TL;DR – Slept the entire time; barely remember the flight
Introduction
The only reason why we took this flight was to try out the First Apartments from Sydney to Abu Dhabi. Well, I had to get to Tokyo, and so why not take the First class flight there? This flight only cost me 45K AA miles per person for this 10 hr flight. The flight was at 10pm at night and I was dead tired since I didn’t sleep when I was in Abu Dhabi. I wanted my internal clock to stay on Asia Pacific time.
Also, I’m all about perspective. If this was my first and only First Class experience, then you should read the review with a grain of salt, but now that I’ve tried 7 different First Class products, I feel that’s enough to give this review some credibility. Here are the ones I’ve tried:
- Cathay Pacific 777-300ER First Class LAX-HKG
- Etihad A380 First Apartments SYD-AUH
- Etihad A340 First class AUH-NRT (this review)
- Emirates 777-300ER First Class CPT-DXB
- Emirates A380 First Class DXB-SFO
- Singapore A380 Suites First Class NRT-LAX
- United First NRT-LAX (so old and terrible that I won’t review – think tape deck for movies)
Booking the Flight
Availability for 2 people on this flight seemed pretty wide open. This cost me 45K AA miles for a 10hr flight in First Class. NUTS! The flight departs at night, so I just sorta ate and fell asleep.
Where to sit
There are 12 seats in first class with 3 pairs of middle seats. I didn’t have any issues getting the 2 middle seats. I think the cabin was only half full when we took it (I think entire plane may have only been half full too.)
Seat comfort
It was fine.
Champagne
The champagne was the 2005 Bollinger La Grande Annee, which is the same in the First Apartments.
Entertainment
I basically ate and fell asleep. Don’t remember watching anything. I don’t remember there being WiFi on the flight.
Meal
Looking back, apparently I had the Japanese course. Wasn’t great. Wasn’t bad.
Service
The only thing I remember was chatting with the FA about how we flew the First Apartments to AUH. He had mentioned he’s worked that flight a couple of times. That’s all I remember.
Conclusion
I realize this review was short, but I had been up for 24 hours and was extremely tired when I got on the flight. Maybe if this was my first F flight, I would have cherished the flight more, but after having flown the First Apartments 16 hours earlier for 14 hours, this just didn’t compare. It’d be like eating a 16 oz filet mignon steak and them giving you a 16 oz ribeye afterwards. Since you’re so stuffed from the filet, you can’t possibly the enjoy the ribeye. Sorry, that’s the best analogy I got for you.
Photos
I drink lounge whisky for free and sleep in coach seats for a lot less miles. And get to my destination just the same. And get to stretch my miles a whole lot further w/o having to visit Staples and WM. Nothing against first class travel — just not worth MS’ing for.
Dude! That’s because there aren’t Staples and WM in Korea.
Sometimes I wish but I don’t even bother much when in the states. I get the appeal of first class travel, but I also know the amount of effort it takes to MS just for a coach RT ticket and its a lot haha. You guys are pros though so I assume its much easier once you get going and it becomes an everyday hobby.