SYD-BKK-xHEL-BCN-VLC-MAD-xHEL-BKK-SYD on QF, AY & Renfe Trains in J

[rogerkambah]

They were all taken while we were there.

Didn't get to see the lounge as we only had a 40min transit and BA was 5 min late arriving.

 

[nonpop]

General cabin shot of the single seats. Great if travelling on your own.


Double seating. This is where we were positioned. Plenty of space and as a couple where you want to stay 'connected' I'd pick the middle pair.
As a note, the pillow is bigger and softer than the QF version which we find to be smaller and more compressed. So when sleeping the Ay pillow is more versatile.


Cabin.


Space where your feet go when you hit the flat position.


Another shot of a single seat aisle facing


TBC

 

[nonpop]

Alcohol time. When flying J we like to sample what is on offer and surprisingly have come across some wines that have been little gems.
So it becomes like a hbby / sport of wine tasting in the air.

Here is what was on offer from lying out of HEL to BKK


More


Bubbles


More


Decided on trying the Reds after the Champagne pre-flight drink. IMHO Reds seems more palatable when in the air. Though sometimes the Reds are a bit too cold but after getting them to pour out a glass of each they warm up quickly enough.


TBC

 

[nonpop]

Another feeding time.
We always look forward to the 40,000 foot meal. How could you not. It is like part of the entertainment. Even in Y with the foil top, fun can be had. Fortunately in J the fun is even more. We always try to treat feeding time as a surprise and play it up a bit. Cheap entertainment coupled with fun.

Entrée of Miso soup. I liked it a lot.


SWMBO had a nice little salmon starter. She gave it two thumbs up. Surprisingly the radish worked well.


I had a chilli lime chicken ... very tasty and the right amount of zing I was looking for


SWMBO pre-ordered the Reindeer ... having had this before (and enjoying it) I select the chicken above. She enjoyed the Reindeer and once you get over the fact you are eating rudolph the red nosed reindeer the rest is easy. I kept reminding her that at home we eat Skippy (Kangaroo) so why not eat rudolph. May be it was the red kicking in, but at that point she looked at me, shrugged her shoulders in defeat and commenced tucking in.


And to prove rudolph was tender, here is a mid eating shot. may be all that sleigh pulling helps the muscle tone


TBC

 

[nonpop]

Dessert time. Always a wrestle with the conscious ... to eat the sweet or not.
Ok Cheese is protein so therefore safe. Oh look it also comes with some little sweets. Oh well just one serve and may be some Baileys. Just to help the sleep come along.


Mmm the little cakes needed more sampling. Better press that call button and ask for more ... and there must be Baileys to help wash it down. We are told to stay hydrated afterall

Sleep sets in easily enough a that point. The alcohol seems to win over the sugar.

So now breakfast time is upon us. we've slept until about 1 hr out of BKK. The earplugs have don their job too well. Most of the J cabin seem to have meal. When the CSM sees up both climb out of our tombs and head to the bathrooms our meals are made up. Upon our return 2 FAs have a tray with out meals.
Breakfast hit the spot and helped bring us from Zombie to the land of the living. Coffee refills were offered. We ate everything on the tray.


After landing on time around 9am and being given VIP passes for BKK immigration we departed our metal tube.
AY had looked after us once again. Flight on time, crew as expected - 'nordic cool', food and wine spot on, everything worked. Great value.

We then whisked through customs and made our way again to the Novotel BKK airport hotel. We'd secured a day rate for approx A$57 on a sale. Snap, I'll take that. Checked out needed to be b 6pm. Our Platinum status gave us lounge access. So on arrival we had another snack from breakfast then had a swim and grabbed some sun by the pool as we didn't need to catch our QF onward connection to SYD until about 6pm. It also allowed us to freshen up before flying home as we'd be heading off to work the next day straight off the plane. This is when flying J pays off.

The Novotel has a free to / from shuttle. Seems to run every 15 mins or on demand.


The usual Novotel room


TBC

 

[RooFlyer]

Last time I visited Helsinki I decided to get some of the glassware that Finnair uses - "Ultima Thule By Iittala". thought the smart thing to do would be to get them at the airport on departure (short intra-Europe flight), rather than down town, not so much for the duty free (wouldn't be) but just convenience. I checked and Iittala and did have a shop there. OK.

Arrrghhh! For some reason, the shop had a bunch of 'colourful' kitchen ware etc, but no glass sets; mystifying.

So I went Ultima Thule-less but now have a reason to go back on Finnair next time!!

Thanks also for the BKK airport Novotel shots and commentary; I was going to stay there last time, but changed plans. Looks like it would have been a good choice for a quick overnight stop.

 

[love_the_life]

.....

So I went Ultima Thule-less but now have a reason to go back on Finnair next time!!
.......

I like your thinking RF

 

[nonpop]

More pics of the BKK Novotel airport hotel. Nice King bed for a nap or whatever tickles your Euro fancy.


Bathroom - heaps of space with a bath and shower.


The pool is refreshing and a nice way to unwind. SWMBO grabbed a massage as the room came with a 20% off voucher (which I think they give every guest).

So late afternoon comes and we leave the Novotel after grabbing some afternoon tea from the lounge. This (the Novotel) is a great way to kill time from landing at 9am to departing around 6:15pm. The free shuttle whips us back to the airport and the driver checks which airline we're flying next - QF - and drops us at the nearest gate.

Flight: QF from BKK to SYD
Aircraft: A330

Then we head to the QF J counter about 1:10 mins before departure.
The check-in process is quick and the agent is 'cool' but efficient. She confirms our J seats and provides fast-track security and advises us of our lounge options.

We decide to pop into the QF lounge to grab another quick drink, us the amenities and some last minute wifi to confirm our pick-up in Syd.
The QF lounge in BKK ... does it ever change. I think not. We stayed until the second call was made.


Ok if you want pics of the QF A330 cabin, go back to the start of this thread. So I'll skip those pics as the Skybed Mk1 is well shown everywhere. And it does the job for a short flight.

Feeding time:
Soup entrée - we both had it. Most yum. Didn't look much but seemed to hit the spot


Main - we both had the salmon. Salmon is always hard to do in a re-heat. So good for what it is but I'm still never fully happy. Though do like Salmon and am a sucker for it each time. As a Salmon-in-the-air dish I give it a solid 8.5/10.


TBC

 

[love_the_life]

Interesting that you had proper dinner on the flight. When we flew back from SIN late December on only a slightly later flight it was "supper" - a measly small plate and very little else - no pre-dinner drinks, no tea or coffee service, only the offer of ice-cream. Very underwhelming. Mr LtL was most unimpressed as we had not had a lot to eat in the lounge and he was hungry. He asked for the cheese plate as well as the small plate. The flight details on the QF site indicated dinner so we felt a bit cheated!

 

[nonpop]

I didn't bother with dessert as needing to go straight to work upon landing meant it was time to grab some shut-eye. So after eating, I left the dishes on the fold out table, hit the seat extend button to sloping flat, put the AY eyes shades on (the best out there IMHO), squished the orange foam ear plugs into my ears and drifted off counting how many SCs needed to retain WP for each of us.

After a solid 5 hrs sleep I was woken by clanking of dishes. SWMBO was chomping away at breakfast. After realising landing was in about 1 hr, I went off to use the wash-room and brush the pegs.

Upon returning one of the QF cabin crew was there with my breakfast (the seat had also been made up with the seat cover folded away, blanket folded up and seat in the eating position). I had selected the hot breakfast which was creamed eggs with bacon, mushroom and coffee. Looking at it I was thinking of not eating it but noticed SWMBO had cleaned it all up. After a sip of coffee I gave it a go. 'Not bad' I thought. And then I was hooked and down the hatch it went. Surprising rather tasty.

I think I was one of the last people to get breakfast served because the crew kept walking up the aisle and pausing to glance at my feeding habits. As soon as I had drunk the coffee and cleaned up the plate a crew member swooped and asked if I was finished. No offer of a refill ... but I understand we were now about 50 mins to landing.


After breakfast I popped back into the wash-room to change out of my QF PJs into my work clothing.
The flight landed about 10 minutes late ... no big deal. I was already throwing caution to the wind with a tight schedule but living on the edge is fun sometimes.

But wait ... what is this.
The captain announces we'll be needing to take the HOHO bus from plane to terminal. Rrrrrr. This then adds about another 15 mins. How uncivilized.


Good bye QF24 you served us well.
Overall another good flight with nothing extraordinary to report. The crew looked after us well, the food was tasty and service friendly.
In short QF did everything they said they'd do.


And there ends the trip. Planes & high speed trains and lots of metro ... all just worked. Everything seemed to go to plan where there was a plan in place. AY & QF ticked all the boxes with both companies looking after us. Our WP benefits were granted and all our points & SCs came through without needing to chase them.

Spain ... if you haven't been, then go. Worth a visit, even in the winter time. If I could do it again I would have spent more time in Barcelona and made a hop across to Portugal (if you have the time). Apart from that I can't think of much else.

Like all travel, I think you have a high level plan and then fill it in as you go based on weather, what tour runs when, health at the time plus things that just crop up e.g was we saw a gallery and initially thought we'd knock it over in 2 hrs. How wrong we were. An entire day later and we were salivating to go back.

Food ... is always such an important element of any trip. We love to try food and it always seems to be more fun when you are trying to interpret a menu in another language then just give up and go 'random'. Overall all the food was lovely and exciting to try. Even the airline meals in J, boy have they come along way from even just 10 years ago to now.

So the worst meal of the trip goes to an organised tour (the only organised tour we took) of Toledo where we ticked the lunch box. This was the most expensive option as well. It was horrible. The veg looked like they were from a tin and microwaved.

Worst meal ... oh yuck (even makes me shiver just re-looking at it).


The best meal of the trip was another surprise. We had been touring all day and were tired with aching feet. So we jumped off the metro in down-town to grab dinner. We did the usual walk around looking at menus and then settled on this place. Hotel Preciados 4* Madrid | Official Website | Best Price

What we didn't realise at the time was that it was part of a hotel with a large restaurant at street level. Apart from the menu (which always come first), the attraction was white table cloths and comfortable seating with space. This usually translates into nicer facilities (wash-rooms). Sometimes we are happy with street food and a park bench, but this evening more was needed.

The meal doesn't look like much but oh it was so tasty. Since they had duck on the menu we both took the gamble and ordered the same dish.

(The entrée was a house made pate which was also top notch). In short it was very yum. Hot, tender and full of flavour. Even the service was acceptable. The waiter suggested a bottle of red as I couldn't find anything from the Barossa or Clare Valley and nothing from Margaret River either for some reason. I explained what type of red we wanted and within the price range. He selected a bottle from the menu then brought it out to allow us to try. Yep that'll do nicely.

Best meal ... brings a smile to my face as it represents a snapshot in time.



Ok well thanks for reading and playing along at home (or just looking at the pictures).
I hope you find your inspiration to take that next trip ... either to the next postcode with a blanket and some cheese or the other side of the globe.

The objective of this little trip report was to showcase another country, explain the process of getting there (or one way to do it at least), and the things that were encountered along the way.

And if you were considering Finnair (AY) then do add it to your list where you like value for money.

Wishing you safe & happy travels.

----
The earning wash-up ... everyone loves earning SCs. If you don't then shame on you. Just send them my way and I'll look after them for you

So the the SC earning:

Both tickets were on their own paper i.e QF booked with QF & AY booked with AY (but credited to QF).
Earning is based on the new QF F&S SC earning policy. The QF earn was the standard 13k points + 120 SCs per leg in J from SYD to BKK + return. I was curious as to how the partner earn would work as I looked at the earning table and found my nose bleeding every time I tried to decipher it with accuracy.

So for you SC junkies this is what came through (I've just removed the dates):
[TABLE="class: basic, width: 760"]
[TR="class: h3, bgcolor: #F4F4F4"]
[TD="bgcolor: #F5F5F5"]Date[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F5F5F5"]Description[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F5F5F5"]Qantas
Points[/TD]
[TD="class: statusBonus, bgcolor: #F5F5F5"]Status
bonus[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F5F5F5"]Total
points[/TD]
[TD="class: statusCredits, bgcolor: #F5F5F5"]Status
credits[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="class: basic, width: 760"]
[TR="class: underline1"]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="align: left"]AY 095 BUSINESS HELSINKI/BANGKOK 1,231[/TD]
[TD="class: figures"]4,922[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusBonus"]-[/TD]
[TD="class: figures"]6,153[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusCredits"]120[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: underline1 alt, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"][/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF, align: left"]AY 3184 BUSINESS MADRID/HELSINKI 461[/TD]
[TD="class: figures, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]1,844[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusBonus, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]-[/TD]
[TD="class: figures, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]2,305[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusCredits, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]80[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="class: basic, width: 760"]
[TR="class: underline1"]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="align: left"]AY 3269 BUSINESS HELSINKI/BARCELONA 410[/TD]
[TD="class: figures"]1,637[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusBonus"]-[/TD]
[TD="class: figures"]2,047[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusCredits"]80[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: underline1 alt, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"][/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF, align: left"]AY 090 BUSINESS BANGKOK/HELSINKI 1,231[/TD]
[TD="class: figures, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]4,922[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusBonus, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]-[/TD]
[TD="class: figures, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]6,153[/TD]
[TD="class: figures statusCredits, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]120[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Peace out. Tick the like box if you found it interesting.

 

[TomVexille]

Thanks for taking the time to share. This just reinforces my desire to get to tour Spain at some point.

 

[nonpop]

Thanks for taking the time to share. This just reinforces my desire to get to tour Spain at some point.

Remember to add Portugal to the list. Cheap and easy to get to from MAD. We almost did then chickened out at the last minute sitting in a wine bar in MAD trying to decide if we should or shouldn't.

 

[TomVexille]

Remember to add Portugal to the list. Cheap and easy to get to from MAD. We almost did then chickened out at the last minute sitting in a wine bar in MAD trying to decide if we should or shouldn't.

Definitely already on the list.

 

[rogerkambah]

Last time I visited Helsinki I decided to get some of the glassware that Finnair uses - "Ultima Thule By Iittala". thought the smart thing to do would be to get them at the airport on departure (short intra-Europe flight), rather than down town, not so much for the duty free (wouldn't be) but just convenience. I checked and Iittala and did have a shop there. OK.

Arrrghhh! For some reason, the shop had a bunch of 'colourful' kitchen ware etc, but no glass sets; mystifying.

So I went Ultima Thule-less but now have a reason to go back on Finnair next time!!

Thanks also for the BKK airport Novotel shots and commentary; I was going to stay there last time, but changed plans. Looks like it would have been a good choice for a quick overnight stop.

We flew AY J BKK-HEL return in Sept but had the old config 340. I see the red and white wines have changed. We too loved the glassware and wanted to get some in HEL during our stopover. Stockmann's didn't have any so we too need to go back. Will take a 2 day visaless cruise to St Petersburg too. Tallinn was a pleasant day trip on a fast cat, so another reason for your return.

 

[Bindibuys]

Tallinn was a pleasant day trip on a fast cat, - Loved our day trip to Tallinn.