Originally Posted by HKGglobaltrotter

I just flew back from DUS this week and I was the only pax in F. The last time I had the entire cabin by myself was TPE-HKG on a 747 like 2 years ago. Never had it happen on longhauls since my usual ports are SFO, LAX, LHR, CDG which are all F heavy routes.

Anyway, here's my thought on the overall F experience ex-DUS:

Ground experience and lounge - CX sends their premium pax (including F pax like myself) to LH business lounge. I was a bit surprised they wouldn't send F pax to LH Senator lounge at least. The flight was departing from Terminal A where a Senator lounge is available. The LH Business lounge has nothing to write home about, in fact it was dull and dull. It was quite busy during the late morning hours (I was only there for 15 mins). Pax will need to go through passport control before reaching the non-Schengen gates in Terminal A. The area around the gates are really small and boarding seems a bit messy. They have the auto-gates where pax have to scan the boarding pass themselves. The strangest part was that they started boarding inside the terminal but the air bridge was still being blocked off (i.e. it was not ready for boarding) so I along with other fellow pax have been hanging around at the air bridge for like 3-4 mins. No big deal but this really shouldn't be happened in the first place. Overall the ground experience was not good at DUS. It all seemed a bit disorganised and the lounge experience was clearly quite disappointing.

On board experience: It was great being the only F pax as 1) it would never run out of meal choices as all the dishes were available to me and 2) I could have a seat for sleeping and another seat for eating/watching movie, etc. The service was very attentive and friendly. Both the crew were quite chatty nonetheless they knew when to stop and allow me to dine, watch movie or sleep. I can't say enough how much I like CX service style in F. That is crew would always be there for you if need be (press the call button and they'll show up within 10 sec usually!) or otherwise they would leave you alone. Some posters in other threads may not like this style but as a CX regular F flyer I love it. Overall, a flawless service!

F&B experience: I think many would agree with me that this area has been CX's weakest. And yes it still is. I had opt for the lamb loin as my main which was a mistake. The loin was so thick and dry that I ended up sending back and had the spring chicken instead (which was also just average). I must say the downgrade on F&B offering on CX is quite apparent overall the past few years. But it was really the wine list that I think is the real downer on CX. One - they hardly rotate their regular wine list (I have seen the same wine on all my F flights this year - Shingleback Shiraz - if that rings a bell). Two - the promotion wine was just bad. It's amazing they actually hire wine consultants for this! As a wine importer myself, I simply couldn't quite believe what they are serving in F these days. Flew on SQ F to SYD this year, their wine list is just from a different league let's say!

Overall, I still think CX F is a very solid product and one of the best in the sky. They have the best hardware imho (being semi-open plan yet still feel private) and certainly the best service (being a DM in F in an empty cabin!)...now if they could really start fixing the F&B part...