To kick things off we first needed to position to Oslo. Having not visited before, other than passing through the airport, we decided to spend four nights.

An advantage of this flight was that it departed from Heathrow Terminal 3, and so gave us one final chance to enjoy the Cathay Pacific First Class Lounge before my BA Executive Club Gold status expired at the end of the month. After a smooth journey to the airport with the Elizabeth Line and a very rapid passage through premium security, we arrived at the Cathay lounge. But horror of horrors: the First Class lounge was full and not accepting new guests. We were (mildly) apologetically directed to the Business Class lounge.

This was no great hardship. The Business Class lounge feels busier, but still has that lovely green tile and dark wood ambience. The staffed bar serves champagne.




And, critically, the Noodle Bar still offers the key Cathay lounge food groups - the dim sum basket, the dan dan noodles and the char sui buns. We enjoyed a second breakfast of these whilst the Hong Kong flight was called and the lounge began to thin out.




We were then admitted to the First Class lounge, where the restaurant was just switching to the lunch menu (from 12:10, for future reference). Time was a little short, but we made a very good lunch of the lamb and the miso aubergine with jasmine rice, followed by those little Elizabeth Fry chocolate mints. Occasionally one or two of these find their way into my bag, and even more occasionally I forget about them and discover at my destination that they have melted into a chocolatey mess.

Our flight was on time and boarding was strictly by group number (including a group 0 call).



I appreciate this does not make for great content, but the flight was perfectly pleasant without being in any way notable. It was very full, possibly because it was nearing half term. It was on time. Being in economy class, we were only given a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits, but that was all I needed or deserved.

Mrs tomppa29 is the proud owner of an EU passport and so was through passport control in no time, whereas I had a 15-minute wait for my stamp. We then took the train into Oslo city centre, feeling rather pleased with ourselves for saving some money by taking the regular train (129 NOK / ~£9.70) rather than the almost imperceptibly quicker Flytoget Airport Express (258 NOK / ~£19.40). Tickets were easy to buy via the Ruter app, and the saving was almost enough for one beer each.