number_6

Yes, CX does serve the Cuvee William Deutz (it alternates with Krug, which I also love dearly). CX keeps a great wine cellar, including some excellent "cheaper" wines. In fact their Australian wine selections are superior to QF's!

[This message has been edited by number_6 (edited 06-26-2002).]

[This message has been edited by number_6 (edited 06-26-2002).]

RKDuke

Royal Hsinchu Hotel – Checkout Experience and EVA flight:
Before I comment on this surprisingly fine flight this morning, I’d like to take a minute to describe my experience this morning at my hotel. I had not intended to discuss my hotel stays in these reports as I think they are generally not of as high an interest as the flights. Nevertheless, this morning’s experience at the Royal Hsinchu Hotel is something I’d like to describe as it represents, I believe, an extremely high level of service that I rarely encounter – certainly not in the U.S.!

This experience may sound trivial to many, but my fellow road warriors know that it is often the very small, seemingly-trivial details that take on greater importance on a long road-trip. What happened this morning was as follows. I got off of the elevator in the hotel lobby at 5:40 AM to checkout and catch a reserved 6:00 car to the airport. I had taken no more than one step out of the elevator when a bellhop offered to take my luggage and hold it for me by the hotel entrance. It occurred to me later to wonder how the bellhop happened to be right outside the elevator so quickly. The answer is that he must have been primed and triggered by the elevator bell before the doors opened. Big deal one might say as I would certainly be happy to roll my own luggage out to the entrance. No, this took on more of a symbolic significance to me as I was impressed that the bellhop operated in this fashion – at 5:40 AM for that matter!

I then checked out with the clerk and knowing that the restaurant didn’t open until 6:00, I asked if any coffee was available (fully expecting a very sincere apology but a “no”). Instead, the clerk picked up the phone and called up to the staff opening up the restaurant and asked them to bring down some coffee. I had a seat and within 3 minutes, a waiter came down the stairs with an excellent cup of coffee – no charge and no tip expectations. This was then topped off when the bellhop returned with an English newspaper for me to read while I drank my coffee and waited for the airport car to show up. I noticed that this newspaper had a sticker on it with my name and room number meaning it would have been the one they hung on my door if I had not been checking out so early. This also impressed me as it means that the bellhop took the trouble to find out my name and to locate my newspaper – all without being asked.

Now I realize all this stuff may sound like not a big deal but it was too me this morning. Instead of checking out, having to wait another hour until I could get coffee at the airport, and having a 15 minutes wait in the lobby staring at the wall, I had coffee served too me at a table with a newspaper as well. This was a case of what marketing people like to call “delighting the customer” by going beyond all expectations but is something that I find is very rare. I was very impressed by all this and do not think this would happen in 99% of the hotels in the U.S.

TPE-KIX BR #2132 Y 767
As I was flying coach on this non-oneworld airlines, I did not have lounge access. This turned out fine as I stopped in a café in the terminal and had very excellent wonton noodle soup while I watched the crowd. Something I found interesting was a group of Americans of Asian descent trying to figure out what the various food selections were, struggling to order the right things, and clearly not feeling comfortable in their foreign surroundings. I found this an interesting commentary on how our world is shrinking with a high level of cross-cultural/geographic interaction. A good thing I think.

It also occurred to me that it was good to get out from the lounges for a change and back into the “mainstream”. I think sometimes us business travelers become too sheltered as we travel in our premium class cabins, check-in in premium-level lines, and spend our times in airport lounges. On the other hand, us business travelers are traveling to do business, not to sight-see! So, I suppose I could debate either side of this issue. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my 90 minutes out the “real world” this morning and was glad I didn’t hole myself up a lounge (although I will be right back at the Wing/Pier upon my return flight through HKG)!

OK, now about this flight. I had no idea what to expect as I have never flown EVA Air before, I was flying in coach, and was bracing myself for a less comfortable experience after my CX F flights. I am glad to say that I found this flight very pleasant! The seating was very comfortable – I couldn’t be sure but the seat pitch seemed similar to AA’s MRTC. Also (again I’m not sure) my impression was that the seat had more cushioning than the AA seats. I got a quick glance at the Business section on my way back to coach (it was empty by the way). It looked similar to AA’s domestic F class as far as I could tell. No personal video screens but simply larger seats and more space.

As far as I could tell, I was the only Westerner on this flight. The announcements were done in Mandarin as well as English and the FA’s were very attentive and courteous. The meal was a little bit of an adventure but that is part of traveling abroad that I like. The menu is below. The food was pretty good, comparable I think to AA international coach. The usual host of beverages were served along with wine.

All-in-all, I would compare this flight in coach to be similar to AA’s international coach service – not a bad standard I think and better IMHO than international BA/LH/SWISS coach offerings I’ve experienced with the major difference being the decent coach seating. On a two hour flight like this one, I would not hesitate to fly EVA again in coach (no AA miles however!).

Next up for me is a couple days in Osaka followed by a flight to Tokyo that has been booked for me already (don’t know the details yet). A couple more days in Tokyo and then it is CX again going home!

MENU
Chicken curry with noodles , broccoli, and carrots
Soba noodles
Pineapple, watermelon, and cantelope
Octopus with some hard vegetable I couldn’t identify in a peanut sauce

Pickles

I know it is a bit off-topic (perhaps in line with CX's excellent service), but I have had excellent service in hotels in Asia overall. It puts anything I've seen in the West to shame.

A couple of instances come to mind that are worth mentioning. Once at the Park Hyatt Tokyo we left some bags and and some clothes in a hanger for a few days while we went traveling in the south of Japan with just a small duffel bag. When we came back to the PHT, in addition to the stuff already being in the room (which BTW has always happened at the PHT, the Oriental in BKK and similar level properties), they had pressed the suit and put it in a cool black PHT suit bag!

Another time, at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor in Siem Reap Cambodia, I forgot a calendar I had bought in the room. I remembered that already at the airport, once I had cleared immigration and was just waiting to board the plane. As I was looking for a way to call the hotel to tell them, an immigration officer approached me with a cellphone, telling me that I had a phone call. It was the hotel, who tracked me down to tell me that I had forgotten my calendar. They sent a car over with the calendar within 10 minutes! I still don't know how they were able to explain to the immigration officer who I was and what I looked like. Now, that's service.

RKDuke

Pickles,
Your example with forgeting the calendar is incredible! Even more impressive is that things like this are done without being motivated by any expectations of a tip...I believe it is a pure desire to provide service.

jsmeeker

Yeah. Whatever..

Plato90s

If you still have your boarding pass for the EVA flight, you might want to check if it says Evergreen Deluxe.

A full Y-fare will get you into the ED-class, which has superior legroom to EVA's standard coach product, as well as wider armrests.

RKDuke

Plato90s, I don't still have my EVA boarding pass but I did not notice a "premium" coach class on the plane. It appeared to me only to be coach and business.

RKDuke

6/27 7:30 PM JAL #372 Fukuoka – Tokya Haneda 777
Contrary to what I thought, this flight was not Osaka-Tokyo Narita. After doing some business in the Osaka area, I and my Japanese colleague took a train over to the island of Kyushu for a day of business there. We then concluded the day with this flight back to Tokyo. This was my first domestic Japanese flight and I found it very interesting. This was not so much for its luxury but rather for its many differences from all other flights (U.S. domestic, intra-European, and international) I have taken.

To begin with, there was the incredible efficiency of the check-in and boarding procedures. We arrived at the airport about 20 minutes before the scheduled departure and my companion had absolutely no concerns about catching the flight. Qualifier: it was obvious that the Japanese are not nearly as concerned about security on domestic flights as all other flights I have taken since, say, 1970. Upon arrival at the airport, we walked up to a well-manned (actually “womanned”) counter and checked-in in about 60 seconds (no luggage to check). There was no check of IDs and no security questions. We then breezed through a standard security checkpoint with extremely polite personnel that thanked each and every passenger for honoring them by passing through their checkpoint (I don’t know what they actually send but it sounded polite, thankful, and appreciative. There was actually a person at the output of the x-ray machine snatching each peace of luggage the instant it emerged and handing it to the passenger.

We then walk about 3 minutes to the gate where I saw 4 lines of people in front of card reader machines with each machine having a staff person standing behind it. We got in one of the lines. About 10 minutes before departure, there was an announcement and the four lines started moving. If people have been on the Japanese train system, this worked exactly the same way. Each person simply inserted their boarding pass into the reader, walk through, and at the other side was handed a smaller ticker with the seat assignment on it. The lines moved through at a clip of, say, 1 person every 2 seconds (for an overall rate of 2 people per second considering all four lines) and the staff people never touching any paper – just watching. Now you would think that a bottleneck simply gets created at the entrace to the plane so I was curious to see why this wasn’t happening. The answer was that there were two entrances into the plane, one for the front half and one for the back half. Then, considering that this was a twin-aisled 777, four streams of people were effectively formed headed to their seats. On top of that, the Japanese people were extremely well “conditioned”, to stow their bags and move out of the aisle as quickly as possible. The entire 777 was loaded in about 10 minutes and the door was closed. I don’t know what the implications of all this is for gate layout, security, and staffing but other airlines could sure learn a thing or two from the Japanese about moving people quickly!

The flight itself was fine, nothing special other than the cockpit camera view being shown on the video screens. No meal was served on this 1.5 hour flight but just beverages and a bag of some snack food. I found it surprising that a 777 would be used for this short-haul flight but I was told this is not unusual for Japan (the flight was 75% full).

Upon landing, I was very happy to be in Tokyo rather than out at Narita and only having a short cab ride to my hotel. I had never been at Haneda airport and found it much more convenient to Tokyo (obvious statement) than Narita.

Seat 2A

Great report! Thanks for the menu transcripts!! Because of them, I am off to the Golden Shanghai restaurant tonight!

Bretteee

Duke I agree with you that AA Y transatlantic is better than Swiss or BA.

JetE

EVA's 767s do not feature Evergreen Deluxe; only the 747s and MD11s do.

RKDuke

6/29 5:20 PM CX #521 NRT-HKG F A340
A-h-h-h-h-h, back with Cathay Pacific! After a couple coach flights within Asia, I once again am in the lap of luxury of FX First Class (actually, the two coach flights I had within Asia were very comfortable and I’d be extremely pleased if my U.S. domestic coach flights were always to be at this level). I spent about an hour at the Narita CX lounge. It was no great shakes as far as lounges go but nothing wrong with it either. I had already been spoiled by Hong Kong’s Wing and Pier lounges. What it does have going for it is that it was much less crowded than I have found Narita’s Admirals club to be in the past.

The flight itself was a bit of a disappointment. I boarded the A340 expecting the same sleeper-bed configuration I had on my previous CX legs but, alas, this was an older configuration with seats similar the AA business class 767 flights I’ve had BOS-LHR and BOS-CDG. They reclined a bit further back than the AA seats but did not go fully flat. My seat creaked very loudly as I positioned the seat back up or down and I noticed at least one other seat in the largely-empty first class compartment with badly frayed fabric. The seats lacked power ports and the video was one of those pull-out and fold up screens that were on AA’s A300 flights from BOS-LHR/CDG before they switched to 767s (I understand they have or about to switch again to 777s). There was no video on demand but rather nine channels of pre-programmed video. The video quality was quite poor with white horizontal lines through the display. The heads phones were a rather cheesy plastic type with only so-so audio quality. All-in-all, this was quite a come-down from the luxurious configurations on my flights to Asia.

As disappointing as the physical accommodations were, the service and food was up to Cathay’s normal standards – no complaints there. The dinner menu and wine list are below. I had the Japanese meal as I was feeling like having a final Asian culinary adventure before I return to the land of pizza, burgers, steak and potatoes, and Chinese take-out! I didn’t know what half the stuff I ate but it was good with the exception of a very dry fish dish and sushi that had just come out of the refrigerator and was too cold. After a quick nap, I awoke to a very impressive night view of Honk Kong upon our approach. It didn’t have the pure, serene beauty of the 2:00 AM Anchorage approach but it was impressive nonetheless (note to myself, I really need to start a thread about approach views worldwide). Coming up next, I’ll have a couple hour layover and then that little 13¼ hour, 747 dash over to LAX!

DINNER

SAVOURIES
A selection of cold canapés to accompany your aperitif.

APPETIZER
Assorted Seafood

SOUP
Pumpkin Cream Soup with Alaskan Crab Meat served with Cheese Straws

MAIN COURSES
Beef Tenderloin with Red Wine Glaze and Sauteed Field Mushrooms
Baked Salmon in Puff Pastry Pouch with Creosa Sauce
Imperial Soya Chicken

ACOMPANIMENTS
Boiled Potatoes
Egg Fried Rice
Shanghai Pak Choy
Turned Carrots with Asparagus Tips

CHEESE BOARD
International Cheese Selection

FRUIT
Assorted Fruit Slices

DESSERT
Orange and Chocolate flavoured Ice Cream Parfait served with Mango Sauce

BREAD BASKET
Selected Bread and Rolls

TEA AND COFFEE

PRALINES


JAPANESE MEAL

SUSHI
Seasonal Sushi for aperitif

LIQUEUR
Green Apple Wine with Soda

APPETIZER
Grilled Duck rolled with Baby Leak
Black Bean with Sweet Potato Pouch
Smoked Salmon rolled with Fish Paste
Deep-fried Bean Curd Skin and Vegetable
Enoki Mushroom mixed with Plum Paste

CLEAR SOUP
Abalone in Kuzu Starch
Junsai Vegetable
Sweet Corn

BRAISED DISH
Steamed Tail Fish with Kelp Sheet
Shimeji Mushroom
Green Beans
Carrot
Starch Sauce

GRILLED DISH
Grilled Rock Fish with Sea Urchin
Grilled Scallop and Prawn

SIDE DISH
Dried Radish Slice with Herring Roe
Marinated Scallop with Sesame Paste
Mibuna Green
Fish Roe

NOODLE
Inaniwa Udon Noodle, Crab Meat, Prawn served with Soba Sauce and Condiments

RICE DISH
Steam Rice with Red Miso Soup and Assorted Pickles

FRUIT
Fresh Seasonal Fruit

BEVERAGES
Ginyo-Sake
Green Tea
Mineral Water


WINE LIST

CHAMPAGNE
Cuvee William Deutz 1995

RED WINES
Chateau Lynch Bages 1993
Gevrey Chambertin La Justice 1995
Henry Bouachon Saint Joseph Roquebrussane 1998

WHITE WINES
Louis Max Chablis Grand Cru 1996
Voyager Estate Margaret River Chardonnay 1999

number_6

The catering cost of that Japanese meal (kaiseki) is reputed to cost CX about USD 100. They only offer it on a few flights (non-stop F). Their kaiseki is better than JAL's on the trans-pacific F service. The same meal at a Tokyo restaurant can easily exceed USD200 per person. Of course melons can cost that, too, in Japan!

RKDuke

6/29 11:25 PM CX #880 HKG-LAX F 747
Before boarding time, I took a quick trip to the Wing, took a shower in a Cabana, and relaxed by the “river” for an hour (boy, do I love this aspect of CX but they have to fix that plumbing problem that causes that hammering noise!). I then went down to the gate and boarded the aircraft. The 747 had the same excellent seat configuration as my YYZ-HKG legs with a few exceptions. First, I was dismayed to find that there were no power ports! On a 13+ hour flight, this is a big problem for me as I tend to use my PC a lot on these flights. On top of that, the attendants wouldn’t let me charge up my PC in the lavatories (I snuck in later and tried but the outlet had no juice). Secondly, there was no Studio Cx system. Instead, there was the same pre-programmed video system as on the NRT-HKG flight. There were also video cassettes available for on-demand watching that pretty much made up for the lack of a Studio Cx system. The third (minor) difference was that the shelve on the left side of the seat lacked the handy storage compartments that the A340 YYZ-HKG flight had. And finally, there was no personal seat light so when I wanted to read or work in the middle of the flight, I was forced to turn on my overhead light that I felt may have been disrupted to fellow passengers. All-in-all, I was disappointed that the 747 configuration was not up to the level of my outbound A340 configuration. Are all CX’s 747’s like this or did I just get unlucky?

The food and service, of course, was excellent (see below). I had the grilled lobster which was just ok by normal standards (New England boy here), but given that we were 37,000 ft in the air, I thought it was pretty good. For breakfast, I had the Dim Sum selection which was excellent. Given that this was my fifth (and last, alas) CX leg on this trip, I don’t really have anything further to report. I’m now about to spend the night in the LA Airport Hilton so that I can watch the World Cup final at 4:30 AM before my Boston flight (given that I am still on Asia time, this was no big deal)! Hopefully, the game will not go into overtime as I need to catch my 7:40 flight to Boston. After experiencing CX’s best, tomorrow’s flight on AA’s Premium (is that what it is called) will be an interesting comparison. I have flown AA F to NRT and LHR but never first on a 3-class plane domestically.

DINNER

CAVIAR AND FINE SMOLED SALMON
Iranian Sevruga Caviar and Balik Salmon “Tsar Nicolaj” served with Warm New Potatoes and Crème Fraiche

LIGHT OPTION
Hungarian Goulash Soup
Traditional Caesar Salad served with Caesar Dressing

MAIN COURSES
Grilled Lobster and Scallops with Lobster Sauce served with Boiled Potatoes and Vegetable Casserole
Baked Vegetables and Mushroom Lasagne with Tomato and Basil Sauce

SNACK SELECTION
Wild Mushrooms Ragout with Asparagus on Toasted Ciabatta
Ciabatta filled with Smoked Turkey, Cheese and Tomato

CHEESE SELECTION

MOVENPICK ICE CREAM


CHINESE FAVOURITES
Stir-Fried Chicken with Abalone, Black Mushrooms and Pak Choy served with Stir-fried E-fu Noodles and Stir-fried Pak Choy
Noodles with Shrimp Dumpling in Soup
Shanghai Noodles with Marinated Beef in Soup
Shredded Pork and Century Egg Congee accompanied by Spring Onion Pancake
Steamed Pork with Black Bean Sauce on Rice in Hot Pot Chicken Soup with White Fungus and Coconut
Lo-hon Vegetables with Bean Curd served with Steamed Rice

DESSERT
Baked Red Bean and Sago Pudding

TEA AND COFFEE

PRALINES AND COOKIES


LIGHT MEAL
JUICES
Fresh Oranges Juice, Fresh Grapefruit Juice or Mango Health Drink

APPETIZER
Fresh Seasonal Fruits

MAIN COURSES
Omelette with Mushrooms
Chinese Rice Roll filled with Chicken and Shrimps Assorted Chinese Dim Sum
Quiche Lorraine

ACCOMPANIMENTS
Brilled Back Bacon, Breakfast Sausage, Hash Brown Potatoes, Grilled Tomato and Sauteed Mushrooms

FROM THE BAKERY
Croissants, Danish Pastries, English Muffins, Bread Rolls and Fresh Toast served with Preserves and Butter


WINE LIST

CHAMPAGNE
Krug Grande Cuvee Champagne

RED WINES
Gevrey Chambertin La Justice 1995
Chateau Ste Michelle Columbia Valley Merlot 1996
Chateau Lynch Bages 1993

WHITE WINES
Beringer Napa Valley Chardonnay 1999
Louis Max Chablis Grand Cru 1996

Plato90s

The lack of power ports and StudioCX goes hand-in-hand. Only the aircrafts refitted with StudioCX has the emPower ports.

As for the bathroom, laptops draw too much power to use those ports. An electric razer draws a lot less current than a laptop, after all.