OOL-AKL, business class on 737-800:
Rather chaotic boarding due to two pax with severe disabilities. I felt sorry for them but also for the crew who had to handle the situation. Once we were finally on board, everything went the usual way. The airplane was actually quite full for a trans Tasman: Due to the long weekend in New Zealand and the quickly deteriorating weather over here I seem to not have been the only one in need for those last rays of warm Queensland sun- and what a glorious weekend it was indeed!
We were welcomed with a choice of water or champagne- needless to say I went for the latter. Small bottles of water and NZ immigration cards were already waiting at the seat. This crew was very quick and it didn't take too long after take off until "dinner" was served. It sounded odd at that point because it was just around 1:30pm in Queensland and still bright and sunny outside. However, the flight was extremely fast at just over 2 and a half hours and given the time change, we very quickly ended up in the dark.
Unfortunately, the dinner choices was the same pork dish that I had just a few weeks ago, a vegetable Korma (which seems to be a word that the flight attendant seemed to think no one knows so she always added "That's a curry, kind of" to it) or the usual boring as cold salad with boiled egg on top. It did strike me as odd that out of three choices, two were vegetarian. And if that is the case, then surely one of those two could at least be proper Vegan to be accessible for those passengers as well, no? But alas, both were vegetarian but including cream, eggs etc. so only an option appealing to true vegetarians. I found that a really odd choice of options and needless to say, everyone had the pork up until they had run out of it in row 3 which just sucks if you sit there- those pax didn't have happy faces, believe me that! As I had the pork already last time, I asked what veggies are in the Korma hoping for a mix of the usual carrots, peas and cauliflower but unfortunately, she started with "So, there is pumpkin and..." I politely interrupted at this point and ordered the pork again as I already had to encounter Qantas' bizarre love for, yikes, pumpkin on the way out. And as someone who's born in German, who could say no to a pork dish with red cabbage at the side?
As last time, the dish was very tasty and the cut of meat even quite good for an airplane dish. There was a choice of seeded or sourdough bread and an extremely rich chocolate cake with chocolate filing and more chocolate on top in the little box. Just in case, you didn't get enough chocolate, there was also the usually Lind ball to finish off your chocolate feast. To my delight, the red wine happened to be NOT a Shiraz but rather a Cabernet Sauvignon and by Dandelion even which is one of the better Aussie wine brands featured on Qantas. As expected, it was very yummy and given that this way I had organised for my better half to come pick me up from the airport, I could happily enjoy several top ups.
A bit later I asked to go back to champagne but to my disappointment, they had run out after just one more glass. I was offered more wine and given I was now back on the white, I decided to give the Chardonnay a try. I unfortunately don't remember the brand now but it was one of those very typical Chardonnays that you would never mistake for a different grape variety. My partner hates those, probably because he grew up in country Australia and was raised on some not so good examples of these wines so I don't get to drink these very often. Given he was not around, I even more enjoyed finishing off that bottle just before the crew got ready for landing.
All in all a nice experience, quite intimate given the small 737 which is sometimes a good thing with this plane. To my surprise, the crew on this plane was actually Kiwi Jetconnect staff so good to see that some of them are also back in the air again. No one was happy to arrive back in Auckland in pouring rain and about half the degrees from what we had on departure at Coolangatta.