The jinx is strong within me this morning, the crew had a bit of a nightmare. They were quickly up and about preparing the meals for the flight deck when they found that the chilled was all over the place and covered in the contents of an exploded yoghurt pot. Took them a time to clear that mess and feed the cockpit.

In the meantime they’d discovered that the carts were broken so it was going to be a hand to hand service from the galley. Then another mess discovered and by the time they started serving we were 25 minutes in, and by the time they finished row 4 it was 10 minutes to landing.

And onto jinx number 2, my earlier comment of “ … I decided that I will pass on the breakfast this morning as I have a special meal ordered.”

Well, as it happens…. The cold platter was delivered still sealed, completely correct but unusual for the crew to do so




And this was quickly followed by the standard hot option, again still sealed. Upon opening, I discovered this




The food trolleys must have had some seriously rough handling with all the varied damage!

The cinnamon roll was my in flight breakfast

Landing was smooth and the taxi was short and pretty soon we were at T5. Passed this on the taxi in and it took me a few seconds to work out what was ‘wrong’ about it.






T5 in all of its glassy glory

There was a bit of a ruckus going on at the Boarding pass checkpoint with the gentleman at the front of the queue demanding to be let through even though he didn’t have a boarding pass. Eventually with much huffing he went off back to the service desks.




Once past this little delay everything was quick and smooth and it was actually one of my fastest T5-T3 transfers ever, 40 minutes end to end.

Into the BA first class lounge and a small english breakfast before now settling into the corner and getting some work done.




Next up - lunch in Cathay business lounge and then a business class lounge safari for the afternoon (and maybe the occasional diversion into first )

Praise for the Cathay lounges is almost universal and is well deserved. The business class lounge enters into this noodle bar and seating area





the second part of the lounge is the food hall and the start of the window seating





The third and final part of the lounge is the bar and the larger open seating area





I had order some stir fried rice and Dim Sum when I entered the lounge and by the time I had taken these pictures and picked up a glass of champagne the buzzer was going and my food was ready





I have no shame, I almost inhaled these, they were delicious.

wandered back to the food hall to see what was on offer and tried a little sample of a few things, everything was very good









And now it is time to hit the showers as I was so tired last night I completely skipped showering

Successfully scrubbed and fit for polite company once more. The Cathay showers are definite a step up from the BA offering

Next stop, the AA business lounge.

this is a pretty substantial sized lounge with a couple of nice nooks and crannies to hide away in.






The food options always seem to lean heavily towards the sweeter end of the scale, always plenty of cake, cookies, and other sugary goodness.

A couple of goodies, purely in the interest of science, I�m sure you understand




A lot of time when you read lounge comparisons the AA lounges always come in towards the bottom of the list. The food and drink offering in this lounge is more than adequate, Qantas is far poorer. I think that the problem is that the decor in this lounge is utilitarian, bordering on stark. No real efforts appears to have been put into making it look attractive or comfortable. It�s not a place you�d want to settle into for a few hours, I wonder if that is deliberate.

Time to enjoy the fizz and goodies and then maybe I�ll use my pass to go into the Aspire lounge to give a view of the pay to use lounge product

I noticed the sign for the showers so popped down the corridor to take a look. Not as nice as the Cathay ones but definitely a cut above the BA offering

Its time to pack everything away and head off for lunch. In the intervening couple of hours I have been engaged in a little bit of horse trading in the lounge My side of the trade, a donation to comic relief flying start:




All will be made clear in a future trip report.

Buffet here in the BA first lounge has been switched out to lunch and it is deja vu

The jinx is definitely strong today! The post currently showing as #173 about leaving the first class lounge was originally #168 and now is out of order so if you read the previous post and wondered WTH?!? Then, me too! Maybe it’ll sort itself out and this will be the WTH post

I did mention at the end of my AA lounge posts that I would go over to the aspire lounge next, and so I did - No space available





Time to deploy the rarely used Dragon Pass over at No1 lounge - definitely no space




Oh well, I tried . Next stop, BA galleries business lounge.

As you might expect, quite a spacious lounge, plenty of seating and broken up into different areas to baffle the noise somewhat.







The food options are going to look remarkably familiar if you have seen the first lounge lunch layout







Drink options are also very similar although there are some differences, mostly items available only in the first lounge and not in the business one rather than completely different brands or types of spirit.







One thing I’ve not seen or noticed before are these sweets and bags sitting on one of the tables. They are incredibly popular, there have been people around them since i arrived



Champagne is available in the business lounge on request so asked one of the fine chaps for a glass and then settled down into one of the little pods toward the far rear of the lounge

Time to move on to the last business class lounge of the day, the Qantas lounge that I visited last week as part of the first class lounge tour. The downstairs bar and restaurant were closed again and upstairs was quiet. I will not go into great detail as you all saw it last week but I did stick my head into the shower rooms which look clean and ok, and also went for bartenders choice of drink and he decided on the passion fruit mai tai, not something I would have chosen for myself but very agreeable

I look at my itinerary and weep. Another T4 dep proposed.

Sometimes I do the same, especially those days when I�m turning and burning through my house in less than twelve hours

It is now 4 pm so I have been bouncing around T3 for eight hours. I had a quick stroll down to duty free to be greeted like an old friend at the Jack Daniels stand . A sampling of the new JD and then back to the lounges. Currently in residence in the dining section of the Cathay Pacific first class lounge and waiting to order.