As mentioned above, I did the trip on Air NZ this time. Here's how it went:
The NZ temporary Sydney lounge had the ambience and dining options of a school cafeteria. The most appealing food were the hot dogs. I sat there, hot dog in hand, dreaming of the Flounge. Luckily ANZ does boarding calls at 110 decibels, so I didn't spend any more time there than necessary.
Transit in AKL was FANTASTIC; Sooooo much better than LAX. Basically you walk out of the aircraft, take about 50 steps and follow a sign for transfers. There you will find a bunch of security people standing around doing nothing. They scan your stuff, you walk another 10 paces and find yourself in the departures area. Amazing!
The NZ AKL lounge was better than the NZ SYD temporary lounge, but still no FLounge. It seems to be stuck in the 1980s, but they offer have something better than hot dogs: some kind of dish modelled on QF’s signature dish, business class slop. I was able to fish out a few morsels of meat from the communal bowl. Boarding call was at a relaxing 100 dB.
The NZ 777 business class seats are like my former boat: they look large until you get in them. They are advertised as a 6'6" bed. I figured that if they were big enough for the NZ Rugby team, they would be big enough for me. How wrong I was! You see, the beds are not rectangular: to get as much space as possible in a herringbone pattern, they added a little triangle of bed on the top and bottom. The little triangle at the top is just big enough for your head, and the triangle at the bottom is only big enough for your feet. But, also because of the herringbone pattern, the triangle for your feet not in the middle of the bed, it’s at the side facing the front of the aircraft. So if you lie on your back with your head in the top triangle, your feet are wedged off to one side in the bottom triangle. I had flashbacks to the hobbling scene in the movie MISERY. For those who haven't seen it, close your eyes and click on this link:
Misery (1990) Hobbling - YouTube
In order to avoid being hobbled, so I tried laying on my side. But because of the tapering of the triangular bit at the top of the bed, I had nowhere to put my arms. I tried all combinations but couldn’t get very comfortable. It’s only in the cold light of day that I now realise I didn’t try putting my head at the other end of the bed. That way my arms could have flopped out beside the bed.
The good thing about the bed is that it’s completely flat. None of the sag that you get on QF. However, because of the design, you can’t sit in it while it converts from seat to bed. So if you wake up in the middle of the night, you can’t raise back to read for an hour or so, you need to prop yourself up on pillows like some sort of peasant.
So, would I do this route again? The pros are the fantastic transfer at AKL, but for me, the bed was the wrong shape for a good night’s sleep. I will be doing the trip with an elderly person next year, so at this stage, this is the best option to avoid LAX. However, I haven't tried UA yet. I was not going to do that, but now I have got the taste of avoiding LAX, UA becomes a plausible option.
