Just completed our honeymoon
sadly some flights did not live up to expectations (emirates F and Cathay J we are talking about you)
further some flights were above expectations (Jetstar 'j' )
all the hotels lived up to or beyond expectations (conrads or intercontinental and Hiltons where the hotels of choice)
and it did help to list honeymoon on all the hotel bookings (but also gold with Hilton and just basic ihg member)
japan airline by far and the way most pleasant to deal with from check-in to dismemberment.
so my vote based on expectations and realisation
staff from check in too hop off
JAL
J* (am I nostalgic or is it truth)
CX EK tie
IFE
EK
CX
JAL (lack of television programs, 90% of western content seemed to be movies, I don't like dedication 1.5hours to a movie just before I want to sleep)
J* (not enough content, it is almost a tie with JAL, if J* had more episodes, and movies, they would be ahead of JAL, but in saying that, if JAL had at least half seasons of popular US TV programs J* would be left for dead. But no way could either J airlines compete with cx let alone ek
lounge experience were as followed, however I think I missed some opportunities with not knowing or even thinking which lounges I could get into on an award ticket in J with Qantas sapphire.
first off was the lounge in cairns international, as I was on an award jq j ticket had no access, that was disappointing and I really assumed would have had access.
cx lounge in japan was very ordinary and the Qantas lounge there was not much better, only slightly, with regards to food offerings, kind of makes the Qantas domestic business lounge brisbane look good, seriously
cx lounge Taiwan had better food offering then the above lounges but was a dark not nice place
ek lounge HK was the best lounge so far visited, however was not up to the Auckland ek lounge and was hot (that's hong kong for you I guess) was this the beginning of my disappointed ek run???
ek business lounge Dubai was as busy as the Qantas business Brisbane lounge on any given week day.
the lounge in male (Maldives)ek flight was as bad as I thought a lounge could get, the biggest problem is its a third party lounge....second problem no alcohol, wait no alcohol is really the only problem any other short comings are just footnotes, the food was that unappetising I went to the burger king and paid $9US for a burger only (not meal) but I do have to say the burgers are better at hungry jac....eerrhh BURGER KING, HJ burgers didn't compare to this burger but after 7 days without a true take-away outlet did it just taste that good because I went without for so long?,
sad side note every country I spent 24 hours in I managed to get maccas, sadly couldn't find at the male airport they do have coffee club there though
sri lanka lounge once again third party, and above I said I thought a lounge couldn't get worse, well.... yes this lounge had alcohol, however the food I didn't even eat (at least I ate food in the male lounge) why did I not eat it, because the chicken was not too hot and not too cold and defiantly was not just right. it was barely warm that's not good, so I tried the rice and noodles, nope tasted and smelt bad, the wife went past some chicken puff things she said they smelt off. however heaps of people came into the lounge after us and ate up. all I was thinking is extremely strong stomach (I like to think I can stomach a lot however I wasn't risking things on my honeymoon) and I was thinking don't be in J on my next flight.
side note keeping in sri lanka, it takes three sets of security to get onto your flight, one security to get into the airport (Australia everyone gets into the airport without hassle) security to go from the public area to the check in area so the worse part is you cant go through this checkpoint until your flight starts check-in and they check if you do have a flight to check into, so you cant take family to the check-in section, and then before you board the aircraft you go through another check point. so between entering the airport and checking into your flight you have this small area with about 10 shops (that doesn't include currency exchanges which there are about another 10) it makes the cairns domestic airport look great for shopping/passing time. also they have the old school arrival/departure signs you know the ones you only see in old movies from the 80’s/70’s.
also not happy with sri lanka when the immigrations officer takes the wifes passport holds it in the air picture showing to other colleagues speaking in native luggage and then laughing.....really, sorry sri lanka your off the list.
so getting back to lounge.....could I have used the sri Lankan airlines lounge??
jal lounge in HK was again third party, evident by the looonnnggg line out the front and signs saying you can use asia miles to buy your way in (not in those words exactly), among other methods I suppose. however jal did have their own section way to the back of the lounge, but if you wanted warm food you would have to join the line of 90% payers/or other means, 10% jal invites, and my wife was the only woman in the jal lounge that's what she informed me as we were leaving, and when I cast my eyes around the room she was right (apart from the hostess)
so I guess could we have used the cx lounges??? Qantas lounge was shut at the time
so third party lounges have been disappointing overall.
jal lounge japan was really good, as you would expect it being on their home turf. the bad the dining area does get so full they rope it off until it empties a bit, the other bad the food would run out so quick and take a bit of time to replenish, wife would always come back with stuff I wanted then I would go up and it would be gone, then she goes up gets more for herself by the time I go up after she walked across the room with the food and I walk across the room to get what shes having all gone again.
anyway positives.....as it was our honeymoon I cheekily asked every airline for an upgrade or something to make the trip more special....I say cheekily because on every flight we were in the highest cabin on offer and they were just award tickets after all.
so from japan airlines (which help their cause to woo me) they came to me and my wife in the lounge about 40min after we entered the lounge and we had also changed seating areas, with a couple of coughtails and a sign (a sign how often does this happen that they have a sign made ready to go) but it was a great surprise, also gave us a little plastic bag with personalised notes to each and lollies and chocolates in the bag, so my question, how did they know we had entered the lounge (from boarding pass being scanned) so was it noted for the lounge staff to see, and with the long time between coming in and being presented how did they recognised we were the couple, anyway as I mention above we asked all airlines for something
so jetstar im not sure if I asked for anything honeymoon related specifically but I do know I requested seats to be assigned and am sure I said it was our honeymoon(as the online system just wasn't working to do it) but when on the flight when the host found out we were on our honeymoon due to general conversation with him he said come and ask for as much as you want through the whole flight.
on our j flight with ek they came and took a picture of us in our seats then disappeared, then 10min later came back with the picture in a card and champagne moet (no F on offer on this flight) and a cake big enough to feed four.
on jal as mentioned before in the lounge, well 45min out from Sydney 6 am in the morning after breakfast, here they come with a meringue tasting donut looking treat and really premium ice-cream (better then the ice cream served on flight) plus a couple of small bottles of bubbly that was the biggest surprise just because they had already been in the lounge to surprise us. sadly after all the lounges we had been in, all the F/J flights, all the pre take off drinks, all the hotel lounges access, all the breakfast buffet bubbly, I was all champagne out but I still finished my bottle off and most of the wifes too and they made a flower bouquet out of tissue paper for the wife so we could take it off the flight
on cx ..... yep
so JL, EK, J* then cx for the honeymoon acknowledgement really they don’t deserve a mention
speaking lowly of cx
amenities kits
we got one in F hk-Dubai emirates that was a given
we got one on jq shockingly, I say shockingly because it was jq (is this part of the reason I had a better flight then expected with them because the expectations were so low and they went past my expectations, and is this why Im so disappointed with cx.
jal well not an amenties kit as such, you just had access to most things in a kit, slippers in seat pocket, eye shades handed out, as was cardigan/pj's top, toothbrush/paste in toilet with mouthwash if you require.
no moisturising cream or cologne in bathrooms
is JAL the Qantas of asia, is JAL what Qantas is trying to become I know JAL is upgrading the Sydney flight at end of year but in the mean time it all felt very Q, I’ll come back to this
cx amenities I did ask my flight was over 7 hours, however the flight had a stop over in sin so they said because the flight time on both legs are relatively short no amenities available, I think this further disappointed my cx experience.
jal-q
the check in staff were the most pleasant
jl, jq, ek/cx tie
the choreography of the jal staff at the boarding gate before boarding commenced was just so pleasant on the eyes never seen it from any other airline. now the ife and western food was below that of the other airlines but the attitude, politeness, respect of the staff more then made up for this, now is this purely a Japanese thing or is it a culture internal to jal or a combination. no improvement is needed in that department from jal from where I was sitting.
but the cabins are out dated especially our shorter trip hk-nrt the j seats seemed like something qf may have had 12-15 years ago (one thing everyone had their window shades down for take off and staff didn't ask to put them up???) I will go as far as jq seats were in another world a better world, and qf domestic j seats you know the ones the out dated ones that still don't even have personal ife those seats are better size wise (at least jal had personal ife in the form of the tv in the armrest from the front row to the last J seat so you cannot watch tv during take off and landing.
jal-q
so below par equipment, obvious cost cut for amenities etc, only one route into Oz not like 20 years ago, further tie ups with fin air to access Europe and other code shares for other places, are they what Qantas are trying to become.....staff are great on jal and that overcomes the airlines inflight shortcomings so once again is this asias Q, Qantas has a lot of inflight shortcomings but is its Australianness making up for its short comings for us, just like jal staff are making up for jal present shortcomings.
i think because of the lack of information on jal from the jal facebook page to whats on this forum and just generally when you compare how much info is available about qf, cx, ek on their inflight products my expectations were non existent, i didn't know if they should be as high as cx or closer to qf or down to the low expectations of jq, so due to nil expectations i found them better then cx, and more pleasant then ek was this time (high expectations of cx have come from my mother and her experience 30 years ago and these forums aff, ausbt etc, ek same, aff, ausbt and more so our first flight with them NZ to OZ last year in F they didn't live up to F the second time around albeit a much longer flight too, to be honest the J flight with ek was a way better experience.
meals for western taste
ek
cx
jq
jl
jal
jal western meals were very Asian inspired, but i guess when you have an Asian meal on jq it is very western but cx found the happy medium for Asian/western choice
onto hotels as we said above we said honeymoon and it came with rewards
cake at 75% of hotels (now im not a cake eater but from the time the cake was served on our wedding night to the last cake-ish treat served on jal at 6am in the morning i ate more cake in three weeks then i had eaten in the last 10 years
so Conrad Tokyo cake and a next day up grade of room (fully booked with points) the tokyo conrads came with rubber duck for the bath tub and a lil teddie bear in the room (my 2yr old son loves the duck cant stop making it squeak, cat now wants to bite everyone due to the high pitch noise it just makes her bite)
intercontinental HK no cake but upgraded room it was one of the bigger hotel rooms ive stayed in, and very pleasant surprise as i stay ihg maybe 10-20% of the time Hilton gets the 75% share (so I would say honeymoon and being there only one night worked to the advantage here)
Hilton Dubai no upgrade but rose petals up the stairs and on the bed, ballons, cake and sparkling juice (muslim country), and message on the bed and towel art
side note Dubai and Maldives had men make up the rooms, culture shock.
Conrad Maldives no upgrade, final night there however a note and flowers on the bed and towel art
Conrad hk upgrade was a points booking only (first time i didn't pay one cent for a hotel stay, we ate out late afternoon and toped it off with the executive lounge before retiring to the room (actually I booked it about 2 hours before arriving at the hotel and was at the airport making the booking, also I noted in the booking a) honeymoon, b) we were just at the conrad maldives and they said we have to stay here, did that help with getting the room and lounge (obviously not enough time to get a cake or anything together like all the other hiltons/conrads we stayed)
now with the maldive people, they were really great people, we expected it with the japanese but didn’t know just how great they were, but we were very surprised by the maldives people we came into contact with, but is it a product of the hotels expectations or the people genuinely this accommodating (like that of pacific island nations) or does it come down to tourism being the back bone of the economy today so they must up hold a high standard, both cultures are as great as each other just in their own unique way
so on to dubai
we will go back to japan sooner rather then later, hong kong we just didn’t feel great about it, has it become to chinese? Was I expecting more england/australian based solely on its commonwealth connection? It was very hot so maybe I was troppo, I will go back there as well but not before japan
dubai, well we made it out of the as planned so no harm no foul, in the in-room guide that is in the hotel room it did read the law is woman to be covered head to toe etc etc, my wife was paranoid, however between the airport and checking into the hotel, we saw westerners holding hands, and woman coming out of the hotel and entering the hotel from the street wearing less then woman on a Saturday night at kings cross wear, so I asked the hotel what can we wear my wife is worried. He said you can wear whatever you want as long as your respectful towards the police and the traditional men of the culture, well for one what did that mean, avoid the police and traditionalist at all cost and if we come across such people do a 180 and don’t make any eye contact, and how would you define a traditional person??? Well its a country of contradictions because you read the magazines and they have the general public at bars etc wearing not much, and then you go to the shopping centers and they sell anything and everything, now how are you going to buy from victorias secrets and seriously uphold traditionalist muslim culture, or is it more a case of if you can’t beat the westerners accommodate them……up to a point and no one knows exactly where that line in the sand is and when it will be enforced beyond the line. But we did see traditional woman wearing black from head to toe swimming in the ocean with the westerners in bikinis
we did swim to she in a bikini as well
now I like grocery shopping in other countries, done so in NZ and Sth African, so in dubai did the same
loved the variety from other countries everything from fish to fresh produce to meat, the meat, well as with hong kong, and dubai, and the restaurants visited in japan and in maldives the meat was australian, lamb australian, and if not from OZ they came from NZ seldom from anywhere else. I had next to now steak on my trip (as I can get ozzie meat at home) except in dubai when we cooked for ourselves I bought australian steak and I have to say it would be better than most of the best steaks I can buy here at home, and better than most restaurants in Oz ive eaten steaks in, so we are definitely sending our best away, so want a good Ozzie fair dinkum steak ive just named four countries to buy it from. On aussie exports to the world, yogurt at the maldives hotel was from here.
So to sum up
Hotels exceeded expectations with the honeymoon word (and probably helped having status or any membership with them)
Honeymoon helped on most airlines to just get a lil extra.
Dubai was so hot dry heat that you only sweat if you in an enclosed area not air con, hong kong was hot where you sweat as soon as you go outside, the wife wants a japanese toilet (which is funny because our hotel at intercontinental in HK had a bidet the original style and she didn’t know what it was or what it was for and I said you know how you like the japan toilets so much, that’s the original way to do it go on use it, no she wasn’t interested she wanted the late 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century version all in one thing,
Cx was a disappointment
ek F was a disappointment J was not
jl exceeded the nil expectations
and jq exceded the low expectations the new plane probably helped
so in closing the only reason this trip went through so many countries and what not was because, well we all know how hard it is to redeem an award ticket in J or above with qff from where you are to pretty much directly where you want to be, but that wasn’t going to happen and we used it to our advantage, we went to countries that as a lil boy I said I would never go to ever and we loved it, we went to places for just an hour or two and made up our minds to never go there ever again, if not for the hard task of an award flight the honeymoon would have been pretty straight forward and not as exciting, the best part was we stayed in three countries before we got to the final destination and it just built it up that little bit more every step of the way
I mean I could have just gotten on to qantas fb page and carried on with one of these classics, ‘whats the point of having qantas points when I cant use them to fly business to los angles at christmas’. But qantas making it ‘hard’ is the best thing, you use other airlines and go to other places, I cant wait to build up enough points again to go to the US by flying up to asia and then from asia to la or dallas on different carriers again.
so without further adieu, I would like to finish off by thanking my many sponsors starting with of course
qantas/qff, without your funny award system I would have missed out on half the world
Nab qantas attached cc amex/visa combo by far and away the biggest contributer points wise
everyday rewards funneling my woolworth points into qff (the poor tasmanians)[when will flybuys hook up with velocity]
all other qff pts earnings, all the houses sold with lj hooker, places dined through qff, cars hired, hotels stayed at
heritage bank in combination with qantas cash card
hilton honours for making my hotel point redemptions possible
macquarie bank hilton cc for further points on top of my usual HH stays points and gold status (without you I only ever amount to silver HH)
beaurepairs tyres (even though you have ended your qff points which caused me to end our relationship)
and anyone else associated with qff that I have forgotten to mention
thankyou and I look forward to doing this all again in years to come with your help and support
sadly some flights did not live up to expectations (emirates F and Cathay J we are talking about you)
further some flights were above expectations (Jetstar 'j' )
all the hotels lived up to or beyond expectations (conrads or intercontinental and Hiltons where the hotels of choice)
and it did help to list honeymoon on all the hotel bookings (but also gold with Hilton and just basic ihg member)
japan airline by far and the way most pleasant to deal with from check-in to dismemberment.
so my vote based on expectations and realisation
staff from check in too hop off
JAL
J* (am I nostalgic or is it truth)
CX EK tie
IFE
EK
CX
JAL (lack of television programs, 90% of western content seemed to be movies, I don't like dedication 1.5hours to a movie just before I want to sleep)
J* (not enough content, it is almost a tie with JAL, if J* had more episodes, and movies, they would be ahead of JAL, but in saying that, if JAL had at least half seasons of popular US TV programs J* would be left for dead. But no way could either J airlines compete with cx let alone ek
lounge experience were as followed, however I think I missed some opportunities with not knowing or even thinking which lounges I could get into on an award ticket in J with Qantas sapphire.
first off was the lounge in cairns international, as I was on an award jq j ticket had no access, that was disappointing and I really assumed would have had access.
cx lounge in japan was very ordinary and the Qantas lounge there was not much better, only slightly, with regards to food offerings, kind of makes the Qantas domestic business lounge brisbane look good, seriously
cx lounge Taiwan had better food offering then the above lounges but was a dark not nice place
ek lounge HK was the best lounge so far visited, however was not up to the Auckland ek lounge and was hot (that's hong kong for you I guess) was this the beginning of my disappointed ek run???
ek business lounge Dubai was as busy as the Qantas business Brisbane lounge on any given week day.
the lounge in male (Maldives)ek flight was as bad as I thought a lounge could get, the biggest problem is its a third party lounge....second problem no alcohol, wait no alcohol is really the only problem any other short comings are just footnotes, the food was that unappetising I went to the burger king and paid $9US for a burger only (not meal) but I do have to say the burgers are better at hungry jac....eerrhh BURGER KING, HJ burgers didn't compare to this burger but after 7 days without a true take-away outlet did it just taste that good because I went without for so long?,
sad side note every country I spent 24 hours in I managed to get maccas, sadly couldn't find at the male airport they do have coffee club there though
sri lanka lounge once again third party, and above I said I thought a lounge couldn't get worse, well.... yes this lounge had alcohol, however the food I didn't even eat (at least I ate food in the male lounge) why did I not eat it, because the chicken was not too hot and not too cold and defiantly was not just right. it was barely warm that's not good, so I tried the rice and noodles, nope tasted and smelt bad, the wife went past some chicken puff things she said they smelt off. however heaps of people came into the lounge after us and ate up. all I was thinking is extremely strong stomach (I like to think I can stomach a lot however I wasn't risking things on my honeymoon) and I was thinking don't be in J on my next flight.
side note keeping in sri lanka, it takes three sets of security to get onto your flight, one security to get into the airport (Australia everyone gets into the airport without hassle) security to go from the public area to the check in area so the worse part is you cant go through this checkpoint until your flight starts check-in and they check if you do have a flight to check into, so you cant take family to the check-in section, and then before you board the aircraft you go through another check point. so between entering the airport and checking into your flight you have this small area with about 10 shops (that doesn't include currency exchanges which there are about another 10) it makes the cairns domestic airport look great for shopping/passing time. also they have the old school arrival/departure signs you know the ones you only see in old movies from the 80’s/70’s.
also not happy with sri lanka when the immigrations officer takes the wifes passport holds it in the air picture showing to other colleagues speaking in native luggage and then laughing.....really, sorry sri lanka your off the list.
so getting back to lounge.....could I have used the sri Lankan airlines lounge??
jal lounge in HK was again third party, evident by the looonnnggg line out the front and signs saying you can use asia miles to buy your way in (not in those words exactly), among other methods I suppose. however jal did have their own section way to the back of the lounge, but if you wanted warm food you would have to join the line of 90% payers/or other means, 10% jal invites, and my wife was the only woman in the jal lounge that's what she informed me as we were leaving, and when I cast my eyes around the room she was right (apart from the hostess)
so I guess could we have used the cx lounges??? Qantas lounge was shut at the time
so third party lounges have been disappointing overall.
jal lounge japan was really good, as you would expect it being on their home turf. the bad the dining area does get so full they rope it off until it empties a bit, the other bad the food would run out so quick and take a bit of time to replenish, wife would always come back with stuff I wanted then I would go up and it would be gone, then she goes up gets more for herself by the time I go up after she walked across the room with the food and I walk across the room to get what shes having all gone again.
anyway positives.....as it was our honeymoon I cheekily asked every airline for an upgrade or something to make the trip more special....I say cheekily because on every flight we were in the highest cabin on offer and they were just award tickets after all.
so from japan airlines (which help their cause to woo me) they came to me and my wife in the lounge about 40min after we entered the lounge and we had also changed seating areas, with a couple of coughtails and a sign (a sign how often does this happen that they have a sign made ready to go) but it was a great surprise, also gave us a little plastic bag with personalised notes to each and lollies and chocolates in the bag, so my question, how did they know we had entered the lounge (from boarding pass being scanned) so was it noted for the lounge staff to see, and with the long time between coming in and being presented how did they recognised we were the couple, anyway as I mention above we asked all airlines for something
so jetstar im not sure if I asked for anything honeymoon related specifically but I do know I requested seats to be assigned and am sure I said it was our honeymoon(as the online system just wasn't working to do it) but when on the flight when the host found out we were on our honeymoon due to general conversation with him he said come and ask for as much as you want through the whole flight.
on our j flight with ek they came and took a picture of us in our seats then disappeared, then 10min later came back with the picture in a card and champagne moet (no F on offer on this flight) and a cake big enough to feed four.
on jal as mentioned before in the lounge, well 45min out from Sydney 6 am in the morning after breakfast, here they come with a meringue tasting donut looking treat and really premium ice-cream (better then the ice cream served on flight) plus a couple of small bottles of bubbly that was the biggest surprise just because they had already been in the lounge to surprise us. sadly after all the lounges we had been in, all the F/J flights, all the pre take off drinks, all the hotel lounges access, all the breakfast buffet bubbly, I was all champagne out but I still finished my bottle off and most of the wifes too and they made a flower bouquet out of tissue paper for the wife so we could take it off the flight
on cx ..... yep
so JL, EK, J* then cx for the honeymoon acknowledgement really they don’t deserve a mention
speaking lowly of cx
amenities kits
we got one in F hk-Dubai emirates that was a given
we got one on jq shockingly, I say shockingly because it was jq (is this part of the reason I had a better flight then expected with them because the expectations were so low and they went past my expectations, and is this why Im so disappointed with cx.
jal well not an amenties kit as such, you just had access to most things in a kit, slippers in seat pocket, eye shades handed out, as was cardigan/pj's top, toothbrush/paste in toilet with mouthwash if you require.
no moisturising cream or cologne in bathrooms
is JAL the Qantas of asia, is JAL what Qantas is trying to become I know JAL is upgrading the Sydney flight at end of year but in the mean time it all felt very Q, I’ll come back to this
cx amenities I did ask my flight was over 7 hours, however the flight had a stop over in sin so they said because the flight time on both legs are relatively short no amenities available, I think this further disappointed my cx experience.
jal-q
the check in staff were the most pleasant
jl, jq, ek/cx tie
the choreography of the jal staff at the boarding gate before boarding commenced was just so pleasant on the eyes never seen it from any other airline. now the ife and western food was below that of the other airlines but the attitude, politeness, respect of the staff more then made up for this, now is this purely a Japanese thing or is it a culture internal to jal or a combination. no improvement is needed in that department from jal from where I was sitting.
but the cabins are out dated especially our shorter trip hk-nrt the j seats seemed like something qf may have had 12-15 years ago (one thing everyone had their window shades down for take off and staff didn't ask to put them up???) I will go as far as jq seats were in another world a better world, and qf domestic j seats you know the ones the out dated ones that still don't even have personal ife those seats are better size wise (at least jal had personal ife in the form of the tv in the armrest from the front row to the last J seat so you cannot watch tv during take off and landing.
jal-q
so below par equipment, obvious cost cut for amenities etc, only one route into Oz not like 20 years ago, further tie ups with fin air to access Europe and other code shares for other places, are they what Qantas are trying to become.....staff are great on jal and that overcomes the airlines inflight shortcomings so once again is this asias Q, Qantas has a lot of inflight shortcomings but is its Australianness making up for its short comings for us, just like jal staff are making up for jal present shortcomings.
i think because of the lack of information on jal from the jal facebook page to whats on this forum and just generally when you compare how much info is available about qf, cx, ek on their inflight products my expectations were non existent, i didn't know if they should be as high as cx or closer to qf or down to the low expectations of jq, so due to nil expectations i found them better then cx, and more pleasant then ek was this time (high expectations of cx have come from my mother and her experience 30 years ago and these forums aff, ausbt etc, ek same, aff, ausbt and more so our first flight with them NZ to OZ last year in F they didn't live up to F the second time around albeit a much longer flight too, to be honest the J flight with ek was a way better experience.
meals for western taste
ek
cx
jq
jl
jal
jal western meals were very Asian inspired, but i guess when you have an Asian meal on jq it is very western but cx found the happy medium for Asian/western choice
onto hotels as we said above we said honeymoon and it came with rewards
cake at 75% of hotels (now im not a cake eater but from the time the cake was served on our wedding night to the last cake-ish treat served on jal at 6am in the morning i ate more cake in three weeks then i had eaten in the last 10 years
so Conrad Tokyo cake and a next day up grade of room (fully booked with points) the tokyo conrads came with rubber duck for the bath tub and a lil teddie bear in the room (my 2yr old son loves the duck cant stop making it squeak, cat now wants to bite everyone due to the high pitch noise it just makes her bite)
intercontinental HK no cake but upgraded room it was one of the bigger hotel rooms ive stayed in, and very pleasant surprise as i stay ihg maybe 10-20% of the time Hilton gets the 75% share (so I would say honeymoon and being there only one night worked to the advantage here)
Hilton Dubai no upgrade but rose petals up the stairs and on the bed, ballons, cake and sparkling juice (muslim country), and message on the bed and towel art
side note Dubai and Maldives had men make up the rooms, culture shock.
Conrad Maldives no upgrade, final night there however a note and flowers on the bed and towel art
Conrad hk upgrade was a points booking only (first time i didn't pay one cent for a hotel stay, we ate out late afternoon and toped it off with the executive lounge before retiring to the room (actually I booked it about 2 hours before arriving at the hotel and was at the airport making the booking, also I noted in the booking a) honeymoon, b) we were just at the conrad maldives and they said we have to stay here, did that help with getting the room and lounge (obviously not enough time to get a cake or anything together like all the other hiltons/conrads we stayed)
now with the maldive people, they were really great people, we expected it with the japanese but didn’t know just how great they were, but we were very surprised by the maldives people we came into contact with, but is it a product of the hotels expectations or the people genuinely this accommodating (like that of pacific island nations) or does it come down to tourism being the back bone of the economy today so they must up hold a high standard, both cultures are as great as each other just in their own unique way
so on to dubai
we will go back to japan sooner rather then later, hong kong we just didn’t feel great about it, has it become to chinese? Was I expecting more england/australian based solely on its commonwealth connection? It was very hot so maybe I was troppo, I will go back there as well but not before japan
dubai, well we made it out of the as planned so no harm no foul, in the in-room guide that is in the hotel room it did read the law is woman to be covered head to toe etc etc, my wife was paranoid, however between the airport and checking into the hotel, we saw westerners holding hands, and woman coming out of the hotel and entering the hotel from the street wearing less then woman on a Saturday night at kings cross wear, so I asked the hotel what can we wear my wife is worried. He said you can wear whatever you want as long as your respectful towards the police and the traditional men of the culture, well for one what did that mean, avoid the police and traditionalist at all cost and if we come across such people do a 180 and don’t make any eye contact, and how would you define a traditional person??? Well its a country of contradictions because you read the magazines and they have the general public at bars etc wearing not much, and then you go to the shopping centers and they sell anything and everything, now how are you going to buy from victorias secrets and seriously uphold traditionalist muslim culture, or is it more a case of if you can’t beat the westerners accommodate them……up to a point and no one knows exactly where that line in the sand is and when it will be enforced beyond the line. But we did see traditional woman wearing black from head to toe swimming in the ocean with the westerners in bikinis
we did swim to she in a bikini as well
now I like grocery shopping in other countries, done so in NZ and Sth African, so in dubai did the same
loved the variety from other countries everything from fish to fresh produce to meat, the meat, well as with hong kong, and dubai, and the restaurants visited in japan and in maldives the meat was australian, lamb australian, and if not from OZ they came from NZ seldom from anywhere else. I had next to now steak on my trip (as I can get ozzie meat at home) except in dubai when we cooked for ourselves I bought australian steak and I have to say it would be better than most of the best steaks I can buy here at home, and better than most restaurants in Oz ive eaten steaks in, so we are definitely sending our best away, so want a good Ozzie fair dinkum steak ive just named four countries to buy it from. On aussie exports to the world, yogurt at the maldives hotel was from here.
So to sum up
Hotels exceeded expectations with the honeymoon word (and probably helped having status or any membership with them)
Honeymoon helped on most airlines to just get a lil extra.
Dubai was so hot dry heat that you only sweat if you in an enclosed area not air con, hong kong was hot where you sweat as soon as you go outside, the wife wants a japanese toilet (which is funny because our hotel at intercontinental in HK had a bidet the original style and she didn’t know what it was or what it was for and I said you know how you like the japan toilets so much, that’s the original way to do it go on use it, no she wasn’t interested she wanted the late 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century version all in one thing,
Cx was a disappointment
ek F was a disappointment J was not
jl exceeded the nil expectations
and jq exceded the low expectations the new plane probably helped
so in closing the only reason this trip went through so many countries and what not was because, well we all know how hard it is to redeem an award ticket in J or above with qff from where you are to pretty much directly where you want to be, but that wasn’t going to happen and we used it to our advantage, we went to countries that as a lil boy I said I would never go to ever and we loved it, we went to places for just an hour or two and made up our minds to never go there ever again, if not for the hard task of an award flight the honeymoon would have been pretty straight forward and not as exciting, the best part was we stayed in three countries before we got to the final destination and it just built it up that little bit more every step of the way
I mean I could have just gotten on to qantas fb page and carried on with one of these classics, ‘whats the point of having qantas points when I cant use them to fly business to los angles at christmas’. But qantas making it ‘hard’ is the best thing, you use other airlines and go to other places, I cant wait to build up enough points again to go to the US by flying up to asia and then from asia to la or dallas on different carriers again.
so without further adieu, I would like to finish off by thanking my many sponsors starting with of course
qantas/qff, without your funny award system I would have missed out on half the world
Nab qantas attached cc amex/visa combo by far and away the biggest contributer points wise
everyday rewards funneling my woolworth points into qff (the poor tasmanians)[when will flybuys hook up with velocity]
all other qff pts earnings, all the houses sold with lj hooker, places dined through qff, cars hired, hotels stayed at
heritage bank in combination with qantas cash card
hilton honours for making my hotel point redemptions possible
macquarie bank hilton cc for further points on top of my usual HH stays points and gold status (without you I only ever amount to silver HH)
beaurepairs tyres (even though you have ended your qff points which caused me to end our relationship)
and anyone else associated with qff that I have forgotten to mention
thankyou and I look forward to doing this all again in years to come with your help and support
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