What the F? Getting to an Alaska cruise the convoluted way…

[MELso]

I blame @Cruiser Elite.

In a frenetic exchange of PMs a couple of weeks ago, I pinky swore to report back on my experiences in SQ F.

So here it is, from The Private Room where a 16 hour layover before my flight to Shanghai awaits.

Back in the day, I marvelled at flying Vietnam Airlines and Air France business class to Paris to start my grand tour of tax deductibility to finish my law degree. I paid cash. $3800 in fact. Paying cash now seems old hat though.

Enough exposure to Australian Frequent Flyer forums and I now have my big boy pants on when it comes to points and miles. I’ve battled Lifemiles and (seemingly) won, securing two precious ANA first class flights. I’ve bought wine on Qantas to avoid paying cash fares. I’ve sweated as I waited for Velocity points to transfer to KrisFlyer to lock in F Saver space. But it’s all worked out. I think. Probably…

Following the AFF maxim ‘why fly direct when you can connect?’ I spurned the normal option to fly MEL-SYD-YVR return to my Alaska cruise leaving Vancouver (pffft…); I have instead opted to fly MEL-SIN-PVG-PEK-KIX-HND-ORD-PDX-YVR-ORD-NRT/HND-SYD-MEL. I fear that the Great Circle Mapper servers might melt down if you try mapping it out. In an oil crisis. Why? Why not. My friend joining me on the cruise questioned my sanity. Now, it’s true that my head hurts, but this is most likely from consuming a large volume of champagne on the flight I have just alighted.

The first flight of this odyssey is a rather pedestrian flight from Melbourne to Singapore, booked for 126.5K KrisFlyer miles along with a sector to PVG the next morning 29 days before departure. The one many folks on here have done dozens of times. Well, it would have been pedestrian, but it was my first time flying Singapore Airlines in first class. I had previously taken the Emirates fifth freedom flight in first when they offered it, but it departed at the decidedly uncivilised time of 3.25AM. This significantly hampered my ability to take advantage of the soft product, the consumption of which as will become apparent, is a challenge that I do not shy away from.

SQ238, however, departed at the rather more civilised hour of 9.15… 9.30… 9.45… 10AM… I did not let this delay phase me though. I took it upon myself to see if I could down a whole bottle of Krug on the ground. To my shame, I failed, only getting through four glasses before pushback occurred.

Mind you, I had already got stuck in earlier in the morning. In keeping with the ‘it’s 5 o’clock somewhere’ vibe, and following @Cruiser Elite’s tip, I had a little taste of the Diana Madeleine in the lounge. Along with a prawn laksa, kaya toast, fruit, juice and coffee it made for a stonking breakfast. I would regret this later. I’d barely had time to register the drab pre-renovation surrounds before it was time to board.

The delightful crew started plying me with booze straight off the bat. At @Cruiser Elite’s suggestion I started with Krug. The first couple of sips did not impress. ‘Cruiser, what have you done to me?!?’ I thought. Then I had a third sip, and a fourth, and several more glasses as I got into the swing of things, banished my earlier sacrilegious thoughts and before long, it was pushback time.

After takeoff, the purser took my lunch order. Caviar? Natch. Some soup? Why not? You’ve twisted my arm. My ‘book the cook’ lobster with ginger and shallot, then an espresso cake thingy and finally cheese and port.

My body hurt at just the thought of eating that much food. It turned out the pain was mild compared to how things stood 2.5 hours later.

You know you’ve hit the top of the frequent flyer s***heap when you can look at a caviar service and go ‘meh! Not as impressive as Emirates.’ Yet this was my problem. I have been spoiled by the over the top nature of Emirates that when a perfectly serviceable and well-presented caviar service comes along, it’s not ‘oh my God! What an experience?’ It’s ‘Emirates does it MORE!’ Still, it was tasty, before I moved onto the soup.

I’d also switched to the Comtes by this stage, because well, I’m a man of science and I need to undertake experiential testing. It was not double blind. At least, not yet. I still had a little way to go before I was totally blind.

The soup provided a respite from the sheer amount of food I was stuffing in. My body was not so gently suggesting that what had been consumed was perfectly adequate and hinted we could lie down. ‘Not yet!’

I had my book the cook lobster and, well, it wasn’t bad at all. As a concession to the pain my body was starting to experience, I eased off eating the noodles, but the lobster was very tasty indeed.

Now a sensible person would have stopped there. They would have listened to their body screaming out in pain. They would have looked at their middle aged paunch and said ‘enough!’

By this stage, the champagne was kicking in and I was not sensible. Not when the delicious espresso cake and coconut ice cream was there to tempt me. It was the perfect end to the meal. Except it wasn’t.

That belonged to the cheese course. There was a delightful selection of four cheeses, and of course some port. It was all delightful of course, but by this stage, I was drifting in and out of consciousness, so I asked to get seat 1C made up as a bed. I collapsed into that and, after greedily guzzling several bottles of Evian, passed out… errr… I meant slept for a couple of hours.

The remainder of the flight was fairly uneventful except to of course request a teddy bear. Mission duly accomplished for my cousin’s daughter, I sat staring into the void (it was probably staring right back), or at least the flight map as the captain announced we passed a live volcano.

Once off the plane in T2 in Singapore, I was met by a concierge who took me to a golf cart that whisked me the whole U-shape of Changi round to The Private Room as people raced to get out of the way of this Very Important Person (DYKWIA!?!) while I sat feeling slightly cringey and awkward.

Anyway, I’m now a Singapore Sling and two glasses of Rare champagne in so that’ll do for now. There should be more to come though, sobriety permitting…