Return to Being a points Junkee - SYD-SIN-LHR SQ R & FCO-SYD TG F

[BriarFlyer]

"We did run into this pretty awesome buried ruins right in the middle of the city which we later found out is also a cat sanctuary, Mrs Bwhouse made sure we returned there during daylight!"

Ooh, I recognise this picture. We stayed in an apartment overlooking these ruins, the site where Caesar (allegedly) copped the knife. It was an awesome 3BR with outdoor terraces and all for a fraction of the price of a semi-decent hotel.

Looking forward to your review of TG F.

 

[bwhouse]

Ooh, I recognise this picture. We stayed in an apartment overlooking these ruins,the site where Caesar (allegedly) copped the knife. It was an awesome 3BR with outdoor terraces and all for a fraction of the price of a semi-decent hotel.

haha yup that's the one. We literally walked around a corner in the middle of what seemed like city buildings and there was a large dug up hole with ruins.

 

[bwhouse]

Once I get to the end of this TR, I will give an overall impression of how I ranked all the flights. But to sum up my initial impression, I was really impressed with the A380 hard product. The seat was spacious and comfortable, it obviously wasn’t as private as the SQ suites, but in the same token the entire cabin felt much larger as it wasn’t closed in, so there was a general overwhelming feel of space. In seat mode I found the chair equally as comfortable as the SQ chair, albeit not quite as wide. In bed mode however SQ was a clear winner. The TG A380 was a decent bed, however you could still tell it was a chair that went flat if that makes sense vs a nice flat mattress.





The service throughout the flight was fantastic, the staff were attentive and pro-active, if I hadn’t stopped them my glass of Dom would have been never ended. I would say the meal service felt a little rushed though, I can’t put my finger on why but it felt a little like they wanted it to go to a planned schedule rather than at the PAX pace, that would probably be my only criticism of the overall service.


For the meal we had booked the cook (or at least the TG version of BTC), I ordered the prawn curry (sorry can’t remember the actual dish name) and Mrs bwhouse ordered the lobster. I once again forgot to take photos of the menu The meal service started with an appetiser, which was ok but nothing special, we both then skipped the caviar as we are not really fans of it. We then had what the stewardess called the signature dish, which didn’t appear to be on the menu. It was a chicken skewers with a vermicelli noodle salad that was fantastic.This was of course accompanied by another glass of champagne. Mrs bwhouse enjoyed the lobster but said it was too rich to finish which brings me to my meal. Now, let me first start by saying I like spicy food and I mean I really like spicy food. I can eat a bucket of the spiciest Korean fried chicken and still be wanting more. But this prawn curry was on a whole other level, the flavours we fantastic but I am pretty sure you could have poured the sauce into the fuel tank as a substitute for jet fuel, it was just nuts. The problem was it was tasty, like really tasty so I just kept eating it (little did I know how much I would regret that decision on the next flight, more on that in the next post). That was until I ran out of rice and then the dish beat me and I just couldn’t keep going The stewardess came over and tried her best not to laugh, while she looked at me and said ‘It’s pretty spicy right?’. By this time both MrsBwHouse and I were both really full, so decided to share a dessert sampler.




and desert




I read for a little bit with a nice peppermint tea and then retired to bed to try and get some sleep. Once again the staff were quite pro-active and offered turn-down service. As mentioned above, the bed wasn’t as good as the SQ one and could have really used a thicker mattress. I know, first world problems, never thought I would be complaining about needing a thicker mattress on a plane, I have clearly read too many trip reports!





I must have been the first person to wake up in the cabin, with about 1.5hours to go. It was a little freaky but my recollection of events was waking up rolling over to face the aisle and being greeted by our lovely stewardess and cross-questioned about breakfast. I am pretty sure all I got out was ‘coffee’ with a dazed and confused look on my face. I got up to go to the bathroom, I assume my mumble must have made sense, as when I returned my bed was back to a seat and there was a coffee waiting for me Mrs bwhouse woke up shortly after and we ordered breakfast. I had the omelet with bacon and mushrooms and Mrs bwhouse just had the fruit platter. To be honest, I am not sure if the omelet was cooked fresh or not, but it was pretty good for eggs on a plane.





It was time to land and our TG A380 adventure was over. The CSM came around just before landing and said our outbound flight was also delayed so we should make the connection. Sure enough, upon disembarkment, we were whisked away in a golf buggy to our departing flight to SYD. Unfortunately, this meant no lounge or spa, but on the flip side it was better than spending 11 hours in BKK airport waiting for the next flight.

 

[bwhouse]

Wow I am really failing at finishing this TR off. But alas a public holiday long weekend to the rescue so here are the last two posts.

As we were being whisked away in quite a hurry to make our connecting flight there wasn’t much time to think, but I do recall thinking that I needed to use the bathroom. But there was no stopping and we were heading straight for the plane so I figured I would just wait and use the bathroom on board. Well we got settled in and pushed back pretty quickly, by this time I really needed the bathroom, last nights dinner was catching up with me fast! The feeling in my stomach could only be described as lava bubbling at the top of a volcano ready to erupt. The 10 parts chilli, 1 part prawn curry was clearly reacting badly to the multiple coffee’s I had downed on the previous flight in an attempt to wake up. This was getting bad and the dam plane could not taxi any slower we finally launched down the runway and took flight, but alas the seatbelt sign was still on as we climbed and kept climbing, someone really needed to tell the captain that we were clearly at altitude and he could stop climbing and switch that seatbelt sign off! I squirmed in my seat trying to ease the pain that was building but nothing was working.


Now during this trip, I have enjoyed all the perks that go with flying first class, but right now the one the only perk that I was looking forward to was the knowledge that when that seatbelt sign eventually turned off, our lovely intent F cabin nestled in the front the of the mighty queen of the skies had two dedicated bathrooms, now whilst I was seated in 1e, so the furthest away from said bathroom, there were only 6 other people in the cabin so I had a 1/3 chance of getting to that bathroom un-interrupted. This is clearly what flying F is about, this is why people fork out the big $$ for the pointy end of the plane, it’s not about priority boarding or priority seating or that lounge experience, it’s clearly about priority bathroom access, or at least that's what it was about for me at that point in time.


It finally happened, the seatbelt sign went off. I shot out of my seat faster than Usain Bolt and made a b-line for the rear of the cabin. Embarrassingly I made it to the bathrooms before the flight attendants had actually gotten out of their crew chairs and unlocked them, but I think they got the impression I was in a hurry. Now I won’t describe what happened next in too much detail, because I am sure no one wants to read that. But for those of you that have heard the term ring of fire, well this was more accurately described as ring of thermite. Oh did I learn my lesson, don’t eat crazy spicy things on a plane, especially when you have a connecting flight.


Now on to the flight..


We were on a B747, so the old config, which is certainly looking dated. The chairs aren’t too bad to sit in, but I find the headrest is too low even when fully extended. My favourite part of this chair is that the ottoman is adjustable and you can bring it closer to the chair so it is actually usable for people who aren’t 6ft5.




I still love the amenity kits that Thai give out, the Rimowa hard case is great. We are starting to build a collection of them now.





As we had just had breakfast on the previous flight, we both said no to breakfast and just had a coffee. I couldn’t resist the smell of the warm croissants so asked for one and was give a nice little bread basket with a variety of baked treats.





After breakfast was severed, I settled in to read and then get some work done on the laptop as it was a day time flight, both in the time zone we were leaving and the time zone we were heading too. One thing that still annoys me a little on planes is the desire to darken the cabin even on day time flights. They dimmed the lights and then asked everyone to close window shades. Several people appeared to have their beds made and go to sleep. My issue with this is with the cabin darkened out and no natural sun light it is hard to fight jet lag and stay awake. I find after several hours my body wants to go to sleep.


At about T-2 hours the cabin lights came on and dinner service began and this time I remembered to take some shots of the menu.





Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the photos of the food


We circled around Sydney for a little while before coming in to land. I was surprised that there was no ground service in Sydney and we were left to our own devices. My previous Thai F experience was in Japan and we received similar ground service to Bangkok. We were however met by a lady in a Thai Airways uniform, to pass on the bad news that one of our suitcases had not made the connection in Bangkok. Still not sure how one made it and the other did not but oh well we were home so it didn’t really matter.

Thankfully the airport was pretty empty and we cleared customs quickly.

 

[bwhouse]

So as promised I thought I would summarise my overall feelings in relation to SQ R and TG F.


If I was to put the flights in order of overall experience it would look like this.


SIN-LHR on SQ R
FRA-BKK on TG A380 F
SYD-SIN on SQ R
BKK-SYD on TG 747 F


Interestingly, Mrs Bwhouse had a different order and the middle two were swapped around because she much preferred the bed in SQ Suites. There is no denying that the SQ Suites hard product is significantly better than any of the TG hard products.


What really got me was how patchy the service was on SQ, as mentioned in earlier posts the experience on the Syd-Sin was really pretty average and both of the TG flights had significantly better service than that first SQ flight. To be honest, the only reason I wouldn't rank that flight last, is that the hard product on the TG 747 is just too dated and old. If we had gotten the newer 747 config I suspect I would have ranked that flight higher than the first SQ leg.


No admittedly I have flown on a grand total of 2 SQ legs in F/R so maybe I was just unlucky but from what I have read service is known to be patchy. I was honestly surprised how much of a difference it made when the service was amazing. In comparison, I have now flown 4 legs in TG F counting the two flights on this trip and every single one of them has had an attentive crew that provided fantastic service.


Now putting all of that aside, I am nitpicking here. Every single one of the flights was excellent and I would happily take any of them again


Stay tuned in a few months time as we are taking a quick trip to the US and I somehow convinced Mrs Bwhouse that the only reasonable way to get to San Francisco was to take EY Apartments SYD-AUH-JFK and then jump on a trans-con flight (not sure what yet) to SFO. I can’t wait to experience EY so the countdown begins.

 

[kermatu]

A thoroughly enjoyable TR - thank you. Having just experienced both SQ and TG first class flights in 2015 and 16 these brought back nice memories. Some great pics from the cruise too.

 

[bwhouse]

A thoroughly enjoyable TR - thank you. Having just experienced both SQ and TG first class flights in 2015 and 16 these brought back nice memories. Some great pics from the cruise too.

Thanks Kermatu.

I really enjoyed writing it and looking forward to taking about crack at one in the near future.

 

[lmere12]

Enjoyed your TR & photo's thank you ... I'm doing TG F for 2nd time this year, EK F & EY Apartments .