sfoactuary

After returning from our honeymoon last month, the combination of the grueling 40+ hour return journey and over a week of brutal jet lag recovery made us cringe at the thought of taking another trip in the near future. But after getting back to the mundane routine of going to work instead of eating caviar, we started to get that traveling itch once again. We were still on the fence about actually going somewhere even through Christmas, but since we still had no plans for New Years we decided that we should just go for it.

For me, this is truly where the beauty of points and miles really comes into play. As I started looking around at various options, I actually was thinking of a domestic trip (Vegas, Hawaii, Cancun) but the retail prices for flights and hotels around New Years was a complete non-starter for a last-minute booking to any of those locations. My wife must have been keeping an eye on my Awardwallet account, since that's when she turned to me and said, "hey don't you have a ton of miles and points sitting around, we could just go...anywhere." I guess that I've trained her well!

So I began the fun task of planning a trip to wherever the award availability gods would allow. Given the short amount of time we were planning to go for I focused in direct-as-possible routings and narrowed down the whole world to a short-list of destinations which included FRA, KIX, HKG and ICN. And yes, it's no coincidence that the choice of those destinations was directly related to my desire to try a new F product on LH, LH (via FRA), CX, or OZ, respectively.

But alas, even with total flexibility the LH award gods were not smiling upon me and I couldn't find anything that would work. So the next best option turned out to be on CX to Hong Kong which had great last-minute availability. Since I had lived in Hong Kong for a couple years and we had visited just last year, we decided to break up our trip with a side trip to Macau.

The funny part about all this that as I was briefly exploring options such as Vegas, going to Hong Kong economically just made more sense as the total cost of transport and lodging was just $71, which was less than a one-way ticket for one person from SFO-LAS (and of course just looking at cash outlay and ignoring the value of the miles/points used):

AA redemptions for CX F x 2 = 135,000 miles + $5 in taxes
UA redemptions for UA F x 2 = 140,000 miles + $66 in taxes
Conrad Hong Kong x 1 night = 80,000 Hilton points
Conrad Macao x 2 nights = 80,000 Hilton points
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong x 1 night = 27,000 Hyatt points (only club room available)


1. Cathay Pacific First Class: San Francisco to Hong Kong
2. Quick Stopover in Hong Kong + Conrad HK
3. Visiting "Xin" City, the Gambling Capital of the World + Conrad Macao
4. New Years Eve in Hong Kong + Grand Hyatt HK
5. Cathay Pacific First Class: Hong Kong to San Francisco + The Wing First Class Lounge

[Update: the day before leaving changed my return flight from United to CX using 210,000 Avios for 2 tickets. A bit painful, but after the letdown from our BA flight last month decided to just cancel my BA F redemption SFO-LHR for next summer and use the miles elsewhere]

sfoactuary

We would have preferred to catch the night time flight but weren't able to get seats on the smaller 77W, so the daytime 747 it was. Like a kid on Christmas day I woke up excited to try out another new airline. Our flight was at 11:50am and we arrived at the airport around 9:30am. Check-in was very quick, and we headed over to the "A" side of the international terminal where I had actually never been before.

By now I know Terminal 3 and International Terminal G like the back of my hand, but today I actually had to read and follow the signs which took us up the escalator and down the hallway to the CX lounge. We were one of the first passengers to arrive and the lounge felt very new and fresh as I believe it was recently remodeled. There was a little bit of food set out at the buffet, as well as a noodle bar where I had a bowl of wonton noodles and dan dan noodles which were both just OK.

Cathay Pacific lounge at SFO






Buffet spread


Not much of a view from the lounge, just a single Korean Air plane


We headed toward the gate around T-60 so that we could stretch our legs and do a bit of shopping in the terminal before getting on the long flight. As we were leaving, the lounge agent said "please wait sir, your flight is not ready for boarding yet" which is a similar reaction that we've gotten when leaving the lounge prior to boarding commencing for our flight. I guess that most first/business class passengers have the mindset of wanting to be able to wait until the last possible minute to board, but for me I'm perfectly happy being one of the first people to board which gives me more time to relax and get settled in (of course much to my wife's chagrin).

We arrived at the gate and an announcement was made that *gasp* boarding would be delayed by 10 minutes. The number of sincere apologies for this delay, you would have thought that the plane was several hours delayed or even cancelled. Perhaps I'm just used to standard boarding procedures with domestic airlines, where only a 10 minute delay in boarding would be a blessing.

We headed on board and were escorted to our seats 1A and 1K. As much as I enjoy reading FT trip reports, I guess I will say that part of the excitement of entering a new cabin for the first time is diminished as I basically knew exactly what to expect for the flight, all the way from the seat to the IFE to the food and even to the amenity kit/pajamas. But that's not to say that I still very much enjoyed experiencing all this for the first time.

The cabin load was only 4/9 for the flight and even though the suites don't have doors, 1A and 1K felt extremely private, yet close enough to still feel like we were traveling together. During the boarding process, pajamas and amenity kits were distributed. Cathay just switched from the Shanghai Tang pajamas to the new Pye pajamas which were amazing. The material was very comfortable and felt like it was very high quality. As an added bonus, there is a slip inside the pajama bag for a free gift at any Pye store, and we picked ours up at the store in Hong Kong inside Pacific Place which was a nice boxed set of 5 pocket squares. The amenity kit is Zegna branded but the contents were a bit underwhelming.

General impressions about the first class product were that it felt warmer than Emirates, and the seat width was fantastic and was the first we've come across that matched the seat we had on Singapore. But the suite is definitely more low-tech than some of the other first class products we've tried. It would have been nicer to have a little bigger TV screen, and the IFE offerings were just ok, but may have been influenced by the fact that we had been traveling just the month before and had seen most of the movies already.

Being a day time flight, I expected to be up for most of the ride and actually ended up staying up the entire time as I just couldn't get myself to fall asleep. Part of it was the fact that the cabin was just too hot , but I think that's par for the course on most of the flights I've been on. Also, the mattress padding wasn't particularly comfortable.

Anxiously waiting at the gate to board


First class cabin


Seats 1A and 1K


Seat width matches that of SQ's


IFE screen


Seat and IFE controls


Storage compartment for headphones


Pye pajamas




Free gift, make sure not to throw away the slip


Zegna amenity kit for men


Trussardi amenity kit for women


Great views after take-off


View of the office, much happier where I'm currently sitting


Just like taking a road trip down Highway 1

sfoactuary

Menus were passed out and we were very excited for the lunch as we've heard the food on CX is a highlight. We each started with caviar, then had the Chinese ginseng soup, scallop salad, and then for me back to the Asian menu for the chicken and abalone entree which was fantastic. The wife had the herb-crusted sea bass and really enjoyed it. Lastly, we finished up with cheese, dessert, and then tea and pralines.

Service throughout lunch was extremely attentive and efficient, with the pacing determined by each person, not at the slowest eater in the cabin's pace which can happen at times. The perfect example of this, was that since I'm an extremely fast eater, I finished my entire meal just as my wife was starting her entree. Normally, we will always be +/- 1 course from each other, which means that I'm often waiting around for long periods of time for my next course.

Menus


Lunch, snack, and dinner menu




Wine menu




Champagne and nuts to start


Caviar


Chinese ginseng soup


Scallop salad


Sea bass


Chicken and abalone


Cheese


Berries and cream dessert


Pralines and milk tea


After lunch I requested turn down service and got comfortable for the remainder of the flight. Since it was a daytime flight and I have trouble sleeping on planes in general, I pretty much gave up on trying to take a nap. A few hours later I had a snack of the hot pot rice which was really delicious, and ice cream.

I had burned through all of the movies I wanted to watch on the IFE system, but had come prepared with my own entertainment and watched a movie and a few episodes of Summer Heights High on my iPad. About 2 hours out from HKG, dinner was served which consisted of some fruit, and for my entree I had the pork chop which was again very delicious. I had some cake, pralines, and one last Hong Kong milk tea to finish.

Turn down service


Mid-flight snack


Hot pot rice


Cathay Delight, really good


Pork chop


Mango cake


Overall, we really enjoyed our first flight on Cathay. We both felt that the food was probably the best we have ever had on board a plane, and the service was very attentive but not quite as warm as what we had experienced on SQ or EK. The only negative was that the suite just felt so dated and low-tech compared to the others we've experienced recently, otherwise CX very well may have shot to the top of our lists. So for now, the king stay the king, and SQ still sits atop the totem pole for both of us.

sfoactuary

Despite a slightly delayed take off we still landed a few minutes early at HKG. We shot through immigration and since we had just carried-on our luggage, were literally out of the airport in less than 20 minutes. Normally I would have taken the bus or Airport Express to the hotel, but it was close to 4am back in SF and I hadn't slept a wink on the plane, so we opted for a taxi instead. The ride to the Conrad was very quick and we arrived in less than 30 minutes.

The Conrad is located adjacent to Pacific Place mall and I booked a standard room using 80,000 Hilton points which I felt was a good deal compared to the ~$500 retail price. Since we were arriving so late after 8pm, we didn't get a chance to really explore the hotel much before leaving around noon the next day. But from what we saw, we really felt that the hotel was great and will probably stay again next time we're in Hong Kong.

Hallway decor


Conrad elevator


We received a room on the 57th floor and the views were really great. We also visited the executive lounge on the 59th floor which had even better views of the harbor. The room was actually quite spacious compared to what I'm accustomed to in Hong Kong and felt very new as it was recently remodeled.

Executive room at Conrad HK






Adding to the Conrad animal collection


Morning views from our room


Executive Lounge on 59th floor








We pretty much crashed right after arriving and woke up around 5am the next day. We went down for breakfast right as the restaurant downstairs was opening and were pleased with the selection at the buffet. We just sat around and killed time until 10am when the Pacific Place mall opened and then did some shopping before heading to the Macau ferry terminal.

The main reason I wanted to go was to pick up the free gift from Pye, which I had mentioned was a very nice set of pocket squares. I took a look around the store but didn't seriously consider buying anything which I'm sure is one of their goals for bringing people in to collect the free gift. However, I wasn't able to pull the wife out of the mall fast enough before she hit some of the post-Christmas sales at some of the other stores.

After her mini-shopping spree, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before checking out around noon. We took a short taxi ride over to Sheung Wan where the Macau ferry terminal is located to begin our trip to Macau.

Christmas decorations at Pacific Place


Pye store at Pacific Place


Pye free gift for CX F passengers

dat4life

Two TRs in less than a month? Geez, who are you, SFO777 now?

You can never go wrong with CX F! I definitely agree with you regarding the mattress pad. Even on CX 873 last year I had trouble sleeping despite being awake for more than 24 hours, partially because of the warm cabin temps (as you noted), and also because of the mattress pad. The pad just didn't quite do it for me.

As always, looking forward to the rest!

yerffej201

what's that pye gift supposed to be?

Homerclees

Just guessing here, but maybe dress shirts, but folded such that the back of the shirt is facing the top of the box so we don't see any buttons?

hamburglar

I think they are handkerchiefs.

ZFW-ATC

Pocket squares.

sfoactuary

I can only dream about keeping up with SFO777's pace! But at least reading his current report for Argentina inspired me to get an early start on mine.

Yup, confirming that it's a gift set of 6 pocket squares. I'll probably keep one, and re-gift the other as the packaging as well as the pocket squares themselves are really nice.

sfoactuary

The boat ride to Macau took just an hour aboard the Cotai Water Jet ferry. For those staying at the Conrad/Sheraton/Four Seasons/Venetian/Holiday Inn, you'll want to take the ferry to the Taipa terminal which is serviced by both Cotai (every 30 minutes) and TurboJet which only has a few sailings per day to this location. Most of their boats go to the Outer Harbor terminal and they have sailings there every 15 minutes. There is a free shuttle bus right outside the Taipa ferry that leaves every few minutes and dropped us off right outside the Conrad where I had booked our rooms for 2 nights at 40,000 Hilton points which felt like a steal since the retail price around this time was over $300 per night.

Aboard the Cotai Water Jet to Macau


Complimentary drinks and cookies




The Conrad Macau is an amazing hotel and has all the makings of that brand spanking new Vegas feel, but with more blinged-out decor. Inside the Conrad there is a casino and shopping mall inside, and many of the hotels in the Cotai Central strip are connected via bridges so that it feels like one inter-connected area. The gambling age here is still 21 just like Vegas, except they don't let anyone underage even enter the casino as there are guard posts all around the casino area entrances.

We checked in and were informed that we were upgraded to a suite. Since there is no executive lounge at the moment, the lobby bar is available for breakfast, afternoon tea, and evening drinks. Alternatively, breakfast can be had a t the Grand Orbit restaurant which we did for both days of our stay and had the biggest buffet selection we've ever come across.

Conrad Macao




Main lobby


Heading to the room


Upgraded to a suite










View from the room


Even as a grown man, I still get a kick out of collecting these animals


After check-in we headed up to the room to settle in, and then later on went to go walk around and do some shopping. Since it happened to be 3pm, we decided to check out the lobby cafe to see what the afternoon tea offerings were. We’re used to just some basic cakes and cookies, but were surprised to find out that it was a full traditional afternoon tea offering. We couldn’t pass it up, and sat down for afternoon tea which was really great. There is a Spanish option (more savory sandwiches) as well as a Crystal option (more cakes and sweets), and we got one of each which worked out nicely for sharing.

Afternoon tea at the lobby cafe


Spanish tea set


Crystal tea set


White chocolate snowman


Next we walked around the Conrad mall, then headed over to the Four Seasons mall and then lastly the Venefitan mall which is HUGE. It’s definitely bigger than the one in Vegas, but still very much looks the same with the man-made canal running down the middle with gondola rides.

Just like the Venetian in Vegas

sfoactuary

The entire Cotai Strip side of Macau very much felt like the man-made paradise that is Vegas. The shopping here was fantastic and my wife was having the time of her life and I definitely got dragged around every which way. At least she did sense that I was being dragged along begrudgingly, and not wanting me to be like the fellow in China that just couldn’t take anymore and jumped to his death, appeased me with snacks along the way at Tai Lei Loi Kei for a delicious pork bun sandwich, as well as Lord Stow’s for Portuguese egg tarts. Both were recommendations from Anthony Bourdain’s visit to Macau, and once again he has yet to steer us wrong.

Tai Lei Loi Kei pork chop sandwiches




Lord Stow's Portugese egg tarts




Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, also decided to pop in to the Bodhi spa at the Conrad for massages. We were able to get a last minute reservation and the Ayurvedic massages we got were fantastic.

The next day we decided that we had enough casino-hopping for now, and headed across the bridge to the city where we visited St. Paul's ruins and walked around Sedona square. We also stumbled upon the milk pudding that Anthony Bourdain had when he visiteid and hopped in for a bowl, which was so simple yet so delicious.

Biggest breakfast buffet we've come across, just half of it shown here


Sampling from breakfast buffet


St. Paul's ruins


Walking around Sedona Square


Christmas decorations


Always come back to you


Like Anthony Bourdain once said, like unwrapping the panties off a supermodel


Amazing milk pudding


So simple yet so delicious

sfoactuary

We continued to just wander around, and not before long we ended up around the Grand Lisboa and Wynn hotels. We walked through the Wynn and did some window shopping, and checked out the rotunda which has a cool ceiling scultpire of the entire Chinese zodiac. Afterwards, we walked back to the Grand Lisboa where we had lunch reservations at the 8 restaurant. It's a 3 Michelin star Chinese restaurant known for dim sum, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it out. The dim sum here was truly amazing and I would definitely recommend this. All things considered, lunch was pretty decently priced at around $80 USD for all the dim sum we could fit into our bellies, which isn't much more than we'd spend back in San Francisco.

Rotunda at the Wynn with Chinese zodiac


Walking over to the Grand Lisboa


Macau Tower, will NOT be bungee jumping today


Many cool artifacts/displays at the Grand Lisboa lobby


Lobby at the Lisboa hotel next door


The 8 restaurant, 3 Michelin star dim sum




Foie gras on Chinese BBQ pork


Signature goldfish har gow


Fried egg whites filled with shark fin


Porcupine-shaped pork buns


Steamed egg with crab claw


Lastly, we headed over to the City of Dreams back on the Cotai Strip side to watch the House of the Dancing Water show which is by the same creator as La Reve in Vegas. It had a lot of similarities, but this show was a bit more artistic-focused than the other one, with time spent dancing around which was at the expense of some of the acrobatics that we prefer. If you've seen La Reve in Vegas, you could probably skip this one.

Venetian at night


Heading over to City of Dreams


House of Dancing Water show


After another trip to the Venetian mall, we headed back to the room and called it a night. Macau is definitely all about gambling, whereas Vegas has a lot more activities and nightlife. Even though I really enjoy gambling, I didn't play too much here as the game of choice is baccarat and I'm more of a craps guy. Even though I did find craps tables at some of the hotels, it just didn't have the same Vegas-like vibe that I'm used to, mostly due to the cultural part since most of the players are from mainland China. Not saying anything good or bad about this, just that it didn't have the same inviting atmosphere that I'm accustomed to and didn't make me feel like I wanted to sit down and play.

spizzy

sfoactuary - Excellent TR so far. A few questions if you can-

Looking at going to Macau and HKG in the future. For someone that gets motion sickness how bumpy was the Jetfoil ride Hong Kong to Macau? Do you just check your luggage in and collect your luggage before immigration? Is there a long wait? How long does it take to get through immigration into Macau?

Are people smoking everywhere there? Hopefully the smoke smell doesn't come into your Hotel room as I have read on TA that even on non-smoking floors people smoke in some Hotels?

The food at 8 looks amazing and will have to try it out as well as maybe Robuchon au Dôme.

Are taxis expensive to get around Macau, and are taxis easy to catch (flag down)?

Was shopping there expensive or much like the pricing in Vegas?

Thanks in advance and Happy New Year

Madone59

Great TR and photos. Thanks for sharing, Happy New Years!