My first oneworld RTW (around Japan, NYC, and Europe)

[hwy]

Loving this review... keep the updates coming when you have time.

 

[rginoz]

Yes, enjoying your Trip Report very much. Thanks @encryptededdy.

 

[encryptededdy]

Due to the aforementioned Amsterdam food poisoning, I only really had 1 day to get out of the hotel in Oslo



Had a nice cruise around Oslofjord with The Fjords | Store reiseopplevelser - they've got a fully electric boat, meaning it's absolute silent when cruising around, definitely improves the experience greatly.

 

[encryptededdy]

OSL - HEL Finnair (Nordic Regional) E190
HEL - ZRH Finnair A320

I didn't have high hopes for these flights after hearing about all the cost cutting going on at Finnair, but was generally pleased with the flight (other than Euro business seating, but it's impossible to be pleased with that).


Oslo airport has quite a beautiful check-in hall

Finnair (like every non-star alliance airline) uses the "OSL Lounge International" at Oslo airport. It's... not good. I didn't take any photos, but there was a very limited selection of food and drink (dare I say less than the Qantas Sydney Domestic Business Lounge), and no views. At least it was clean (unlike the aforementioned Qantas Lounge) and not crowded.


Our E190


Frozen Finland out the window


A decent meal. If I recall correctly, this was the only option.


Lasagne at the Finnair Schengen lounge - was pretty good!


Fish option on our HEL-ZRH flight. Again, a pretty good meal.


Love the glassware & blueberry juice

 

[encryptededdy]

Switzerland... well, I wish I spent more time here (although given the cost of everything, it was probably good that I was only there for 4 days). Certainly, a very photogenic place.

I did make a rather terrible mistake of not buying any sort of rail pass, which would've saved me some money. I didn't consider that in Switzerland, the rail pass covers (or discounts) many mountain railways/funiculars/gondolas etc., which can usually be quite expensive. I had assumed they didn't cover these as rail passes generally don't in other countries I've been to.

First two days were spent exploring Zurich and a daytrip to St. Gallen from Zurich on the train.


Lake Zurich (from Zurich)


Zurich tram


Rapperswil-Jona


Somewhere near Wattwil


St. Gallen


Another shot of Lake Zurich

 

[encryptededdy]

Last two days involved renting a car and driving down to the Interlaken / Grindelwald area

The following are from Jungfraujoch, which cost a very cool AU$320 per person to get up to




The views are certainly extraordinary, especially considering it's fully accessible by rail


Looking back at the observatory where the previous photos were taken



Back down the mountain, even the view from the carpark in Grindelwald was great




Lake Thun from Interlaken

 

[encryptededdy]

And finally visiting the top of Rigi (unfortunately it was cloudy, but it still allowed for some interesting photos with the natural gradient



Looks fun...



Lucerne


And some quick planespotting at Zurich airport before hopping on my QR flight. As I've noted in another thread, the outdoor balconies are Zurich are amazing for planespotting.

 

[Gonetroppo]

Loving your photography Encryptededdy!

 

[encryptededdy]

Alright, the third to last flight...

QR ZRH-DOH (A350-900, non-QSuite). A look at the old Qatar J product and an event that happened on the flight.


The A359 taking me to Doha, as seen from the Zurich observation deck


The seat type used

So something quite interesting and slightly concerning happened on this flight. As we began to take off from Zurich, I head a large crash in the forward galley of the aircraft (I was seated in row 2). I couldn't exactly peek inside to see what happened, but it looks like a trolley cart was not secured correctly prior to takeoff, and became dislodged from its parking position and crashed into galley wall (thankfully it didn't go down the aisle). It seemed that the door of the trolley opened, and trays of metal cutlery and other items went flying out. Thankfully the galley is quite deep on the A350-900, so the items didn't reach any further than row 1, and row 1 was unoccupied. I suspect if someone was sitting in 1F or 1K that there was a chance they could've been hit by a piece of cutlery.




Immediately (maybe only a few seconds after wheels up) the FA sitting next to the forward right exit stood up and tried to start collecting the items over the ground, but was jostled around by the still taking off aircraft. Her colleague told her to sit back down.

Later on during the flight, one of the cabin crew came around to me and apologised for the "noise in the gallery during take-off". Uh huh.

Anyway, with that strange and slightly concerning start to the flight out of the way... my food order was taken prior to take-off and I requested it to be served right after takeoff so I could rest.




The meal was very well presented and was served very quickly (I was slightly worried that they had run out of clean cutlery due to the earlier... event..., but thankfully this wasn't the case). The taste was just alright though, certainly not memorable (although that could just be Zurich catering).


Austrian Alps outside the window

Overall, service was excellent and drinks were delivered quickly (I enjoyed the "So Jennie" non-alc sparkling wine a lot), but I'm not a huge enjoyer of Qatar's very formal service - I much prefer the more formal service of SQ, QF, BA, NZ etc., but I'm sure that's just personal preference.

Qatar's Super Diamond seat is certainly my least favourite implementation of the Collins Super Diamond product. China Airlines, BA and Air Canada all do a much better job with this seat, although I acknowledge Qatar has a very early version of the seat.


I watched the map quite carefully to see what route we'd take over the current conflict zones.

Qatar's WiFi worked fine, although I found some websites to be blocked, such as reddit. I'm not exactly sure why. Most other sites (including social media) worked fine.