I've been reading FT for a while so thought it was about time I actually contributed instead of leeching everyone's knowledge! My recent trip to Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong seemed a perfect opportunity for my first ever trip report.
The plan looked like this:
LHR - SIN - SYD BA J
SYD - AYQ Jetstar Y
AYQ - CNS Qantas Y
CNS - SYD Qantas Y
SYD - AKL Qantas Y
ZQN - AKL Qantas Y
AKL - HKG CX W
HKG - LHR BA W
There was also an awful lot of driving, particularly in New Zealand where we drove from AKL down to Queenstown (via the Ferry) over the course of a week.
You can see larger images in the
imgur album or on
flickr where you can see photos from my other trips including Japan and Iceland.
So here goes...
Bristol to LHR
After running the numbers we decided to hire a car to take from Bristol to LHR. Even including fuel, this worked out to be substantially cheaper than driving my own car an parking it there. Not to mention that last time we left the country for this period of time we had a frustrating two hour wait for the RAC in Heathrow long stay car parking as the car’s battery had died. So the day before, the friendly Avis delivery driver dropped off a Vauxhall Astra Coupe GTC. This was allegedly an upgrade from the Ford Focus I’d booked as a result of my Avid preferred gold status.
[photo of car]
There was a substantial scratch down the side that I made sure they noted.
[photo of scratch]
It’s a nice enough looking car, but pretty terrible to drive. Sluggish (although my daily driver is a bit of a monster to I may not be the best judge), loose steering and a baffling speedometer which seems to put emphasis on the speeds that don’t correlate to the limits on British roads (most common speed limits are 30, 50, 60 and 70). That made driving through the notorious M4 average speed check area more than a little stressful.
[photo of speedometer]
This lack of attention to detail is why, after owning two Vauxhalls previously, I don’t anymore.
LHR to SYD via SIN, BA J Boeing 777
We arrived at LHR T5 in good time, returned the car to the Avis desk and headed to check in. I’ve always found T5 check in to be a breeze, and so it proved this time as well. We were also straight through Fast Track Security and in to the Galleries Lounge. There are enough posts covering Galleries, so I won’t go in to too much detail but it was really quite bad this time. For some reason, someone had gone through and rearranged the seating for what was presumably a large group, which just caused chaos. Furthermore, the food selection was worse than ever. There weren’t even any sandwiches available! So we settled for a light snack.
[photo of lounge food]
Departures board indicated flight was on time so we headed to the gate. Unfortunately, it was clear upon arrival that it wasn’t going to be on time as the crew hadn’t boarded. Boarding itself was chaos. We were waiting for the J pax to board when I overheard one of the gate crew say that “Everyone’s boarding whenever they want, so there’s no point having priority boarding”. Sorry, but isn’t it your job to prevent that from happening?
Drinks were served promptly before departure.
[photo of champagne]
No menus available today due to a printing issue, so no photos of the menu. Orders were taken shortly after take off and I went for the prawn cake to start. It was actually pretty good with a salad as unimaginative as usual. There was supposed to be wasabi with the prawn cake, but I couldn’t find it.
[photo of prawn cake]
I seem to recall everything other than the beef containing mushrooms, which I’m not a fan of. So beef it was.
[photo of beef]
Pretty standard fare for a BA J meal. Acceptable, especially having not eaten due to the galleries catering situation. The highlight was the desert. Chocolate brownie cake which both the Mrs and I loved.
[photo of desert]
Time to try out my new headphones, the Parrot Zik 2.0s I picked up around Christmas. Wow. Excellent sound quality and the best noise cancelling I’ve come across, including Bose’s offering. Only down side is that they are too large to really lounge in as you have to keep your head facing perfectly straight forward. I rarely sleep on flights, so this wasn’t a huge issue for me. Highly recommend these headphones, even with the usability quirks they are astonishing.
I got through a couple of movies (Nightcrawler, which I really enjoyed and something which I now forget) and tried in vain to sleep, forgetting that I rarely sleep on planes. A couple of hours out of SIN breakfast was served, and I went for a light breakfast of fruit and a croissant.
[photo of breakfast]
There was also a pretty spectacular view of the shipping lanes coming in to SIN. Hundreds of cargo ships for as far as the eye can see.
[photo of ships]
We landed in SIN just over 30 minutes late. This meant the turnaround was much shorter than expected. We literally left the plane, wandered in to a shop, turned around, and got back on the plane. We still departed around 25 minutes late from SIN.
Now there aren’t any photos of the second leg for two reasons. The first is that I actually managed to get some sleep, which is a minor miracle. The second is that there was no menu again and the food options were identical.
We arrived in to SYD at 07:16AM, 16 minutes later than planned.