Tuesday, March 25, 2008 Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) to Beijing, China (PEK) 11:05 am Thai Airways 0614, Boeing 747, First Class, Seats 2J, 2K Scheduled flight time: 4h 25m We left the Novotel around 7:45am and took the shuttle over to the airport. Another couple was on the shuttle with us, heading to a domestic destination, so we were both dropped off at the same point – Royal First/Royal Silk checkin comes first, right before domestic. We got out of the shuttle, had only our carryons, so none of the porters stirred. We approached the Royal First check-in room and as soon as we entered we were greeted and brought inside to sit down. We turned over our passports, paid our departure tax (they dispatched a staff member to pay it and brought us our receipts),…
Trip Reports
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Bangkok Overnight at the Airport Novotel
Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport With the time change it was about 9pm local time when we got out of the BKK airport. We were heading back to the airport for a morning flight, wanted to get there early enough for the first class spa, and so decided not to head into the city and instead spend the night at the Novotel on the airport grounds. While the in-room materials describe the walkway from the terminal, that isn’t built yet. Instead there’s a shuttle that runs every 15 minutes. After clearing immigration and customs, there’s a Novotel representative standing by door 4 ready to assist you into the hotel’s van. A quick loop around the airport access roads and you’re at the hotel. Contra several reports, check-in was a breeze although there were curiously many forms to…
Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay Balinese Cooking Class
Four Seasons Bali Cooking School Experience: One of my pet peeves with travel is the last day in a resort destination. If your flight leaves too early, it’s a hectic morning rushing to get things together and get off to the airport… defeating the very relaxation you’ve been trying to accomplish. But a flight departing in the afternoon inevitably means waiting around and pining, “we have only X hours left” rather than relaxing. So I’ve found it’s helpful when taking a late afternoon flight to book activities during the day. We decided to book a cooking class over at the Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay roughly next door to the Intercontinental. Monday morning is the Balinese cooking class (other days feature different cuisines, but when in Bali…) The day started off at 8am in the lobby…
Bali – Dinner at Mozaic
We had one dinner off-property. With the suggestion of some on Flyertalk, we sought out the most acclaimed restaurant in Bali … Mozaic. It’s in Ubud, and nearly an hour and a half’s drive each way from our hotel, but was a nice experience. On the whole a lovely dinner, with wonderful service (though in a very practiced, memorized Balinese way). An advance booking is pretty much required, and then the restaurant requires same-day confirmation (and they also maintain a waitlist) so we had the club lounge staff ring them up the morning of our reservation. And then rather than taking a cab up to Ubud we had a hotel car drive us there, wait, and drive us back. It’s just so impossibly inexpensive (even with the current value of the dollar, and even at…
Bali – Central Mountain Tour
Bali Central Mountains Tour: On the advice of several Flyertalkers, we booked a tour with Wayan Sueta (who has a very nice website). We had him take us up to the Central Mountain region, saw a coffee plantation up in Munduk, and naturally some temples. Here was another glitch in our trip. We had booked him for March 21, we were supposed to meet him in the hotel lobby (and I had re-confirmed just days before). He didn’t show. I called him on his cell and it seems that he had gotten confused. He knew I had booked the 21st, but wrote it in his calendar for the 22nd. Since he lives up in Ubud it was really too late to get started for the day. Not a huge deal, we just rescheduled a spa…
Intercontinental Bali Resort & Spa – Jimbaran Bay
We landed just after 9:30 pm, and I expected the hotel to meet us on the walk from the plane to immigration, apply for our visa on arrival, escort us to their lounge, take our passport and luggage tags, and collect our bags. But there was no one waiting. Now, the above service is a published benefit of a club booking at the Intercontinental in Jimbaran Bay. And there really shouldn’t have been any confusion. Back on January 17th – right after I made the booking — I emailed my flight arrival information to the hotel. On January 18th the hotel confirmed Quote: we have updated your flight details in our system. The transfer from and to the airport will be included as a Club InterContinental guest and you will be greeted by our club…
Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal in Frankfurt
First Class Terminal For those who haven’t been, or might be visiting for the first time, the First Class Terminal is on the upper, departure level in a separate building, just west of Terminal 1. The building has a large “First Class Terminal” sign. There’s a pretty sharp turn-off, though, as you approach, which can be easy to miss. (It’s also walkable back from the Terminal 1 arrivals level where the hotel vans pickup and dropoff.) Our car pulled up and a personal assistant met us out front. She asked for our passports, and I handed them over along with our boarding passes. She asked about luggage to check and I noted that our bags were already checked. She took our bag tags in order to check on them. We were quickly through a perfectly…
A Complimentary Day Room at Frankfurt
Tuesday, March 18, 2008Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch Frankfurt Lufthansa First Class passengers are entitled to a complimentary day room at the Kempinski hotel. I found the details on the Lufthansa website. I emailed the hotel when making arrangements for the trip, mentioned I was a Lufthansa first class passenger (but didn’t mention the free room benefit) and they replied with a discount rate of 79 euros. Well, if I was going to pay for the room I’d just book the airport Sheraton! A quick email back with a link to the LH website, and they replied with apologies – yes you are right.We are very sorry about that fault. We do not remember about that possibility, because we don not had this very often. We send you a confirmation for the requested day use room free…
Lufthansa First Class: Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt
This is the second post of my trip report, since the posts start from the beginning of the trip you’ll need to scroll down and read posts in reverse order. Or just take the post-modern approach and just dive into the middle! Monday, March 17, 2008Washington, DC (IAD) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) 7:00pm Lufthansa 0419, Boeing 747, First Class, Seats 81A, 81C Scheduled flight time: 7h 40mI took the metro to work today with my bags loaded into my wife’s Acura. She came by the office to pick me up around 4pm. We were at Dulles just after 4:30pm, waited about 5 minutes behind just a single customer at First Class check-in, and were told we’d have to pick up onward boarding passes at Frankfurt… except our boarding passes all the way to Denpasar spit right…
New Year’s at the Westin Diplomat, or Learning About the Beauty of Shoulder Season the Hard Way
Regular readers of this blog will know that I absolutely adore the Westin Diplomat outside Fort Lauderdale. It’s without a doubt the best Starwood property for Platinum recognition. They have about 86 suites in the upgrade pool for platinums, many being corner suites with wraparound balconies looking out at both the Atlantic Ocean and Intracoastal Waterway. Additionally, they have an absolutely lovely club lounge on the 33rd floor with both indoor and outdoor seating, also looking out both at the ocean and waterway. The club offers three food presentations daily, nice flatscreen televisions, and a bountiful selection of newspapers (I can even grab my Sunday New York Times there without much difficulty).It’s a big property to be sure, but they’ve always managed their size well. In the past the valet has been quick to grab…
