miamiflyer8

Very nice!

You made me pick up the phone for Indian food after seeing that biryani!

One thing I haven't noticed before is that Etihad has a good concept of naming things on the menu, simply "Apple Pudding" unlike other airlines like LH for example tries too hard with dessert such as "Confit of green tomato with parrot feathers"

Travel safe,

MiamiFlyer8

offerendum

Pistachio 3 ways - I'm in!

AtlFlyer123

I bet you just can't wait for your apartment flight on the A380 also I have some questions have you ever considered sueing ashford castle based on your experience there and what is the best flight you have ever taken and what is the worst flight you have ever taken also you have encouraged me to never fly American thank you

Lawro

Not quite sure how this thread passed me by so in the last few weeks. Either way caught up tonight- another excellent trip report, up to your usual high standards!
The FS looks really impressive...and as usual I'm left feeling hungry after reading one of your TR's.

SFO777

Thanks miamiflyer8. The biryani was delicious. LOL, on the Lufthansa thing. Guess they figure that an elaborate description will make up for much of the edible food they serve.

It tasted even better than it looked.

No need to sue as Ashford made an appropriate adjustment to our bill.
Best flights in the last few years were probably Garuda LHR-CGK and any of our Air France 77W flights but especially CDG-LAX and CDG-JFK where it was just the two of us. Hard to say about what is the worst, but any non-transcon on American in the last couple of years would be in consideration.

Thank you very much Lawro. I appreciate your kind comments.

louislitt

As per usual, this trip report was Littastic Seriously though, I really enjoyed reading this. Gave me some ideas to play with for my next vacation. The sandy beach pool didn't seem like the most intelligent thing to have in the middle of a desert, maybe installing a cover wouldn't be a bad idea? But jeez that TBIT arrival seemed like a proper schlep. I wouldn't be down for that after a 16hr flight. The very least they can give F pax is a buggy! Glad to see you are all well, LL

AtlFlyer123

I bet you just can't wait for your apartment flight on the A380

WanderlustB

I stayed at Al Maha in Dec, and I could have sworn it was a different place. Service at Al Diwaan was absurdly bad (20 minutes and 4 requests for water). The dinner food was decent, but not 5 stars. That said, the butter chicken and the pizza Mrs SFO777 were both really good. We did enjoy our dune drive thoroughly. I wouldnt stay there for more than one or two nights.

An emergency came up, and i had to check out early, leaving my villebrequins on the terrace. Hotel couldn't find them just hours after checkout. I compare this hotel to the ex-Banyan Tree now Ritz Carlton Al-Wadi / Ras al-Khaimah. I found the now Ritz to be a far superior hotel at a fraction of the price.

Finally, Mrs WanderlustB has declared us to be a "No-Etihad" household after a mere single flight. 75% of this pertained to a business class guest continually trying to -and succeeding at- co-habitating with a first class guest. The staff initially fought this setup, but love conquered. The staff just gave up, and we were left with a 9th guest in the F cabin. 25% was due to the clusterF called an airport in AUH. Ironic how the "poorer" emirate of Dubai is leaps and bounds ahead of Abu Dhabi in terms of airports!

Jermyn

Thanks as always for posting, I'm glad you enjoyed your flights with EY

One week ago, I had a comedically bad flight in EY Apartments followed by some shocking food and service in the F lounge. Judging by the deluge of comments on my instagram posts, two themes emerged:

1. Etihad is engaged in some serious cost-cutting (as evidenced by the lack of a prestige cuvee in F) and some rather dubious food.
2. The service on the A380 is the worst in the fleet, with crews either unable to handle the pressures of the plane's size or resting on their laurels since the hard product is so good.

Do you feel those comments are warranted? Did you notice a measurable decrease in F&B quality since your last EY F flight?


N.B. For what it's worth the US pre-clearance lounge looks like a carbon copy of the actual SYD lounge.

SFO777

Thank you louislitt. Al Maha staff was very good about cleaning out the pool after the sandstorm.

Thanks very much WanderlustB. Sorry to hear about your shoddy service in December. Wow, that was the complete opposite of what we experienced. And the crew giving up about keeping out that interloper to F is pretty bad. Mrs. SFO777 still likes Etihad and wasn't even that annoyed by AUH, although it was so early in the morning, not sure she was fully conscious.

Thanks so much Jermyn. Yikes, another bad EY First experience. I think we've dodged a bullet on bad service as we've had nothing but great inflight crews, service, food and drink. I have a non-Mrs. SFO777 AUH-JFK Apartments flight in August so EY will get another chance to disappoint.
Also trying to squeeze in a AUH-BOM Residence flight the day before just to try it out, but the Residence concierge told me that the BOM flight may be downgraded from the A380.

shgroamer

Hahahahaha

Awesome TR. Thanks for sharing

TheBOSman

I feel like the luckiest FTer alive vis a vis EY Apartments. When I flew it, there was only one other person in the cabin, empty Residence. Fantastic service, probably the best single flight of my life. And I've had an LH F cabin to myself before . It definitely seems that they struggle when the cabin is full, and (unsurprisingly for a rapidly growing company alongside two other rapidly growing nearby companies in the same industry in QR and EK) that staff consistency can be a problem. Maybe I should have played the lottery instead . Hopefully your upcoming Apartment flight is lightly loaded in F.

as219

We flew Apartments last week AUH-JFK. The champagne was a vintage BS 2006 or 2007, I think. I enjoyed it just fine. Frankly I think most great champagnes show less than optimally at altitude, but what do I know? The food was fantastic. The menu has obviously been cut back from the half-dozen protein options they started with, but we really didn't notice the difference. I got my biryani, which was terrific, and everything else was lovely. As to service, we were expecting the worst, but at the end of the day, there were so many people working first we lost track of them all. Everyone was Johnny-on-the-spot with a smile. We couldn't have been happier.

The only real problem I noticed was in the F lounge. Even though we showed up at 8pm for our 3:30am flight, they were out of the ingredients for two of the cocktails I wanted, two of the food items on the bar menu, and out of the lamb on the Mezlai tasting menu. That's pretty bad, IMO. I heard a lot of disappointed people grousing about it. It's not something you really expect to hear in an F lounge. (I can confirm, though, that the Paradis is still there, not on the menu, by request only.)

eiflyer

I'm curious what a kettle is?

Genius1

A bit late to the party on this one as I've been travelling. Another enjoyable read SFO777.

It's nice that they honoured your chauffeur cars for this trip.

The lounge at LAX does look pretty drab; due to their location, most of the lounges in TBIT don't have much natural light to speak of.

The amenity kit looks pretty poor, and worse than the new AA one I got on a recent TATL sector in J!

The onboard Etihad service looks very elegant, and the presentation of the food great.

I have never been particularly attracted to the Middle East, but it seems like you stayed in a few nice properties as usual - I particularly liked the style of the Four Seasons.

Shame about the poor ground experience at both ports; it seems to let down a strong onboard product.