The flight I've been waiting for. The illustrious Singapore Airlines First Class. To say I was excited for this flight was an understatement. Here we go...
Wanting to maximizing our time in the Asiana lounges, we headed to the gate for our flight about 5 minutes prior to the supposed boarding. As it turns out, the flight ended up being delayed about 25 minutes or so. We weren't worried much as we had almost 3 hours in SFO before our flight took off for Las Vegas, and with Global Entry, we should breeze right through (and we did!).
Gate 113 - We're ready to board!
The biggest pet peeve for me when I'm flying (and for many travel savvy people out there, I presume) is a disorganized boarding and a cluttered gate area. After a delay, we finally began boarding.
Some plane-spotting before the flight! KE A380...What could have been...
Our ride to SFO - SQ 777!
Kevin and I were literally standing next to the gate, waiting for them to call first class, but guess what didn't happen?! Strangely enough, they immediately started boarding business class and had no first class boarding. We were pretty disappointed by this being that it's Singapore Airlines. If this were United, I would expect it - but Singapore? How could they?!
Airline: Singapore Airlines
Route: SQ16 ICN-SFO
Cabin: F
Plane: 777-300ER
Seats: 2C and 2D
Cabin Seats: 6 of 8 occupied
Flight time: 11 hours
After a few minute wait with the rest of the business class passengers, we entered the plane and took our seats in our thrones!
So excited to try these HUGE seats!
Settled in for the long haul!
Now, I need to set a few things straight:
There's no way for me to write this post without sounding like an a**hole.
Kevin and I discussed this in length while in the AA Lounge in SFO after landing. First things first, this flight was
GREAT. Really, really
awesome. However, I have to write this review as if I'm a paying first class customer. And, as an international first class, we have to compare it to its very good, and very expensive competitors.
With that out of the way, I actually really did like the flight! Most of my "problems" were pretty minimal, and I may come off critical, but buckle in for a great flight.
Window seat in the first row of Business Class
After taking our seats, Kev was heckled by some business class woman walking through the cabin. He had on a Dr. Pepper shirt saying, "Trust me, I'm a doctor". Pretty funny shirt. Apparently that woman was a doctor too, and insinuated that she didn't quite believe Kev was as well. It was strange. Long story short, we had a glass of Dom Pérignon sent back to her to cheer her up....just kidding. We made sure she was subjected to business class champagne for the 11 hour flight. Oh the horror!!
With that episode out of the way, we started our champagne tasting!
Yum.
Cheers!
Aisle down to our business class friend!
First things first - the amenity kit, PJ's and all the other goodies!
Really nice and comfortable noise canceling headphones.
Cool bag for the Pajamas!
They are so comfortable.
Really nice amenity kit bag
Fancy Salvatore Ferragamo amenities!
This cannot be said enough, the seat was HUGE! I loved it. With this said, the seat doesn't recline very much. It's perfect for eating and drinking, but if you'd like to lounge back a bit (without getting your bed made) it's not possible. Since the seat folds down forward to make the bed, it doesn't go back much.
Tons of storage space on the side of the seat!
It's tough to review things for you, readers, but I do what I must. The champagne choices are the
2004 Dom Pérignon and the Krug Grande Cuvée
With dinner getting started, Kevin and I had some tough decisions to make...Krug or Dom...which to choose? We both decided to drink....both of them! We basically just kept going back and forth pretending we could tell the difference...
Now, time for the food! We both used the Book the Cook option online before our trip, which turned out to be huge. Both having never flown on SQ before, we weren't sure what to expect.
1st Course: Satay with a spicy peanut sauce. VERY good.
2nd Course: For obvious reasons, we chose the chilled Malossol Caviar over the seared Tuna. Great choice.
3rd Course: Mixed baby lettuce salad with garlic ranch dressing. Nothing special, but just as tasty.
Now, here's where the Book the Cook came into play. Singapore doesn't offer their best and most expensive entrees on their flights. You have to book them before hand. It's free, easy and a no-brainer. Do it!
We both chose the
Lobster Thermidor. It's a lobster tail sautéed in butter, flambéed in brandy, sprinkled with cheese, and served with creamy mushroom sauce, garlic and spicy mustard, and buttered asparagus.
Main Course: Lobster Thermidor
This was absolutely fantastic. When we noticed that none of the other first class passengers had gotten the lobster, we asked our purser why. She explained that no one else used the book the cook option, and that when you use it, they specifically put that food on the plane only for those customers. But why not just have it for any first class passenger to chose from? Her answer: "It's too expensive!"
Dessert time! Weren't we full by now? Are you kidding me? I've eaten four courses and about a bottle of Dom Perignon - of course I'm full. But I've gotta try it for you guys!
Kevin's dessert: Eclair with caramelia chocolate ganache, vanilla ice cream and morello compote
Kevin's dessert was pretty good, but since we wanted to get different things, I went outside my normal comfort zone and got the Korean dessert, Yeongyang chalyakbab.
I don't know what that means, but to me it spells fail. Now, I'm a picky eater with an admittedly limited pallet, so take that for what it is. I'm sure many, many people would have loved this, just not me.
My Dessert: Yeongyang Chalyakbab....me no like.
For you foodies out there, you can head to our the
post on our site to see the menus - I won't make everyone scroll through them here.
After dinner, it was time for a little more drinking...
A little Johnny Walker Blue to put me to bed!
My friend Johnny and I hung out for a bit, then I decided it was sleepy time. I asked the purser if I could have the empty seat in front of me made up. Of course she said yes and began making my bed!
Awesome, HUGE bed.
Kev enjoying the cozy little suite!
So, I've pretty much bragged about most this flight although I prefaced it with the fact that I would nag on it a bit. Let's do some pros and cons analysis...
Pros:
- Huge seat
- Delicious main course and appetizers
- Top end champagne and drinks
- Solid In-flight entertainment
While not being a negative of the flight, we did find the service on our JAL flight to be significantly better. The service on our flight was good, but we were spoiled on our JAL flight, as that service was AMAZING. Complete first world problems, but noticed nonetheless.
Cons:
- Seat functionality
*While not a big deal at all to me because we were 30 minutes from landing, my seat functionality completely stopped during the flight. It wouldn't move up/down, forward or back. If I was a paying FC customer and this happened in flight, there would be problems.
- Plane age
*This plane was old and it showed. The seats were pretty worn, and some of the finishes on the suite were tarnished. The foot rest gave a little bit too much and I kept thinking my feet were about to fall through it.
- Boarding
*I know I hit on it before, but the lack of first class boarding, and it being a somewhat backwards process, really got us off on a bad foot for the flight. Now maybe we can blame that on the specific ICN gate agents, but I don't know.
- Dessert
*I won't talk about it much more, but the dessert options were pretty "meh".
I hope I'm not playing up these "issues" too much. Thus far in my life, this was the
2nd best flight I've ever taken. I think the biggest issue for Singapore Airlines was the fact that we flew it just 4 days after the best flight of our lives!
We were able to get these awesome seats by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards into our Singapore Airlines accounts! At 75K SQ miles it was a great use of miles! We will talk more about how we got these and how much they cost us in our Let's Break it Down post!
Up next - Lounge Review: American Airlines Admirals Club SFO
