*bump*

In December, a few days before Christmas, I will be overnighting in HKG - arriving at HKG on CX late at night (~11pm) and leaving for LHR on QF29 at 8am. I'm AA Plat flying on a U award (amazingly, managed to book a Christmastime Biz class award just this past week), so if I understand the above thread, I should have access to the Wing lounge both the night I arrive and the morning I depart, though it closes ~1:30am once the last flight departs. (Right?)

Westcoastman indicated in his very useful summary that the Wing downstairs opened at 4:30am for transiting passengers...is this still the case? CX's website is only indicating a 5:45am opening.

Also, I'm not much of a nightlife person (read: no nightclubs), so I'm inclined to think that a trip into the city might not be worthwhile. Although I've never been to Hong Kong before...anyone want to convince me that it's safe and worthwhile to go into the centre of town for the night? (23 yr old 6'3" American male here).

Also, never been to CX's lounges - probably a novice question, but is the food and drink that folks talk so glowingly about complementary or do you pay for it?

Any other suggestions to while away the night? I think I"ll bring a laptop loaded with divx movies...

Not sure about the middle of the night opening hours at The Wing, but the food and drink is, of course, free. (Though travelling in J as a Plat you "only" have access to the Business Class lounges, which means fairly basic wines (plus beers, spirits, etc), and the food is just noodles (in the evening, not in the early morning - the Noodle Bar does something else then) and sandwiches, fruit, snack-type stuff, not the full-blown buffet restaurant that the First lounge has.)

HK is as safe as anywhere - there are plenty of bars open in Lan Kwai Fong and Wanchai until 3-4am and quite a few, in Wanchai particularly, that are open all night.

You are perfectly safe walking around town in the middle of night . If you come in on the weekend, there will be even bigger crowd around TST, LKF and wanchai. When you're tired, catch one of those overnight bus back to airport.
Since you come few days before Xmas, you could check out the Xmas lighting around town.

I'm arriving from AMS for TPE in HKG some time before xmas... (um once again i'm taking home as a transit point...). Am currently waiting for a U run for TPE, which would hardly be a problem with food. But if I am stuck with T(or more undesirably, Y), would I be better off waiting till noodle bar opens, eat, and have a short nap on the plane?

PS. is there only 2 options for breakie? Not even cereal, yogurt, or icecream??? Anything related to oil in the morning (or after getting stuck in the plane for 12 hrs) is greatly undesirable lately...

PSS. I'm now waitlisted on U... how likely is it to be cleared before 30/11? if i'm not cleared then I will have to hit on T (even then I'd be on the list too)or even Y...

The food is free. I really don't know any airline business class lounges besides the AAdmirals Club where you have to pay for the food.

If your airline lounge experience has been limited to AA, then the food selection at the Wing will seem like a royal banquet. In the morning, there should be dim sum, pastries, and sandwiches.

The streets are full of people at midnight, shopping in the chinese neighbourhoods, and even some name brand stores like Esprit are open until midnight. Lots of little stores are open until 3 am. All perfectly safe (unlike US and European cities) and quite colourful. It all depends how much local colour you like to see.

The J side of the Wing/Pier is just an airport lounge, it is the F side that is special. I wouldn't stay in the lounge, unless I was too tired to walk.

The 0545 opening time is reasonably consistent with my experience when last travelling SYD-HKG-LHR on CX (Feb 06, so don't know how this might differ seasonally). The flight in from SYD touched the ground at a little after 0500 and I saw little activity (ie being able to get in) - even on the ground floor of The Wing - until around 0615.

Didn't mind not being able to get into the lounge soon after arrival but found the lack of info frustrating (crew had advised that it would be open by the time we got there, while there wasn't a single member of CX ground staff to be found anywhere for hour and fifteen between arrival and lounge opening to find out otherwise).

Once in, it was a further hour or so before any of the upstairs areas became functional.

I can agree with sentiment expressed earlier on this thread, that reception can be frosty to say the least at this time, but then if the poor sods having to turn up for work at that time felt anything like I did after the short hop from SYD pre-a revival shower, then I have every sympathy.

The lasting memory for me was observing HKG airport at a near-deserted state - quite exceptional and rather beautiful. But in the interest of balance, I was feeling quite grumpy and in need of both washing and the obligatory revival coffee followed by a bloody mary.

IMO CX runs a consistently great facility round the clock in HKG, so I'm willing to forgive the episode. Standards at The Wing aren't quite how they were as little as a few years back, but these are the pressures that all airlines (businesses?) feel.

The moral of the tale is, make sure your baggage is checked thru to your ultimate destination, head straight out of arrivals, hop on the airport express or a bus, enjoy what limited time you have to experience on of the most dynamic cities in the entire world, and then come back ready for a good sleep on your way home.

Or do it the slightly harder way like I did, kill an hour or so in the terminal, go have a refreshing shower or bath, check your hand baggage with the cloakroom and head into the city for a few hours before your ownward flight.

This experience was from Mar06 but they really did not want people who were not arriving on a flight in the club. I think the few people that were there had arrived at the exact same time from a flight. ALSO: The late night access is for PAX departing THAT night. You may not be admitted late if you have an early morning flight. My point is that the exact thing you are trying to do (avoid downtown with an overnight connection) is the kind of people they don't want in the club until after 5:45 am but I am sure it happens on a daily basis and they must deal with it. They will look at your ticket and not be too happy with you. The airport has an overpriced hotel and an overnight resting lounge that takes reservations and you can find reviews of that online.
There is more to do in the airport than downtown Hong Kong. The late, late activity in the city is not all that special (not like it is New York City or something). So even poking around the new and clean airport facilities and using the free internet was more fun other than the fact that the stores/restaurants do not open till later. Lots of open chairs around the airport and even some chairs that are designed to sleep on that get claimed early!
The problem was that the Airport Express train was that the last one leaves Hong Kong at 12:48 am and the first train does not get you to the airport until 6:15 am.

You obviously haven't seen the real Hong Kong, it is a lot better than NYC for this. But I guess everyone has different tastes and what is fun. For me there is 100x more to do going into the city than staying at HKG airport.

I am sorry I was referring to between 1 and 5 am but I should have said early, early morning. Maybe some casino or something. If there is not already a thread for such after hours activity maybe someone should start one.

Ditto.