avbussanich

Hi,

I'm new to the flyer talk community and not sure if I'm posting in the right place. However, my girlfriend are flying out of HND on the 12:05AM departure on Delta. We are in business class and I want to know if anyone has taken this route in the past or recently and could tell me what to expect in Delta One, in terms of service, amenities, food, plane equipment, etc.?

Thanks much
AB

By new I mean, I signed up a long time ago and this is my first post! ��

Ocn Vw 1K

avbussanich, welcome to posting on FlyerTalk!

Your thread is ideal for the forum focused on Delta's operations and I'll move it there for further discussion, with a bit more specific thread title. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

avbussanich

Thank you!

Ocn Vw 1K

You're welcome! You should be automatically redirected to the current placement of your thread.

mersk862

Haven't flown it yet this year, but have taken it a lot in the past. After departure is a small dinner, normally a choice of two cold plates. Everything is served on one tray - salad, entree, dessert is a chocolate. Prior to landing is a choice of three items for breakfast.

In my experience, the majority of the cabin skips the first meal and sleeps. Given the departure time, I normally grab dinner in Central Tokyo at 8 or so and take the monorail to get to Haneda around 1015-1030p.

avbussanich

Thanks mersk862. What's the lounge at Haneda?

lamont2718

I flew HND-LAX in J last month with a 12:30am departure. The HND-SEA/LAX routes are typically flown on 767s with forward-facing flatbed seats in J. For dinner, the options are a Japanese selection, a Western selection, and an "Asian" selection (which consisted of Chinese noodles on my flight). Amenities include the usual Delta One Westin Heavenly Bedding and Tumi amenity kit. There are slippers as well.

avbussanich

Thanks Lamont. Where you happy with service/food? What is the lounge that you get access to prior to departure?

lamont2718

Service and food were great. Forgot to mention that the pre-arrival meal options included Western and Japanese selections (the Japanese selection was wonderful).

There are no SkyTeam-operated lounges at HND, so DL offers access to 2 TIAT lounges in the International Terminal. I didn't enter either, but there is a TIAT Sky Lounge in the middle of the terminal (by gate 111) up on the 4th floor and a TIAT Lounge Annex closer to the DL gates (by gate 114) up on the 5th floor. The TIAT Sky Lounge by gate 111 has no food and offers beer for purchase. The TIAT Lounge Annex by gate 114 has some food, drinks, and showers and would probably be the better place to visit.

TIAT Lounge Annex: http://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1315/A131504/13169301/
Post from Task Force DL re his visit to the TIAT Lounge Annex in April: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/24718696-post8.html

avbussanich

Thanks again! Any recommendations on buying a Japan Rail Pass?

Ben and Jerry

If you intend to do any travelling beyond just a one-off Tokyo-Kyoto or similar, it will be worth it. You can get one for 1,2 or 3 weeks.

Since you're flying in business, I also recommend getting the "green" rail pass: 1st class. Very comfortable, and as far as reservations go you can almost always still get seats on trains that are about to leave.

If you are bringing an iphone (and have internet service/wifi): make sure you download the app called Hyperdia. Use is free the first 30 days. It has train and subway information for just about every connection in Japan, including platform information, cost of the ride (good to know if you take the subway, so you know what to pay for the ticket).

avbussanich

Thank you Ben & Jerry,
Is there really a big difference between "green" and ordinary? We plan on doing a roundtrip between Kyoto and Hiroshima in one day. We will be doing a trip from Osaka to Kyoto and Kyoto to Tokyo, as well as use it to go from KIX to Osaka Downtown and the Haneda monorail. These are the trips we are planning on for sure. However we have a couple of days in Tokyo and would like to do at least one day trip while there. I am thinking that with these number of trips the 7 day rail pass for 2 people is absolutely worth it. I am struggling on the extra $150 when I don't see the value in the Green Class. Would really like your opinion on what is the difference, if its really worth it, and what the benefits are?

You guys are all most helpful.

Thanks

Ben and Jerry

With your travel it is absolutely worth it indeed. Note that there are very good JR lines in Tokyo too, so you can use the pass on those as well.

As far as the green car goes, it would depend on the time of day you are travelling, if you are bringing luggage, etc. I found that in the green cars there is ample space to put all your belongings without having to scramble for space. As far as comfort goes, green is obviously nicer, but in regular class you will still have plenty of legroom space.
Biggest downside I found from regular class is that you need to reserve more in advance, if you wait too long you could find that you will have to take the next train. So if your planning is pretty rigid you can book well enough in advance and it should be fine to take the regular pass.

Remember: you have to buy the pass here, you cannot purchase it in Japan. And just to confirm: you are going as a regular tourist? If you have any other status than that I'm pretty sure you cannot use the rail pass.

If you have more questions about all this, just shoot me a pm.

MSPeconomist

Note that the rail pass is not valid for all trains; the fastest class of bullet trains seem to be excluded. Also, you need reservations for bullet trains, which sometimes can be changed on the platform if space is available on an earlier train.

Ben and Jerry

Correct, Nozomi trains are excluded from the JR pass. For most bullet trains you indeed need reservations, although quite a few also have 'unreserved' cars available. But why chance that when making a reservation takes you only a couple of minutes at a ticket office?