EVA Air Royal Laurel Experience Take Two: HKG-TPE-YYZ
 

It’s been a really nice vacation, but it’s time to go back to the reality. Checking the weather report the night before was a mistake, it turns out the polar vortex is back for another go next week. Oh great!

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For today’s flight, I decided to check in at the Kowloon Station and take the Airport Express. Boarding passes were quickly issued and my heavy bags tagged all the way to Toronto. The only thing that irritated me was a 20 people group that beat me to the single check in counter, and so I had to wait for a good 10 minutes.

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EVA Air uses the Virgin Atlantic lounge in Hong Kong, which is great, because it’s one of the best non-Cathay lounges in the airport. It is situated on the upper floors of the terminal near Gate 60, close by the equally attractive new Plaza Premium Lounge.

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I was warmly welcomed in to the lounge, where one of the staff quickly led me to a set of comfortable lounge chairs. He also placed a menu on the table before asking me for a choice of beverage. I haven’t had lunch yet so I decided to have a bowl of Wonton Noodle Soup and Nasi Goreng, along with a glass of coke.

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The taste was “Okay lah”, but I give full marks for trying hard to create an exclusive feel to the lounge instead of the traditional self-serve cold-hot dishes setup.

The chairs looked really cool, but they weren’t particularly comfortable. They also looked rather worn out.

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The bathroom was really nice as well, but this was pretty weird.

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Our flight was delayed by around 30 minutes, in which a ground staff member walked around and personally informed the news to every passenger in the lounge. Meanwhile, the lounge began to fill up with more business class passengers from the crowded gate area below.

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Royal Laurel Class BR 870 HKG-TPE
 

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When BR 870 was ready for boarding, business class passengers were invited to board first, along with the usual priority boarding for Star Gold passengers. The line was really long, and so I took a seat near the gate area until the crowd more or less cleared out. The economy line was also very long, judging from the size, this was to be a rather full flight.

I was welcomed onboard by one of the cheerful flight attendants, and led to my seat 1K. Orange juice and water were offered, to which I chose water. Soon, another FA came around and distributed the menu, seeing as she was having trouble making out my last name, I just spoke to her in Mandarin, more chance for me to practice, why not?

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The cabin was already showing wear and tear

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The flight time today was approximately one hour and ten minutes, ultimately incurring a fifteen-minute delay because of the late arrival of the aircraft. The crew wasted no time to try to get doors closed as soon as possible, and push back at 4:07 p.m.

Taxi was short and we reached our cruising altitude relatively quickly. The crew sprang up to prepare the meal served on this flight. None of the main course on this flight really interested me, and so I decided just to have the appetizer tray so I could have a few pieces of my favorite garlic bread. I decided on the Heineken to accompany the meal, saving my champagne quota for the Dom on the next flight.

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As I was quite awake, I decided to check out the movie selection, which was rather extensive and covers both Asian and Western favorites. However, I didn’t have time to finish an entire movie, and so I just chose to listen to some of will.i.am’s new singles.

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We began our initial descent around 20 minutes before landing, and because of the thick clouds, the landing was quite bumpy.

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Nice that you got to sit on the RL class on the short HKG-TPE flight as well. Does EVA use this equipment all the time for this leg?

EVA uses a variety of planes including 321's, 747, M90's and 330's on that route. Not all have RL.

Taipei Connection
 

By the time doors were opened and business class passengers were invited to leave the aircraft first, BR 870 was twenty minutes later than scheduled. No matter, I had preemptively booked the flight so I would have a long enough connection that can accommodate a moderate delay. I have flown three EVA Air flights thus far, and so far the track record is 3/3 for numbers of flights delayed. Are you getting this EVA?

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First order of business was a proper visit to the EVA Air lounge. On the outbound flight, the whole delay affair left me literally too occupied to take photos or even care too much about the report. This time, I had one and a half hours to explore the lounge.

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I like how they're selling EVA green colored Rimowa luggage at the entrance.

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I probably mentioned this before, but I don’t really like the décor of the lounge. It’s an eclectic cross between an eighties disco lounge and a HP business center. What is it with the Taiwanese and neon lights? Is this supposed to remind the older generation of the glorious days past? Or is it really a secret fetish that Taiwanese people have, because I did also see neon lights wrapping around the sign of a computer area near one of the gates.

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Anyways enough about that, back to the review. I really like the showers. Period. The weird names assigned to the four showers really don’t do them justice, because the water pressure is good and they are fully equipped with Harnn products, which smell like Thailand, my de facto second home.

You can't open the door from inside without pressing this button.

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The food area was also rather nice, with a wide variety of Chinese dishes and even a hot dog machine. Thumbs up to that!

I wasn’t especially hungry so I just got a glass of water and sat at one of the workstations to work on this trip report. No surprise, a rather serious voice came over the PA and announced that my flight to Toronto was delayed due to, wait for it…… late incoming aircraft. Thank you EVA. The track record is now 4/4 delays.

The gate area was completely jam packed when I arrived, but luckily the wait was not too long. Also, because there were not too many business class passengers, I was able to board relatively quickly.

BR 36 Taipei-Toronto
 

I was warmly welcomed into the same cabin that I stepped off around 2 hours ago, but this time I was seated in 2K instead of 1K. A more extensive choice of pre-departure drink than the Hong Kong flight was offered, which consisted of champagne, water, orange juice and apple juice. Also, unlike the previous flight, slippers were offered as well.

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I pulled out all my flight gears from my carryon, including my comfortable Qatar pajamas, and quickly changed into them in the rather large bathroom. On this long haul flight, Harnn products were used, whereas on the short flight to Taipei, it was a no name Chinese brand, I don’t really know why.

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After settling myself back in my comfortable seat, hot towels were offered along with the meal and beverage menu. The flight purser came around and confirmed that my prime rib steak and noodle soup was loaded onboard. “Mr. Tang, would you like to start the meal off with perhaps a glass of Dom Perignon?” Yes please. You can just hand me the entire bottle and I would finish it off before meal ends, I thought to myself, but that would be a little too greedy.

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Because of the delay, the crew closed the doors as soon as all passengers were accounted for, and thankfully the captain came over the PA and announced that although there was a 30-minute delay, we would be able to arrive Toronto more or less on time.

The Rimowa kit was distributed as soon as our plane leveled off at 34,000 feet. I have one already so I’m probably going to give this to one of my family members. My table was dressed in anticipation of the meal, and I chose to watch Oprah’s The Butler on the entertainment screen to accompany my dinner.

First, a bowl of assorted nuts was offered along with my glass of Dom. It tasted so good that one of the flight attendants read my mind. She walked by and offered me another bowl of the good stuff.

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Then, the appetizer dish was presented which consisted of a duck terrine with raspberry jello, which was quite delicious. I chose to have a glass of the French red wine to go with this.

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Bread was also offered, to which I chose my favorite garlic bread.

The soup for tonight was a creamy mushroom soup that was piping hot and delicious as well.

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Up next, I was expecting the main course, but oh no, there was another course which was the salad. Seriously, I was not expecting a five-course meal flying business class. This was a little too much, and what a difference compared to the dinner I had on the midnight flight out of Toronto.

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The main course was the beef and I prayed to God that it was not completely well done. My prayers were answered and it came out to be medium rare, just how I like it.

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Also on this flight was a proper cheese platter served with fruits and crackers, which was much appreciated.

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After dinner, I was feeling rather tired after the three glasses of Dom and a glass of red wine. I think I fell asleep somewhere around when Cecil Gaines was serving his fifth or was it sixth president? I don’t really know.

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The bed was comfortable and the duvet as well that I managed to be unconscious for the better half of the flight, occasionally waking up to drink my bottle of water.

When I was gently awaken by one of the FA’s, BR 36 was around 2:10 hours out of Toronto. I was slightly conflicted, on the one hand, it was good that I got a good night’s sleep, but on the other hand, I knew this was going to be one long night and certainly not very helpful to combat my jet lag.

I start off “breakfast” with a glass of apple juice, followed by a cup of Ti Guan Yin.

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The noodle soup was presented afterwards. I took a few slurps and found it to be utterly inedible. It was seriously one of the worst dishes I’ve had on a plane.

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Seeing as I barely touched the bowl of noodles, one of the FA’s came by and asked what’s wrong. I told her the noodles were really not that great and she apologized. She also offered to get me something else but I declined, because I wasn’t feeling that hungry anyways.

So, I finished breakfast off with a plate of fruits. You can’t go wrong with fruits.

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By the time my table was cleared, we were around an hour away from landing. I decided this was a good time to change out of my pajamas and back to my street clothes. I returned to my seat and a flight attendant came by to offer me a choice of candies as well as a last round of hot towels.

BR 36 landed at Toronto Airport at 8:45 p.m. more or less on time, a short taxi led us to the gates at the international wing of Terminal 1. This concludes my trip report, thanks all for reading!

Good report.

I also like the Virgin lounge. For the noodle I'd one from LAX to TPE and taste bad as well.

BTW, do you find the plane quite noisy?

Just wondering if you pre-ordered any of your meals from the EVA website or did you stick with the selections on board?

Too bad there were so many delays. I have a trip on the same YYZ-TPE flights plus 6 short hauls in the next few months, so hoping they are not chronically delayed. As far as I could tell the short hauls seems to be relatively on time...

Thanks for the report.

Nice TR.

Not really, that's why noise canceling headphones exist.

the vs lounge is hkg is sooooooo great. was there in august. great tr!

Interesting that you found the noodles bad. Usually Asian airlines are great at Asian food. Thank you for the flight report, I'm looking forward to flying EVA whenever I have the chance.

Yeah I was surprised by the noodles, but then again the lobster fried rice I had from YYZ-TPE was not that great either.

The J class seats on Eva is so world class compared to CI. Great report

Much nicer cabin crews too!