elanshin
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This will be my first trip report and apologies in advance for the lack of photos as I initially did not plan on a report. On reflection it had quite a few interesting things so I thought I'd share it.
Trip Overview
For this trip, I had a goal of going to Shanghai for around 7-8 days for a mix of work and visiting relatives over the Chinese national holidays. It's been exactly 10 years since I last visited Shanghai so I expected lots of change.
Planning
Initially I had a lot trouble deciding the exact route and carrier to take. As I am still aiming to complete QFF WP, I thought about doing a weird SYD > MEL > HKG > PVG on OW route. Eventually I settled on the following with MU all in Y except the final leg in W.
SYD > PVG
1.5 days
PVG > NRT
3 days
HND > PVG
4 days
PVG > SYD
Flying MU was due to a couple of considerations, one to complete Delta Gold Status Match and also my parents were also going on the same SYD > PVG flight.
The final reason is that this itinerary allowed me to do the trip without having to apply for a visa. I would utilise the 144 hour Transit without a Visa on both legs of the journey.
Departure
As we had a lot of relatives to visit, my parents decided to cram a lot of souvenirs and it was quite a sight that we managed to fit 7 medium / large suitcases, 3 carry on size and 2 backpacks into a SUV with 3 adults. Arriving 3.5 hours before the flight, we found parking and had 2 full carts.
My brother was landing back at SYD on the same morning, but we would miss him at the airport thus coordinated with letting him know where we parked so he could take the car home after his trip.
Check-in was fairly simple. Even with the temporary Delta Gold, we were let in to the business class check in. After a bit of checks on my visa situation as well as having to fix my FF (MU showed up on the BP instead of DL), I changed our seats to the front end of economy instead of the back. The check-in staff then tagged all 7 (+1 for my sky elite priority) of our luggage with priority.
On the topic of seat selection. With MU, you would need to either select your seats with a travel agent or if you booked yourself on the mini-app on WeChat/Alipay. Sadly these are in Chinese and thus require you being able to read Chinese.
As I was using my Delta Gold to check-in I was given a a lounge access pass for QF J. The check-in agent cheekily asks which parent I wanted to join me and decided to write my mums name down.
Security is pretty standard and straightforward today and we were through pretty quickly with 2.5 hours before the flight. Jumped onto the TRS line once airside and seeing as both me and my dad had things to TRS, I asked my mum to try to get into the QF J lounge which she managed to do, the lounge was even nice enough to tell her to bring me the pass when I came up (not that I needed it). TRS took about 45 minutes to get through. Then I took my dad through to QF J as well with my QFF card on entry (I was going to take one of them to Skyteam lounge if we couldn't get both into Qantas Lounge). It was my parents first time in any lounge so they quite enjoyed the food.
One thing we did fill out was the health declaration form. This is either done with WeChat/Alipay apps or on a separate webpage and I would recommend anyone travelling to China to do it at the departing airport and screenshot the QR code.
Flight
Before long we were boarding our flights. Mu uses their A350s for SYD <> PVG which is their newest long haul aircraft in their fleet.
MU boarded the elderly/ special needs, then Business class passengers followed by skyteam elite plus (interestingly one one other skyteam elite plus besides us) then premium economy and finally economy. One thing I was surprised by was that MU didn't allow people to use headphones/ earphones during take off and landing, so prepare a book.
Given the 10am departure, lunch service starts about 1hr after we reached cruising. Had the pork with potatoes and cabbage. A sort of beans salad on the side with a chocolate cake for dessert. Chrysanthemum tea was my go to drink. Overall a fairly efficient service, but nothing that I would consider great in economy.
Seat itself is decent, but more or less what you'd expect on regular economy for most airlines. Entertainment system was snappy however their selection of films was extremely limited. There were maybe 4 or so "Newer" Hollywood films and a few classics. I ended up just keeping it on the planes outer camera the whole trip. Definitely BYO entertainment if you plan on flying with them. There is 10mins free (Chinese) wifi available. If you want to remain connected it costs 40 RMB ($8.70 AUD) or 160 per day. There is one very big caveat in that you need to pay via Alipay or Wechat wallet (not WeChat Pay /Alipay which is slightly different) making it actually a huge hurdle, so effectively for first time China travellers, theres effectively no way to pay for it.
There was some midflight drinks but for the most part the flight attendants forced everyone to close the shades after lunch and darkened the whole cabin so that you could nap
Dinner was then served about 3 hours before landing and this was the soy chicken with noodles. Potato salad and fruit jelly. I opted to get pineapple juice this time. Alcoholic beverages were available but mainly just beers and wine iirc.
Arrival at PVG
Soon we were descending into PVG unfortunately as the flight path is very coastal, you don't get any views of Shanghai proper coming in. We landed at the satellite terminal in terminal 1 for MU.
This is where you need to use your health declaration QR code on arrival and as my mum hadn't completed hers in Sydney we had to run around looking for wifi connection. In the end we found a machine that could do the declaration and print out a QR code. The reason we can't connect to wifi is because at PVG to connect, you needed to either have a Chinese number (which if you did have, you probably have way too much 4G/5G available to you anyway) or use one of the airport wifi kiosks that will spit you out a code to use after scanning your passport.
Health declaration QR codes scanned (which hopefully they will scrap soon because it achieves nothing now) we hop onto the small train that connects to the terminals and head to immigration. My parents waltz through pretty quickly, but I had to go to the far end of immigration for 144h transit and fill out a special entrance form as well as have my onward flight tickets checked and scanned into their system. Fairly simple and as soon as they know you are there for 144h with the correct documents, its a pretty easy process, they just need ro double check and scan all your documents in.
Bags were ready for us pretty quickly as they came out among the first lot and after a cursory glance at us at customs and we were waived through and one of our relatives was waiting to whisk us away. We could immediately feel the humidity and heat even at 7:30pm
By the time I got to my relatives place as I'd stay 1 and a half nights with him, it was already 9:30pm local and having been up since 5am Sydney time, I just wanted a shower and to flop into bed.
Trip Overview
For this trip, I had a goal of going to Shanghai for around 7-8 days for a mix of work and visiting relatives over the Chinese national holidays. It's been exactly 10 years since I last visited Shanghai so I expected lots of change.
Planning
Initially I had a lot trouble deciding the exact route and carrier to take. As I am still aiming to complete QFF WP, I thought about doing a weird SYD > MEL > HKG > PVG on OW route. Eventually I settled on the following with MU all in Y except the final leg in W.
SYD > PVG
1.5 days
PVG > NRT
3 days
HND > PVG
4 days
PVG > SYD
Flying MU was due to a couple of considerations, one to complete Delta Gold Status Match and also my parents were also going on the same SYD > PVG flight.
The final reason is that this itinerary allowed me to do the trip without having to apply for a visa. I would utilise the 144 hour Transit without a Visa on both legs of the journey.
Departure
As we had a lot of relatives to visit, my parents decided to cram a lot of souvenirs and it was quite a sight that we managed to fit 7 medium / large suitcases, 3 carry on size and 2 backpacks into a SUV with 3 adults. Arriving 3.5 hours before the flight, we found parking and had 2 full carts.
My brother was landing back at SYD on the same morning, but we would miss him at the airport thus coordinated with letting him know where we parked so he could take the car home after his trip.
Check-in was fairly simple. Even with the temporary Delta Gold, we were let in to the business class check in. After a bit of checks on my visa situation as well as having to fix my FF (MU showed up on the BP instead of DL), I changed our seats to the front end of economy instead of the back. The check-in staff then tagged all 7 (+1 for my sky elite priority) of our luggage with priority.
On the topic of seat selection. With MU, you would need to either select your seats with a travel agent or if you booked yourself on the mini-app on WeChat/Alipay. Sadly these are in Chinese and thus require you being able to read Chinese.
As I was using my Delta Gold to check-in I was given a a lounge access pass for QF J. The check-in agent cheekily asks which parent I wanted to join me and decided to write my mums name down.
Security is pretty standard and straightforward today and we were through pretty quickly with 2.5 hours before the flight. Jumped onto the TRS line once airside and seeing as both me and my dad had things to TRS, I asked my mum to try to get into the QF J lounge which she managed to do, the lounge was even nice enough to tell her to bring me the pass when I came up (not that I needed it). TRS took about 45 minutes to get through. Then I took my dad through to QF J as well with my QFF card on entry (I was going to take one of them to Skyteam lounge if we couldn't get both into Qantas Lounge). It was my parents first time in any lounge so they quite enjoyed the food.
One thing we did fill out was the health declaration form. This is either done with WeChat/Alipay apps or on a separate webpage and I would recommend anyone travelling to China to do it at the departing airport and screenshot the QR code.
Flight
Before long we were boarding our flights. Mu uses their A350s for SYD <> PVG which is their newest long haul aircraft in their fleet.
MU boarded the elderly/ special needs, then Business class passengers followed by skyteam elite plus (interestingly one one other skyteam elite plus besides us) then premium economy and finally economy. One thing I was surprised by was that MU didn't allow people to use headphones/ earphones during take off and landing, so prepare a book.
Given the 10am departure, lunch service starts about 1hr after we reached cruising. Had the pork with potatoes and cabbage. A sort of beans salad on the side with a chocolate cake for dessert. Chrysanthemum tea was my go to drink. Overall a fairly efficient service, but nothing that I would consider great in economy.
Seat itself is decent, but more or less what you'd expect on regular economy for most airlines. Entertainment system was snappy however their selection of films was extremely limited. There were maybe 4 or so "Newer" Hollywood films and a few classics. I ended up just keeping it on the planes outer camera the whole trip. Definitely BYO entertainment if you plan on flying with them. There is 10mins free (Chinese) wifi available. If you want to remain connected it costs 40 RMB ($8.70 AUD) or 160 per day. There is one very big caveat in that you need to pay via Alipay or Wechat wallet (not WeChat Pay /Alipay which is slightly different) making it actually a huge hurdle, so effectively for first time China travellers, theres effectively no way to pay for it.
There was some midflight drinks but for the most part the flight attendants forced everyone to close the shades after lunch and darkened the whole cabin so that you could nap
Dinner was then served about 3 hours before landing and this was the soy chicken with noodles. Potato salad and fruit jelly. I opted to get pineapple juice this time. Alcoholic beverages were available but mainly just beers and wine iirc.
Arrival at PVG
Soon we were descending into PVG unfortunately as the flight path is very coastal, you don't get any views of Shanghai proper coming in. We landed at the satellite terminal in terminal 1 for MU.
This is where you need to use your health declaration QR code on arrival and as my mum hadn't completed hers in Sydney we had to run around looking for wifi connection. In the end we found a machine that could do the declaration and print out a QR code. The reason we can't connect to wifi is because at PVG to connect, you needed to either have a Chinese number (which if you did have, you probably have way too much 4G/5G available to you anyway) or use one of the airport wifi kiosks that will spit you out a code to use after scanning your passport.
Health declaration QR codes scanned (which hopefully they will scrap soon because it achieves nothing now) we hop onto the small train that connects to the terminals and head to immigration. My parents waltz through pretty quickly, but I had to go to the far end of immigration for 144h transit and fill out a special entrance form as well as have my onward flight tickets checked and scanned into their system. Fairly simple and as soon as they know you are there for 144h with the correct documents, its a pretty easy process, they just need ro double check and scan all your documents in.
Bags were ready for us pretty quickly as they came out among the first lot and after a cursory glance at us at customs and we were waived through and one of our relatives was waiting to whisk us away. We could immediately feel the humidity and heat even at 7:30pm
By the time I got to my relatives place as I'd stay 1 and a half nights with him, it was already 9:30pm local and having been up since 5am Sydney time, I just wanted a shower and to flop into bed.
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