At last I've flown the Dreamliner, travelling trough the night from Denpasar.

The business-class looks classy, and from 4A I couldn't see any part of any other passenger, so the privacy feature is pretty well covered. Which will be great for some, but I never get up to anything particularly interesting in my seat, so privacy is somewhere between low and absent on my wish list.

I liked the dinky set of reading lights built into the odd shield that blocked the window, thanked God for the air vents, and enjoyed the entertainment system. I was baffled by the retractable mirror, but I'm sure some will find it useful. The seat was fine for sitting, lounging and eating, but really not at all comfortable for sleeping: YMMV of course. I far prefer the reclined seats on the B773 (my usual route is Jakarta: I came home from DPS this time, just for fun).

The lavatory business needs some revision. Effectively we had only the forward facility fully available: the rear starboard lav was kept locked. I guess this was to repel invaders from economy, or maybe it was reserved for crew. During the long night you had to hope there'd be crew in the galley behind business-class to unlock the door. The second rear lav seemed reserved for the use of economy passengers, fair enough, and it was pretty much constantly in use.

Meals were standard quality. I was able to persuade the lovely cabin crew to bring me a drink-drink prior to take-off instead of the lemonade stuff, so it was easy to survive he forever wait for "cocktails" after take-off. Dinner theatre took the standard 3-hours plus, which was fine on a 9pm departure: and i was really pleased crew now resist the urge to start breakfast 3 hours out of Istanbul.

The crew were just fine. High levels of confidence using english, so I wonder if language skill plays a part in selecting crew for Dreamliner training. Asking how a couple of seat related things work, crew were unsure and had to consult their supervisor or, I guess, the manual.

All-in-all it was an interesting flight. It removes the worry of getting middle seat on a 773, but in many years that's a disaster that's never happened to me. Perhaps he new seat takes some getting use to, but for the moment I'd take the 773 on night flights and gamble on getting an empyy seat next to me.