Trip report
April 7[SUP]th[/SUP] 2012 – Flouble Flounging, AFF Style.
Events as etched(some say burned) in my memory.
It all started with a SMS from Jetstar at 4.15am (exactly 1 hour before my alarm went off) reminding me to be at check-in 3 hours beforehand at the International Terminal and have ID with me.
Sadly for me, all this did was wake up my wife who gave me a 4am half sleep induced sermon as to how I was such a tool for doing these crazy hair brained schemes, but alas I digress...
So I left home at 5.45am to take the very short drive into Southern Cross Station to pick up Mal, Anchew and LiamR(our gracious organiser). Amongst the drunks and freshly ejected nightclub patrons I picked the three of them up for the express service to MEL, where we would meet up with JessicaTam.
We made quick time and headed on into the International Terminal where two freshly facebooking JQ staff checked us in, despite our obvious anxiety at wanting boarding passes for the return on JQ35, we had no luck and a manager who also gave us the thumbs down. I did have bribes in hand ready to hand them over BossReggie Style, but no dice!
We headed into the Departures area awash with concern, but also the obvious need to partake in alcohol and food. Our first hurdle of the day was getting 3 Guests in with only 2 WP’s, this only proved to be a minor hurdle as upon being greeted at reception, we simply blurted out, “we’re one too many please don’t send us to the J lounge” the Lounge Dragon took pity upon us and simply said, “hurry up and go on through before I get in trouble! “ Score!! - BA if you are reading this, neener, neener, neener.
So first thing was first, we headed for a table, we had a great table over by the window, we also saw Drewbles who was already in and partaking in Neil Perry’s finest. As always excellent service to be had, I had the Eggs Benedict sans Salmon and a Pineapple juice; it was as always a good breakfast.
After some concern and Mal being “Alert but not alarmed” at me setting up the timelapse camera to take pictures of the apron with a JQ A330 being unloaded. (He swears it looked like a bomb!) we enjoyed our meals and also some lovely toasted Hot cross buns. These of course were “Enhanced” with each of us only receiving a half of one. – Either the top or the bottom halves. Theories abound as to why this was and also how come they were sliced vertically and not horizontally in half. Don’t say we AFF’ers don’t tackle the bigger issues in life.
The F Lounge was actually rather quiet with plenty of room, not a celebrity in sight for those who are into that sort of thing.
So with approx 30 minutes prior to JQ36 departing we headed off for the first flight of the day.
Mal, Jessica and Anchew all had ‘PBRD” on their boarding passes, so they wanted to try out the priority boarding lane. Enclosed is the picture of the process which shows how well it works
We were scattered all over the plane, but Liam and I managed to be sitting together. Liam the smooth talker he is had somehow convinced the CSM that when we had landed we could all take a look in the coughpit after we had landed. The Aircraft VH-EBD (the second oldest A330 in the JQ fleet was looking a little worn).
At this point it is time to put the W in WP; The rather obvious and odorous Denpassar passengers made for some amusing jokes, Bali Louis Vuitton luggage in particular made for some obvious targets for our humour.
Upon landing in Sydney we landed East-West which is not that common, so it made for a very short taxi to the terminal.
Mal who has an amazing knack with technology had somehow remotely “Enhanced” the aerobridge! So we sat for 10 minutes while they sorted that out.
After everyone else had disembarked we headed up to the coughpit for a look, sadly I blinked and missed the millisecond window the CSM gave us to look in the coughpit. But more on this crew and CSM later, for we would meet again........
So our search for a JQ boarding pass was now underway. We had also picked up our other traveller who was in Sydney; Carlous Moochos so we now had the correct number of WP’s and guests.
Our first port of call: the Transit Desk: (as we landed on the *alliance pier we had a bit of a walk) The Transit desk only had QF staff and they couldn’t issue boarding passes, they said come back with 1-2 hours to go before the flight and they will issue them then.
So we took our OLCI docs to the J lounge to first see if they had access and could print them. They couldn’t but were happy to let us in and sit down and wait. (we used this as a litmus test before getting laughed out of the F lounge) so we said, “Ok I tell you what Mr J Lounge Dragon, hold that thought, because if we get “Access Denied” at the F lounge we’re coming back”.
So we headed into the Flounge, Mal was already dreading the potential walk of shame back and out, but with some talk about our boarding passes not being boarding passes, the confiscation of the 3 WP cards, the 3 Non boarding passes and my firstborn son as collateral we were allowed in.
It was of course now time to sit back, enjoy yet another meal and to savour some of the F lounges offerings.
Tomas our waiter was excellent, some of us ordered another breakfast (JessicaTam ordered eggs Florentine and said they were much better than the Mel F lounge) I myself had the steak which is always a winner, and again it was. I ordered a Belvedere Vodka and Orange, with LiamR just having an Orange Juice. There appeared to be some sort of Mix up with LiamR not being sure if his had the vodka or not. Tomas was on it in a flash, and after being persuaded to “not be stingy” with the vodka came back with a appropriately portioned vodka with a hint of orange juice for me.
Mal asked and received the Champagne which was “not on the menu” which I believe was a Bollinger. Again Tomas our waiter was excellent.
Our first attempt at Celebrity spotting! Mal whose uncanny ability to use a non Apple mobile device was certain the CEO/Founder of Boost juice was in the lounge - Janine Allis -The clarity and resolution of his Samsung meant we could clearly identify her. – This, like all good Windows products turned out to be incorrect; whilst she looked similar I too thought the lady in question looked like Elaine from Seinfeld.
Mal who later on found the VIP list at the front counter was only listed with one person – The CEO of Napoleon Perdis cosmetics. We of course we bitterly disappointed that none of us were on the list.
After our second meal, great conversation and much hilarity we then retired to the lounge area at the back wall near the spa entry for some drinks. Several of us booked in for Spa treatments, I had a hand massage and a manicure, and as always the staff in there are great. In true AFF style we rearranged the furniture (found that under the Marc Newson inspired chairs are never vaccumed) to suit our small group.
After we reconvened post massages and beauty treatments we sat down in the dining area again for Meal number 3. We still had around 2 hours to go before departure. This time I tried the Wagyu burger with sweet chilli mayonnaise, It was excellent. (I am yet to have a bad eating experience in the F lounge yet)
So with approx 1.3 hours before departure we (those without boarding passes) went on a mission to go and get them, first we headed for the Transit lounge 2 levels below the F Flounge. Not a sign of JQ anywhere, we were told to try the gate. We then walked to the gate, it was a ghost town. Our last and perhaps only real option was to go landside and recheckin. – It was going to be tight with check-in closing 1 hour prior to departure.
So in AFF flying formation we hit immigration, Mal, Anchew and Jessica in front, and me acting as tail gunner to protect the rest of the squadron. We were the only non staff in the immigration hall, about 6 staff all turned to look at us, where the hell have these people come from! The first 3 got through, when me as last was held up by the newly arrived supervisor, who said, “what flight were you on”, I sheepishly replied “JQ36” he then challenged me with: that landed 4 hour hours ago, what have you been doing, as I am a terrible liar I told the truth “Getting pissed in the QF First Lounge” Where I promptly received a thumbs up from 6 immigration staff! Total score!
We then hurried through customs, who again were surprised by our appearance.
So now at landside in record time we then headed straight up to Check-in where they were about to close, the JQ check-in clerk had us checked-in in record time! I have never seen someone bang on a keyboard with more speed and purpose before.
So then it was back through immigration and customs again to board our flight. This was rather painless, Mal sniffed a way to be cheeky and we avoided large sections of the snaking security screening queue.
So we then arrived back inside with 50 minutes to go before departure, again enough time to head back into the F Lounge!!!!
I of course had to order my favourite the ice creams, which we had asked our new waitress to put “on Ice” for us when we had to run to get our boarding passes. I am a total sucker for Ice cream, and this was excellent.
So finally we had to leave the F lounge, we left behind some bribes/goodies for the staff and the lounge dragons who were ever so helpful and nice.
The Qantas F lounge in SYD is the best Airline Lounge I have ever been to, in terms of service, ambience, view and quality of food and drinks, every time I go through there I am never let down.
This is one of the main reasons why being a WP is very, very cool.
Now for the anti climax, JQ35 SYD/MEL – we left from gate 34 which was only a short walk from the lounge. The flight was about half full so we had plenty of room on board. The aircraft was quite new VH-EBR complete with credit card swiping IFE.
We again were scattered everywhere, I was in row 46, but as the exit row in front of me was empty I moved into 45 just after the seat belt sign went off. There was plenty of seats free so just like in the previous years run, everyone came and sat around the exit row. We basically all sat down together which was great. Again plenty of laughs to be had, LiamR getting growled at from some freshly tattooed Bali Bogans who wanted to “snap him”
As we were about to commence our descent the Dragon CSM came down to see us, none other than the same one as our flight up! She asked what we were doing on both flights, she asked if we were all flight crew in training (as she had spoken to LiamR when he asked about the coughpit) Sadly we told the truth and pointed to LiamR “Only he is” we’re just frequent flyers. “LiamR why don’t you come up and sit in Business for the landing!” I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as what he did! Nothing but tumbleweeds behind him!
We landed with our comrade sitting in Star class while we remained firmly down the back of the bus. Sure enough as soon as we hit the gate, Mal had again worked his wonders and for the second time remotely “enhanced” the aerobridge! Wishing we had purchased the Air Australia stairs on E-bay we waited for 20 minutes for them to figure it out. Plenty of laughs to be had as we were waiting. JQ were pretty keen to get the Denpassar PAX sorted out, there was 21 of them on the A330! All of the rest of us were domestic.
We basically then made our way to immigration where it was LiamR’s turn to get bailed up. His boarding pass which he had obtained days before was not stamped! Whilst some of the Immigration agents gloved up, he managed to wrangle his way out of it, and we left post haste.
Here’s where I pulled the rip cord as I had baby sitting duties and went home, but the others were last seen heading to the dom J lounge for more booze.....
Thanks again to LiamR for organising, much appreciated.
To JQ, you suck.
To QF, you rock.
To the AFF’ers whom came along, awesome time, lets hope the next one isn’t too far away
![524834_10150729127903469_565888468_9402306_1591266149_n[1].jpg](https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/data/attachments/5/5212-717d0ef8476ed83ff0e99fcbb71c6d7d.jpg?hash=cX0O-Edu2D "524834_10150729127903469_565888468_9402306_1591266149_n[1].jpg")
