Originally Posted by zztraveler

We were also very disappointed with CX. Not because of the flight attendants, but the whole experience.

Flying HKG/YYZ CX820 in F we were please to see the beautiful First Class Island at Check In and the staff helped us get stamps which the First Class Lounge later mailed out for us.

But, we did not like the First Class Lounge because it was hot. It's location near the ceiling of the terminal, while offering a great view, never cooled down despite the almost freezing temps in the terminal below.

The narrow layout of the lounge did not offer up a lot of seating options, only the library, with a few seats offered up what was for us, a pleasant space.

Having said that, the F Class restaurant served up all types of boozed and a fancy buffet with an accommodating "airport" type First Class staff.

Even though smaller, we liked the showers at Narita's First Class lounge much better and while the Long Bar (J Class) seems like a cool idea, again the F Class "square" bar at Narita was better for us.

Later, on the plane, we did not like the cloth seats AT ALL because the material rubbed hard against the skin and the angled CX F Class "pods" did not allow the same great views out of the four windows as JAL ORD/NRT F Class.

The food was bad, nowhere near as good as the JAL flight mentioned above. We had a similar CX menu to what has been posted here and the descriptions were tantalizing.

I tried many of the dishes - everybody else slept, but for us, the taste was simply bad.

The flight staff was friendly but a bit more "loosey-goosey" than JAL.

Unlike the JAL flight mentioned above, the "purser /head F Class" guy did not pitch in at all.

Unlike the "paper pusher" at JAL who really got busy helping when things got busy, this guy sat on his ... all flight and later when I jokingly brought this up to the flight attendant, boy did she have a lot to say.

I should have taped the conversations because the duration and detail went on much longer than my capacity to "learn" with the bottom line being there is a significant amount of tension between the F Class crew and the "paper pushers" position and even more towards CX in general.

Apparently when the flights end, everyone rates each other and the "paper pusher" rates them all. But, of course, should the flight attendant say something bad about the "paper pusher" that comes back to haunt them.


Anyway, the conversation was fine, the scratchy seats and honestly bad food put us firmly in the JAL camp.

Also, would have helped us to study the arrival at YYZ, because coming out of F Class to an empty terminal and having to find our way far, far to the other side and then figure out the check in - immigration thing was not fun, but the "system" in the end was actually very efficient and convent.