in all toilets were out of water with 4 hours remaining in the flight. Today's flight was earlier as we arrived in HKG around 1840.

2) All F & J passengers were limited to one personal bottle of Crystal Geyser mineral water. My GF asked for another bottle in F, and guess what the ISM did, she took her empty bottle and filled it up with water from the 1 liter bottles. For god's sake this is First class!

3) Both the First and Biz class menu offerings are 60% identical (I have copies of both menus) Two lunch entrees are exactly the same, the snacks are exactly the same, and two dinner entrees are exactly the same.

Is CX so cheap and cost cutting to the point that they can't load extra bottles of water and fill up their water tank for the tap?


Service:

This flight was absolutely weakest link of my JL/BA/CX RTW DONE3.

I let my girlfriend to take the op-up in F as she had some minor back pain, so she could sleep more comfortably. I went up to F to check up on her *once only* for 5 minutes, and this was done in absolute silence and discreetly as she sat in 2K. The ISM immediately asked me to leave the F cabin citing "to maintain privacy". So instead she had to walk back down to J to see me.

Service in J was mechanical and spotty. No one was addressed by their last names.

Lastly, only two out of four of our luggage were tagged with Priority, so it took 25 minutes to reclaim everything.