The Big Personal Trip

[simongr]

The Big Personal Trip

Most of you know me now. You know where I go, how I like to travel, some of my personal foibles, my appetite for a little travel … digression now and then. You know that I travel exclusively for work (some of my detractors think how I travel for business essentially amounts to fraud – but I shall let the FTers make their own comments). When I travel places I tend not to do much sightseeing as I would rather enjoy the sights with people who are special to me rather than just people who happened to respond to advertisements for job from the same organisation.

There however has been a thread running through my travels (aside from the ongoing quest for the perfect G&T) and that is the build up of points for The Big Personal Trip (BPT). An opportunity for me to take mrssimongr with me somewhere and I don’t just mean to [insert name of mall here].

When I was in the UK in 2007 the clan gr met at the Sherwood Forest Visitors’ centre to surprise my Grandmother (tip only ever do that once – twice might induce a coronary). Before that my parents had asked if all the family could meet the following July in the Nottingham Centre Parcs to celebrate their 25th Wedding Anniversary and dadsimongr ‘s 65th Birthday. Initially this had seemed like a decent plan. That was until we all met in Nottingham in July with temperatures around 17 degrees and a mini-typhoon soaking the earth so deep that I was concerned that the magma at the core might start to cool.

A vote was taken and unanimously passed that instead of freezing cold and wet England the event would be held in the warm and dry (except for the pool) delights of Cyprus

Upon my return to Oz I communicated the decision to mrssimongr only to be told that she had been looking forward to going to the UK as she had not been back since we came to Oz in 2000. So now we have two stops on the journey planned – the UK and Cyprus. This smelled to me like an opportunity for a mini RTW trip. So some further negotiations later and I added my second favourite place to the itinerary – New York, New York.

Then the “fun” began – booking a RTW trip to the US, UK and Cyprus in J for two pax during the crossover between the Australian school holidays and the beginning of the UK school holidays. As an amusing complication the booking was going to be made whilst I was travelling between Oz, Cyprus, the UK and NY. The Game was foot!

So began the sequence of 5AM calls to the EXP desk in Dallas checking for flights to be loaded. We started with CX to HKG connecting directly to a CX flight to LAX and AA to NY. The next day I got a call saying that the connection was illegal so I had to overnight in HKG and take a direct HKG-JFK flight – this would sadly push me into a higher award bracket but at least I was in NY. A week later and flights were loaded for the JFK-LHR flights on AA – no problems there. At this point I got very lucky indeed. The “rules” are that an award can’t be held open for more than 15 days but somehow I managed to get them to defer to the ticketing until I could finish the trip. Another week and more calls and I managed to get to Cyprus. Another stroke of luck and the booking was still open. The final stages were in sight. One more week and we are on our way from Cyprus to HKG via London and the trusty BA663 to BA27 connection (for me that is almost as common as some people flying SYD-MEL) but then BANG we are stuck in HKG. Two problems – absolutely no J availability HKG-SYD and due to the stopover in HKG I am now a little short of points.

I can see plenty of availability in F SIN-SYD so I take a punt and close the booking with the plan to buy J HKG-SIN and get some other bookings SIN-SYD when I have restocked my points.

So 300,000 points lighter and a paltry $500 in taxes/fuel surcharges we have almost a trip. I book the Waldorf=Astoria on HHonors points (280,000 for 7 nights), the Waldorf Hilton in London (40,000) points, and the Conrad for the overnight in HKG (40,000).

Time passes and my points balances creep up and I am ready to book the final flights. Annoyingly I have points in AA and QF so I have to book an AAward HKG-SIN for mrssimongr and me ($100 and 60,000 points), a one-way award in F using QF points SIN-SYD for mrssimongr ($250 and 90,000 points) and a return AAward SIN-SYD-SIN ($150 and 90,000 miles) for me. I lock in three nights at the Conrad (120,000) points and we finally have it:

SYD-HKG overnight
HKG-NYC 7 nights sightseeing
NYC-LON 6 days hard driving to see friends
LON-CYP 8 days family time and relaxing
CYP-HKG 3 days recovering
HKG-SYD HOME

All for around 540,000 FF pints/miles and 500,000 HHonors points!

So all we need to do now is wait for the fateful day to come when my driver knocks on the door and we have the usual conversation:

Driver - So simongr where are you off to today?
Simongr – well it’s funny you should ask…

Next stop the SYD F lounge and mrssimongr’s first ever internal J flight – like I said in the unfinished report – this is going to be one hell of a ride!

 

[simongr]

The Game is Afoot

Journey – SYD-HKG
Flight no. – CX100
Class – Business
Seat –
Aircraft reg: BLAH

After over months of planning I can’t actually believe that the journey is here. As expected we (she) has a LOT more baggage than I normally travel with. Primarily for two reasons - firstly I have checked the weather in the UK and it is about as cold in summer at the moment as it is in Sydney in the Winter so we need to pack our winter clothes. Secondly over half of one of the suit cases (implication being that instead of hand luggage only we are starting the journey with more than one suitcase) is full of gifts for my family and our friends’ children in the UK. I have bought a new travel toy – luggage scales – probably completely useless but at least I can be more confident of luggage allowances (more on that later).

The day before the first flight the hounds are despatched to my in-laws (with their daily food allowance weighed and bagged for them) and we plan to have a relaxing evening getting prepared for the journey. All that goes out the window as my parents ask if we can bring the CD from our wedding so they can play it at their Wedding Anniversary party (along with the other kids’ music). I rifle through our boxed CDs (all music goes straight from CD into the mac now so only play the CDs once) to no avail and then mrssimongr calls the friend that made the CD for us – big mistake. $650 later we have two tickets to see Bon Jovi at Maddison Square Garden on our last night in New York – hmm let’s start the holiday spending as we mean to go shall we? At this point mrssimongr advises that I need to leave space in the luggage for her boxes from Tiffany’s … anyone need a kidney – going cheap!

The car is there exactly on time and we have a “you beaut” run to the airport over the bridge rather than through the tunnel as mrssimongr doesn’t like tunnels – all up 40 mins from [insert name of suburb] to the airport.

It looks like CX have upgraded their check in facilities (not quite up to the QF standard) so don’t feel so much like second class citizens. The check in agent is great and checks our bags through to NY (we have 18 hours in HKG) and reallocates us toe-to-toe to be side-by-side in the new CX J herringbone arrangement (although in retrospect seats further forward might have been better). Mrssimongr is starting to relax a little, as nervous flier the friendly staff make a big difference to her.

As we are their pretty early it is straight to the lounge to see if mrssimongr can get a spa treatment. We aren’t given any ePass cards for immigration/security and are advised to just show our J boarding passes Surprisingly this does actually work and as mrssimongr has been well drilled about security we are through quick smart with no hiccups.

We speed through duty free (where I think I spot the “short cut” to the F lounge but as I am not 100% sure and we have heaps of hand luggage I just take the normal route) and shortly after walking through the SYD building site and pushing our way past the swarm of children we are walking into the F lounge. Mrssimongr is stunned from the moment she walks through the sliding doors and sees the living wall. I had shown her pictures before but I don’t think she was really prepared for it. I know we take the lounges for granted and some people even equate them to bus stops but really when non frequent travellers see this and hear about it, it is like someone has stepped through the looking glass.

We are straight down to the spa to book a treatment for mrssimongr and then it’s back to the restaurant for a minute steak (not as my-newt as the one in MEL) and mrssimongr has the duck papardelle which is stunning. The new Champagne that they have in the lounge is fantastic – so a great start so far

After lunch mrssimongr heads to the spa and I head to the tourist refund scheme. A quick 10 minutes later I am back in the lounge writing up some notes and sipping champagne. Mrssimongr comes out of the spa almost in shock – I believe that is a positive reaction to the spa! What I was not aware of was that the inside of the spa is covered completely by living walls. The camera phone photos are great.

Finally we have to drag ourselves out of the lounge and get onboard the “meerkat express”… As I said earlier we have the new herringbone layout in J on CX. What I find amusing is that every few minutes someone pops their head up over the divides between the seats, looks around and then drops down again – very much like meerkats.

I manage to force down the Deutz on take off but quickly switch to a little too strong G&T followed by the actually quite average wines with dinner. The appetiser is an unappetising prawn salad followed by a rather disappointing lamb dish. After dinner I settle down for a few movies on the massive TV (mrssimongr actually remarks that the IFE is actually perhaps a little too large :shock whilst throwing back the delightful cheeses. I catch up on Rambo (massively ultraviolent gorefest), Spiderwick Chronicles (I am sure there is a plot in there somewhere) and The Butterfly Effect (spectacularly depressing but I have been trying to see this for ages).

A little snooze post dinner is followed by a great mid flight snack of fried rice and BBQ pork. Finally we are on descent into HKG for an absolute dogs age but we have an absolutely gossamer landing – possibly the smoothest landing I have ever experienced. On arrival the back of J cabin seat pays dividends as we disembark pretty quickly due to the dual aerobridges being used.

We are through the airport pretty quickly – well as quickly as you can be if you arrive at gate 71. The HKIAFV card does it’s magic business again and we are out to get the prebooked car to the airport – which does not seem to actually be prebooked. Finally when everyone denies knowledge I go to the Conrad desk and a car is arranged in about 2 minutes (I subsequently find out that after an initial booking for the car they emailed me to change the price due to fuel price movements and as I did not refax the form to them the car wass unbooked – oops).

A fairly tired mrssimongr and simongr climb into the waiting merc and it’s off to the Conrad.

 

[simongr]

The Happiest Place on Earth? A flying visit

A very tired mrssimongr and I arrive at the Conrad and mrssimongr is stunned at the grandeur and beauty just in the entrance of the hotel. Also stunned that the Exec floor staff remember me at check in and welcome me back.

We crash around midnight local time and wake around 8AM and head up for a relaxing breakfast. As we only really have half a day in Hong Kong we decide to just take a stroll around Pacific Place where I stumble on an amazing bookshop that I haven’t seen before – they actually sell cooking books from El Bulli (number one rated restaurant in the world) – although the size (almost A3 paper size and about 3 kgs) and price (HK$3,000) are a little off putting. We find a book on Ikebana flower arranging for my mum and more kids books for my nephews – start as we mean to go on with this shopping vacation.

On the way back to the hotel (after I have managed to stop mrssimongr drooling over HK$5,000 shoes) we bump into a colleague from the Sydney office who is also here on vacation – small world!

We have a very relaxing lunch at the Conrad and mrssimongr has the Fukien rice (which becomes an amusing joke for the rest of the vacation) and finally it is back up to the room to pack the new purchases. I have booked a car from the Conrad to the airport and Striling Moss gets us there in about 25 minutes :shock: which leaves plenty of time to show mrssimongr the Wing and Pier.

Not much of a visit to the Conrad but mrssimongr loved it and can’t wait to be back – one very satisfied mrssimongr and we are only day one of the trip!

 

[simongr]

This thing really has enough fuel to fly this far?

Journey – HKG-JFK
Flight no. – CX840
Class – Business
Seat – 25/26K

Mrssimongr is again stunned by the F benefits of travel as she checks in at the personal counter in HKG. As our bags are tagged through already (and hopefully somewhere in HKIA being RFId) we just have our hand luggage which is then tagged as we have two pieces each (although they don’t tag mrssimongr’s as she has bag + handbag as opposed to my rollaboard + backpack).

Although the check in process is great the new security screening is a bit of a mess and made worse by some status/biz traveller literally pushing past us whilst on his phone – don’t you hate those types

As ever for reference the HKIAFV card works a treat (I should really stop commenting on that otherwise people might think it’s a good idea) and as we are on our way to NY I manage to persuade mrssimongr that we might as well just go to the Pier as we are departing from that end of the terminal.


I jump online using the iPod and chat to my sister about the plans for the Cyprus event whilst sipping Champagne – this really is a tough life. We have a little lite supper in the Haven and head to the gate to board. Annoyingly there is some delay in boarding but soon we are onboard ready for this 15 hour flight.

[aside]

I have made a rookie mistake on this flight with CX seat selection again. Because I am comfortable calling QF for preallocation of seats and I can do BA and AA on line I always forget to call CX to pick my seats and rely on my status to get forward seats. Sadly this is not the case and we are again down the back of J.

If I do much more flying I really must think about CX and seating a little more carefully. If I was certain of getting new J I definitely would go back to flying on CX more due to the quality of this seat for a single flier. Admittedly it isn’t exactly awful for two people travelling together.

[/aside]

Dinner is fairly reasonable with a decent duck starter and a nice chicken curry for main. The cheeses are not a patch on the SYD-HKG cheeses and the wine selection is not stellar. I switch to TV on the iPod as the movie selection seems almost a little reduced

I manage about 4 – 5 hours of sleep after dinner and wake whilst mrssimongr is still sleeping so it is more iPod TV and annoyingly a warm beer! Having switched to PJs (QF F) before take off I decide to switch to regular clothes before dinner service and so does mrssimongr. She gets stuck behind the food trolley after having changed in the loos at exactly the wrong time.

One thing I have noticed is how hot the cabin is A little too toasty for my liking. I decide to skip the main element of the refreshment and opt instead for the cheese which are a great improvement on earlier

As we begin to think about the fact that we will shortly be in NY mrssimongr really finally starts to get excited about being in NY. We land with a slightly less gossamer landing than in HKG and I am sure it is almost 30 mins between hitting the deck and disembarkation! Conversely after some great walking pace by mrssimongr through JFK to stay ahead of the crowds for immigration the immigration process is fast and painless! I think it is only 7 minutes from hitting the queue to being in the baggage area.

Our bags are out around numbers 24 and 25 which isn’t too bad. Bags in tow we fight through the throng of Jitney drivers and find my Towncar driver waiting – phew. IT is only when we actually get to the car that it finally hits home to mrssimongr that she really is in the US when she sees the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car!

 

[simongr]

The Conrad is beautiful but the Waldorf is Grand

An agonisingly slow drive out of JFK is followed by a great drive into Manhattan right past one of my favourite icons – the World Fair Towers as used in Men In Black. I realise at this point that this the first time in ages that I have arrived into the US via JFK as I am often coming from Asia and fly something like xx_-dfw/ord-lga.

We arrive into the hotel at around 23:30 and mrssimongr is stunned again – total disbelief at where we are staying. We are actually dropped at the Waldorf Towers and check in their and walk through the lobby to find our room (I actually miss the Diamond reception that I should have used).

The room is much bigger than I was expecting (phew) and more importantly mrssimongr loves it – she is almost in tears and is still shaking her head in disbelief.

As I am wide awake (and as usual after landing in NY I am super hyper) I suggest a little walk up to see Tiffany’s (which is the best time to see it – when it’s closed ) and then we get back to the hotel, grab a quick drink and get to bed around 2AM – we are really on holidays!

A slightly restless night has us awake fairly early and we get to begin the massive week:

Wed – Meet my boss to collect some tickets for the baseball, meet my boss’s boss (who tells mrssimongr to shop till drops and the company will arrange shipping back to Oz for us – not appropriate use of company resources the Internal Auditor in me thinks). Then it’s off to Tiffany’s for the official first visit (and first purchases). A quick trip back to the hotel and it’s off to the Bronx for a Yankees Game. Great fun for both of us (apart from having to dump a backpack (empty) that it seems is not approved of). We get back to the hotel around 5:30PM with a plan of having room service after dinner but wake up around 7AM the next day!

Thu – A quick trip to the Empire State Building, the Comic Shop (some critical gaps filled), Tiffany’s (again) is followed by lunch with some work colleagues (one of them is leaving) and an evening of Spamalot – one of the funniest most brilliant musicals I have seen. Dinner is some M+Ms at the show – seems like NY is not going to be a gastronomic feast!

Fri – Another early start sees us on our way to Liberty Island, Ground Zero and Bloomingdales. Another quick stop at another comic shop and then finally a decent dinner at Montparnasse – one of my favourite restaurants in NY.

Sat – Finally a late start. We head off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is nothing like I expect – it is a true museum rather than an art gallery. Sadly the camera battery dies fairly so we only have some pics of the Egyptian exhibition. We had a wonderful lunch in the Piazza bar – much better than I was expecting.

After strolling on from there we headed off to the “Superheroes and Fashion” exhibition – obviously my slight inclination towards comic books something of a driver for this. Now I am not a religious person but what happened next was close to a divine moment. For context I have a near complete collection of the core Superman titles since the Crisis on Infinite Earth redefined DC Comics in 1986 – so you could say I am something of a Superman fan. As we walked into the exhibition we realised that we were entering the end of the exhibition. As I walked in, much to mrssimongr’s surprise I stopped dead in my tracks as I could not believe what was in front of me – a copy of the first ever Superman comic – Action Comics #1. If you are not a comic book fan it is hard to explain what exactly this means to me. For mrssimongr it would be akin to seeing a Monet and for others looking at the Grand Canyon. I had never expected to see one of these in my life (for context again the current resale value of one of these is estimated to be US$1million) and it was about 12 inches in front of me. I quite literally could have just stood and stared at it for hours – and I all I could see was the cover. I still get a lump in my throat just thinking about it!

Photography was banned but I only found out after I got a pic

From the Met it was back to the hotel and dinner in Central Park. We got a cab up to the park and then a horse and carriage through the park to the restaurant – well almost to the restaurant. As Bon Jovi were giving a free concert in the Park we had to walk about half the way.

The food was nice but not stellar at the Boat House but the location is awe inspiring – right in the midst of the park looking down towards mid town – absolutely fantastic.

We took a pedal cab back to the hotel which itself was just great fun (completely touristy ) although when he went two blocks the wrong I did feel a tad guilty.

Sun – Another later start is followed by a cab down to SoHo for lunch with an old work colleague again at Balthazar (I am creature of habit if you hadn’t realised) which is really nice. Unlike last time I was here I managed to eat all of brunch but as it is a little early I can’t have a beer with my meal

After that mrssimongr gets to go to Rachel Ashwell’s Shabby Chic store which she is very excited about. She manages to get a few things but I don’t think the four poster bed will keep under the luggage allowance so we have to pass on that.

I make a quick stop to the Apple store and dodge the 3 hour queue that is dedicated to the iPhone!

The afternoon is fairly relaxing as we prepare to go out to New Jersey for dinner with my boss. It is quite a long car ride out there through some not wonderful places on the way. Some nice canapés are consumed before we have a little drive around his suburb – some of the houses are absolutely massive – beyond mansions – almost stately homes! The dinner is great (which makes three nice dinners in a row now) and the finishing touch is nice.

We both sleep most of the way back to the hotel as we know tomorrow could be daunting.

Mon- A fairly early start leads us to some serious shopping in Bloomingdales and Saks (mrssimongr prefers Bloomingdales to Saks – as do I) where I pick up some brilliant new kitchen knives from Wusthof.

It’s back to the hotel after lunch in Bloomingdales for a little rest before Bon Jovi at Madison Square Garden. The queue to get into the area is a farce but as we have allocated seats this doesn’t stress me… too much. The seats are truly amazing – about 20 rows back. Now I am not a huge Bon Jovi fan but the spectacle is great. I am in charge of camera work being taller than mrssimongr and I don’t need to concentrate too much on the concert.

About half way through mrssimongr sees them setting up a little platform about half way down the arena. She knows from seeing them in Sydney that John Bon Jovi will be performing there at one point so she slowly sidles across there. Sure enough the man himself pops up and she is only about two feet away from him – some great video clips are grabbed with the new camera (lucky that I was able to change the SD card in the dark when it failed during the first 2 mins of the concert).

Eventually the concert ends and we stream out with everyone else. We decide to walk back to the hotel (I don’t tell mrssimongr exactly how far it is). We end up walking through Times Square at Midnight – what a way to finish our last night in New York!

Tue – Well this is it time to head off to the UK. We have time in the morning to visit the site of the Seinfeld Diner and grab some pics there. We then head to the Guggenheim which is very disappointing. Firstly the whole building is being renovated so half the galleries are closed and the outside of the building is covered in scaffolding. Then inside they are having a display of very modern art – not my bag at all – what a let down. I want to run to the Met just to get the NY mojo back.

There is time for one last visit to Tiffany’s (and sadly one last purchase) a visit to the Disney store for the Oz based nephew whilst I duck to staples for emergency computer supplies.

Back to the hotel and we have a slight tipping incident. When left the room we gave the guy $7 to take our 7 bags down to storage. We then paid another guy $7 to take them from storage to the kerb and at this point we had no cash at all so can’t tip the guy who took the bags from the kerb and put them in the car. Now forgive me for being cheap but I think it is a bit steep to have to pay $25 to get 7 bags from a room to a car – am I completely off the planet with this?

Anyway the town car whizzes us out to JFK past the MiB towers again and finally we get to the airport. After some “final” shopping at the Met store in the airport we can finally sit down in the lounge and think to ourselves – “Well if that was New York – we did it!”

Phew!

I promise to upload some pics shortly

 

[simongr]

And they call that business class?

Journey – JFK-LHR
Flight no. – AA132
Class – Business
Seat – 9HJ

In the lounge it’s through the Byzantine wifi access process (three turns hubwise, two hops widdershins and a slight tickle around the ankle) we jump onto skype and chat to mrssimongr’s parents to check on the dogs mostly!

The Napa Mumm is an ok champagne style sparkling pinot noir chardonnay blend but the food selection seems a little down but mrssimongr manages to force down some turkey and mash.

We finally begin the walk to board which is not too far – I manage not to duck into the Tumi store that is on the way. On board we are annoyingly delayed by 90 minutes. After a “couple” of glasses of the Napa Mumm I am fast asleep before and through take off and even skip dinner completely.

Unfortunately for mrssimongr she realises that she is most definitely not a fan of AA. She is not impressed by the seats (doesn’t sleep at all) and the thinks the food was inedible (both dinner and breakfast)

I just wish I had been able to eVIP us up to F

Anyhoo it did the most important thing – it got us to London – the first time we had been back together in 8 years and mrssimongr’s first trip back since 2000!

 

[moa999]

Balthazar NY -- very nice choice, always good
I also like Pastis which is the sister restaurant in Meatpackers

 

[Alanslegal]

Great TR - purely enjoyable!

 

[codash1099]

Again a masterpiece. You've helped me tidy up a few aspects of my forthcoming visit to NY, for which I am most grateful.

Can't wait for the London bit.

 

[docjames]

Great TR - keep us updated!

 

[sr81]

Action Comics #1........... We have a new high water mark for unique art viewed during a TR.

Keep the details coming, reads very well.

 

[simongr]

Six days, 8 cities, two incredible dinners

Phew what a trip this wass. I thought NY was hectic but this was insanity. After a shower in the AA arrivals lounge (which mrssimongr loved) we head out to hertz to pick up my “VW Jetta or equivalent vehicle”. Now forgive for being a snob but there is no way I would consider a Kia Piece of 5hit (the “POS”) as an equivalent to a VW anything. The fracking thing was a people carrier. It is a very angry simongr that pulls away from the Hertz #1 Gold Preferred renters area. In retrospect I should have gone back in and complained but I just wanted to get on with my trip. So here goes:

Wed – Milling around in Ealing and overnight with friends and seeing their kids
Thu – Drive to Bath to stay with more friends and see their three kids

Fri – Drive to a BMW dealership in Worcester (kind of ironic given the POS that I am driving) to see a very old family friend who is having her car serviced. Then drive to Birmingham to see my father and step mother. Dinner at the restaurant of one of the Chefs from The Great British Menu Season 3 (GMB3) – Glynn Purnell. Mrssimongr has put together an Aussie gift pack for him and after the main service is complete he comes out and sits and chats with us for 10 minutes and offers to take us around his kitchen after service is complete. The dinner itself was stunning as you can see from the pics I will post later:

The tour of the kitchen is brilliant – we chat about his plans for the future and his cooking influences – just brilliant!

We get home around midnight and sit around talking until about 2AM.

Sat - The next morning mrssimongr manages to fit in some shopping whilst I repack (again) and we have a fairly late departure to York. It is a fairly long drive up to York with some inclement weather at times. It is great to see mrssimongr’s friend who was chief bridesmaid at our wedding n Sydney and to see her little boy. Another relaxing evening which ends with finishing off a couple too many bottles of wine, beer and champagne. We almost lose the new camera to the stone fireplace but the wounds are only superficial.

Sun – This an early start and emotional day that is probably a little too personal to share here. Later in the day we drive to Beverly to see my grandmother and have dinner with her.

Mon – A quick morning tea with my Gran the next day is followed by a gruelling 4 hour drive to London and the Waldorf Hilton. Finding the hotel wasn’t a problem but there was no indication of where to park the POS but we work it out after a few go arounds. A little chap in a hat then steals the car and all of our belongings but we are fairly sure he works for the Waldorf.

We are given an Executive Room and access to the Executive floor. We barely have time for a quick visit to Covent Garden, a shower and a quick coughtail in the lounge before we have to head off to Dinner at Maze – a restaurant owned by Gordon Ramsay but headed up by another of the GBM3 chefs Jason Atherton.

The dinner is not as spectacular as Purnells but stunning nonetheless. For example have you ever eaten a BLT that looks like this?


As he is a big London chef we don’t expect to get to meet him but as he visits a table next to us we ask we can get a photo and again are invited into the Kitchen (this time during service). A completely different experience but great all the same

What a brilliant night – topped off by the cab ride home where we drive past the Grenadier Guards barracks – special for me as my Grandfather was a regular in the Grenadiers prior to the second world war.

A late night time for bed is punctuated by a 4AM alarm! Ugh!

We manage to get ready for trip and the car is brought round for us. A fairly quiet London at 5AM gets us to the car rental return fairly quickly – but I forget to refuel and get hit with a 40% fuel price surcharge (and I forgot to ask about the congestion charge which has a hit of GBP100 all up ). Mind you it wass almost worth to get rid of the POS!

I repack in the Hertz forecourt and it’s off to T5 for this fantastic new terminal experience…

 

[simongr]

High expectations can lead to low satisfaction

Journey – LHR-LCA
Flight no. – BA662
Class – Club Europe
Seat – 1DF

Things do not bode well when the queues start outside of the Terminal – the congestion to drive in is just awful. We are then dropped at the opposite end of the Terminal to the F check in so we schlep the whole length of the Terminal with bags to check in.

Check in is painless and it’s back to Fast track that is slower than the normal track. SO get this – now we are at the north end of the terminal and right outside the door to the Concorde Room. What we have to do now is walk about 1/3 – ½ of the way down the terminal to go down an escalator into the duty free area then walk back to be under where we standing a minute ago only to go UP an escalator to get into the lounge. I have had to walk past about 30 shops to get to a place I was about 10 minutes ago… things are no boding well…

Inside the lounge is ok – nothing special to be honest. Free wifi and some dodgy Champagne. I don’t have time to fully explore but I am not filled with hope and or joy for a longer transit next time.

[aside]

Just rolling back to the security lines. We of course had no issues as mrssimongr had been drilled well and we were compliant. However a pax behind us started to argue with the goons about his contact lens solution. His argument was that they don’t sell it in approved sized bottles and he bought this one airside last week.

Now lets be clear I think t the rules are stupid but the rules are the rules – we can’t pick and choose what laws we follow – that would lead to rioting in the streets and the repeal of the Poll Tax.

Now I have sympathy for the occasional traveller that gets caught out by this but and this is what got me – I saw the guy in the F lounge a few minutes later. One might think he was flying in F and this could be his second time – BUT the only people in the F lounge are OWE who are NO flying in F – so this guy was a frequent flyer and didn’t bother with the rules and had self-delayed at security – MADNESS!

[/aside]

So now we are in the lounge and I discover that we are departing from the satellite terminal so its back out into the mall and down a lift to the train, off the train and up the escalators to the satellite terminal.

Eventually boarding is called and the T5 experience is not improving – it is quite a long walk from the gate to the aircraft – made worse by along section of the walkway that is not air conditioned and is basically a mini-green house!

I really despair about this terminal – it has pretty much failed my expectations in every way

The flight itself was ok – the usual Club Europe fare. I was able to have a couple of cold ones as mrssimongr was driving us in Cyprus – frankly after the week in the UK I was happy to give up the steering wheel.

There was a family of around 4 – 5 parents and teenagers who seemed to want to play the whole “who sits with who” game that I experienced on a flight to BNE one time.

Obviously I avoided the pathetic IFE as I have reported on in the past. Mrssimongr is selected for a customer survey – which I think was meant for me as we had swapped seats on boarding…

Finally though a little tired and ready for a relaxing week we begin the descent into LCA (which still shows as Nicosia on the luggage tags)…

 

[simongr]

Cyprus – The Big Family Event

Well it has been a long time coming. The whole point of this trip was not to visit the UK nor to eat Hot Dogs on Wall street – the point of the trip was to spend a very special time with a very special (if somewhat complicated) family.

It is with a little apprehension that we disembark the aircraft and head to immigration. As mrssimongr’s British passport is sat at the post office in [insert name of suburb here] awaiting collection she is again travelling to Cyprus on her Oz passport. Last time we queued in the foreigners queue but this time I decided we should go for the EU queue. No comment was made so we were quickly through immigration and mrssimongr had another stamp in her passport (thankfully I missed out).

We were under orders to pick up some Bombay Sapphire (gee I wonder where I get that quirk from ) so mrssimongr wass off to grab that whilst I waited for the bags. Priority was not quite as good but equally not too awful so it wasn’t long before the mountain of bags was collected and we headed to pick up the car. Mrssimongr was driving as I had spent the past week driving around the UK. My sister had arranged the car and had gotten a good deal in that we didn’t have to buy petrol on renting the car, we just had to return it full.

[aside]

A slight explanation of the Great Cyprus Rental Car Scam. I am used in Oz and the UK to renting cars and returning them full, this seems normal to me and you only pay for the fuel that you use. However in Cyprus they have this great scam where you have to buy a tank of fuel and return the car empty. Great if you are planning a driving holiday around Cyprus, but one should remember that Cyprus isn’t that big – driving from one end to the other will use about half a tank of gas – depending on driving style

Now admittedly this then depresses the base rental price as if they did earn like this they would just put up the price – gee I wonder if the airlines have thought of a scam like this

[/aside]

We pick up the keys and walk out into Hades – well it feels hot enough! Oozing our way to the car we load up, whack the air-con to max, discover again that the car has no tape player – d’oh and we are offski!

I blink and miss one of the turnings so we have a slight detour to see the route part way to Nicosia but after about 2 hours we have wound our way through the hills around Paphos and we are just pulling up outside my parents house – this is the first time that mrssimongr has seen it finished and she is stunned. But then she meets “The Terror” – my little nephew.

We barely have time to chat and say hi before we manage to offload the first gifts (I am determined to lighten my luggage as quickly as possible) and get into some shorts when my sister’s friend arrives and we start to settle down for a G&T and a catch when eventually get hit with The Question:

Sister_Friend: So simongr have you done much flying and earned many points
Simongr: Well…

90 minutes later I called halt to the question and we agreed never to discuss the topic again. It’s not that I want to brag about travel (in fact I try and avoid the question where I can now as you just end up sounding like a w4nker when you start talking about the spa’s in the F lounge and the relative champagnes in F on CX and QF) it’s just that people keep asking and asking and before you know it you have given people a detailed comparison of the various first class lounges around the world – ENOUGH!

The next morning is fairly lazy by my standards (major repack of clothes, quarantine warm clothes and gifts for Oz, some washing followed by the worlds fastest clothes drying – did I mention it was damn hot?) and a pretty late departure to the other end of the island.

We have been tasked to buy a scarf from Lefkara (famous hand made lace) – now I thought I had been to Lefkara previously (I found out later that was Omodos) but nothing looks familiar as I drive into the village. We are stopped by some random bloke who says cars are not allowed in the village so we park up and unsurprisingly are pounced on by one of the shop owners – I know this is the usual scam for tourists but if we can get through this fairly unscathed I will be happy.

We jump through the hoops of seeing her show off how the lace is made and finally we get to buy something and get the heck out of there. We probably would have spent more if her 4 year old kid was not running around screaming and throwing things around…

Another quick detour due to another missed roundabout and we finally arrive in Protaras. I get the chance to finally try out my new knives – but only to make for pizza for everyone when my brother arrives at around midnight!

Thursday is the great Sheftalia hunt – who would have thought it would be hard to find Sheftalia in Cyprus???? Eventually after three stops at different villages and hypermarkets I have the Sheftalia!

Today we have the pre-party BBQ where we plan out what we will cook on Sunday for the official celebrations. Another late night is topped off by some Aussie wines

Friday is a more relaxed day as we return the hire to LCA and have dinner in town. Many hours of trinket shopping are topped off as we see the QF “exploding door” situation unfolding. A late night couple of beers with my brother, sister and various other hangers on means a slightly later start on Saturday.

A big day of preparing for the BBQ tomorrow – with some panic that the Hypermarkets might close early on a Saturday – but thankfully everything is ok. Whilst everyone naps in the afternoon I get on to the business of preparing meats and fish for the BBQ tomorrow. What was meant to be an easy day turns out to be a pretty late night again.

Party day goes very well – apart from leaving the corn on the BBQ and forgetting the rice completely (we did have a couple of Champagnes )

Monday is a lazy day as we begin to turn our minds to the trip home – I can’t believe that it has come round so quickly. It is one of the kid’s birthday on Monday so another little party but a fairly early night.

Tuesday is very relaxing with a morning spent on the beach. Mrssimongr has a bit of a cough but seems ok otherwise. An afternoon of packing and washing whilst people sleep is followed by a big family outing to a taverna for the world’s biggest mixed grill.

Wednesday is fairly hectic as pack up the villas and get people allocated to cars for various trips to the airport and back to the other end of the island.

I wave goodbye to my brother and his family and my parents and head up to the lounge – where sadly the smoking section seems to have increased in size again… The usual ridiculous Cyprus boarding process is followed by a fairly pleasant flight – that is until The Incident…

 

[simongr]

The Incident

Journey – LCA-LHR
Flight no. – BA663
Class – Club Europe
Seat – 1DF

This has to be one of the most unusual experiences I have had whilst travelling and for mrssimongr – moreso. The details are a little hazy this long since The Incident. mrssimongr had been coughing a little whilst we were in Cyprus but we didn’t think much of it – perhaps we should have.

About 3 hours into the flight mrssimongr starts coughing quite a lot really. Progressively this gets worse and worse. We are a little unsure what to do as we are connecting to BA27 LHR-HKG and I am not sure what facilities there will be in LHR.

Time progresses and so does the coughing – so much so that mrssimongr can hardly breathe. We speak to the cabin crew who then speak to the Captain and we are advised that there is no Doctor onsite at LHR but Paramedics will be waiting for us when we land. The coughing wont stop and mrssimongr is becoming increasingly stressed.

As we get closer our time to landing drops from 20 mins to landing to 7 mins to landing to 2 mins to landing in the space of two minutes! It seems that one way to get a landing slot at LHR is to have a medical emergency (will remember that for the future).

We are met by the Paramedics who are great but have to advise us that we will not be on our connecting flight as there is no medical centre at LHR and we will have to be taken to a local hospital. Many apologies to any other pax on the flight as due to mrssimongr being checked out on board they can only exit from one aisle – oops.

There is then a bit of a waiting game as we are exited from the right of the aircraft and onto a waiting lift thingo and down to the ambulance. There is a nervous minute as we are told that as we did not enter the UK through the proper channels they will need to take our passports until we come back to the airport tomorrow (and go to desk E) to get back on our route. I am a little thrown by this – as a UK citizen I have the right to be in the UK so I don’t think they should take my passport at all. Hmm – I guess mrssimongr’s health is a bit more important than my petty gripes about immigration…

Overall though the BA staff are helpful they don’t provide much guidance or assistance about what happens next – I guess we just hope when we get back here tomorrow that we have flights home…

At the hospital the doc has already decided that all mrssimongr has is an irritant cough and to take 4x the advised dose of codeine linctus every four hours and see a doc when we get home. I am not 100% convinced by this and am slightly concerned that we might be denied boarding tomorrow if mrssimongr can’t prove that she is well enough to fly.

So here we are in a random hospital outside London with nowhere to stay… a quick call to HHonors cancels our stay at the Conrad in HKG (I foolishly assume that we will be able to get straight home tomorrow rather than sticking to our original flights) and secures a room at the LHR Hilton.

Finally after a £50 taxi ride to buy a £2.50 bottle of medicine we get to the LHR Hilton and aim for some sleep before tomorrow’s adventure.

The LHR Hilton is a fairly standard Hilton. We are given a very standard room but I don’t fuss given that we are checking in at midnight. We have some issues with the air con and the help provided is less than helpful. A very unrestful sleep is followed the colour coded Hilton breakfast.

Mrssimongr is still pretty much out of it. The coughing has stopped for as long as she is doped up on the meds. Having checked the flight times to HKG we don’t need to rush to T5 and get there around 10:00. We manage to find desk E – which in fact a set of about 30 customer service desks. I try to be clever and jump into the Club queue where there is no-one in front of us. However the person being served is making life complicated for everyone involved so we are still in the queue 30 mins later.

This turned out to be a good choice in the end as the person we get is very helpful. After working out the situation he is able to happily get us to HKG today as he can see that is our final destination.

That’s when I try to complicate things. Now the problem is that primarily we want to get to SYD as soon as possible. The other problem is that our journey HKG-SYD is made up of four tickets:

LHR-HKG – 2 x AAwards, the last two flights in a OW award
HKG-SIN – 1 x QFF award
SIN-SYD – 1 x QFF award for mrssimongr
SIN-SYD-SIN – 1 x AAward for simongr

Once our mate at customers service has his head around that he does his best to work out how he could reroute us direct to SYD. He tries to call AA but they aren’t answering the phones so I call the EXP desk from my phone and hand it over to him – sadly AA can’t really help either.

After about 45 mins of his best endeavours, the best we can manage is still the next flight to HKG and our original flights to SYD. This might actually be an ok thing. We will just have one day in HKG anyway and that might give mrssimongr time to recover enough for the final flights. This does however give us 9 hours in the T5 F lounge…

 

[simongr]

Journey – LHR-HKG
Flight no. – BAxx
Class – Business – or maybe not
Seat – 18AB – or so we thought

After collecting our passports we head back to security and surprisingly there are no questions raised about mrssimongr’s medication which is in a 200ml bottle . Fasttrack is however no improvement on our last journey through LHR and again we have the zigzag through the terminal to get to the lounge.

Mrssimongr is out like a light on a big chair with a large foot rest whilst I settle in for some laptop TV. We manage to move mrssimongr to a big sofa so she can lie out flat when someone moves. As it is now around midday I manage to find a decent glass of champers (much better than the other one I had here). And actually get a better feel for the lounge. As somewhere I am going to spend a lot of time here I find on reflection that it is not that bad a lounge for an extended period. It is comfortable and practical. When I compare this to the SYD F lounge I find myself comparing the two like one would compare a Konigzeg [sp] and a S class Merc. The S class is big and comfortable but the Konigzeg is a thrill ride. If you are just heading out of and airport on some grand trip I would rather have the experience of the F lounge but it is not quite as practical as the BA lounge so would not be somewhere I would want to spend and extended transit.

Anyway back to the lounge. Every couple of hours mrssimongr wakes for food and drugs – the mushroom risotto is reported to be quite nice, the pasts not so much and the pies are a tad cold. I am being as careful as I can be in pacing myself and the open bar – not as easy as it sounds.

Whilst she sleeps my mind turns to HKG and where we are going to stay. I take a punt and call HHonors and try to redeem an award and bongo – two nights booked at the Conrad for 80K points! A lot less painless than the phone calls last night.

I manage to crash out for about an hour (the best sleep I have had in a couple of days) and when I wake we prepare ourselves to schlep over to the satellite terminal (that’s 2/2 now – but who’s counting). Amazingly mrssimongr has roused herself to wakefulness such that she is able to cram in one last shopping session in the Harrods store!

After the train journey to the satellite we take the lift this time rather than the escalator and so begins another gate wait. This is not delayed like LHR-LCA and we are almost the first to begin boarding. I am a little thrown as my BP get’s rejected and I am told that we have not been checked in – but then I am handed two new boarding passes for F!!! Ordinarily if I had been travelling alone I would have guessed what had happened but the phrase that we had not been checked in was the confusion.

Mrssimongr is almost in tears (of joy) as we board – I am guessing that our customer service pal had pushed us up the op-up list We are not sat together as we are in 5AK. The staff are absolutely brilliant from the moment that we board. I tell the cabin crew about mrssimongr being sick and he promises to take “poopsy” under his wing for the flight – and he was brilliant for the entire flight.

When the remaining pax board I see that 5EF are two blokes travelling together – dressed in England/coughnal football shirts so I guess that they are not travelling “together”. I take a punt and ask if one of them would mind moving from 5E to 5K. they are actually quite pleased with the move. I know I have said before that people should take the seats that they are assigned but I guess not everything always goes according to plan. If they had said I would not have pushed it – we were damn lucky to be in F and as mrssimongr was going to be sleeping most of the time it wouldn’t have been a hardship. It did however make it easier when I had to jump up a few times to help her out.

The flight is not too bad – well actually quite good. The lobster appetiser sets the standard for dinner. The lamb shanks literally drips off the bone and the cheeses are excellent. I am pretty sleepy post dinner but am awake enough to actually have the bed made into a bed – they have a cushion thing to lie on as well as the duvet – this is something I have never done on QF so is a new experience for me. Mrssimongr is just blown away by every aspect of travelling F – I could have problems in the future…

After waking I skip the breakfast (are you sensing that I am not much of a breakfast person?) but mrssimongr scarfs down two plates of congee and is a very happy mrssimongr. Finally we begin descent into HKG so we both switch out of the PJs. On reflection this really was one of the best F experiences I have had – amazingly great staff, great food and an adequate seat (shame about the IFE).

As we begin the final descent I look over at the very happy (and still heavily doped) mrssimongr and am amused that he feet actually don’t touch the ground in her F seat. Well one more experience of that to go – but first another trip to the Happiest Place on Earth – the Conrad Hong Kong!

 

[simongr]

Some food shots:

Maze

Smoked trout with Dill and Horseradish snow

A BLT - seriously - tomato jelly, bacon cream topped with lettuce juice, lardons and onion rings

Veal shank and pea risotto

A modern version of the Arctic Roll

Purnells

Haddock foam, slow poached egg yolk, corn flakes and curry oil

Crab, apples and paprika honey comb

 

[simongr]

Purnells Continued

Rabbit with a tomato "sauce" bulgar wheat and peas and home made cheese - yum!!

The 10 10 10 dessert - a burnt creme served in the egg shell with strawberry sorbet and crytslised taragon

A fantastic cheese plate!

 

[Flashback]

Uh oh, that's not very nice of BA to op-up you to F; you should have explained to them that mrssimongr will now always expect to be up the pointy end.. :shock:

 

[Keith009]

Amazingly mrssimongr has roused herself to wakefulness such that she is able to cram in one last shopping session in the Harrods store!

They do call it retail therapy you know.

A thoroughly satisfying read thus far. Love the food pics too! Cyprus does sound like a lovely place to visit - might have a think about fitting it into a future trip.