Dubai Marathon – Cathay Pacific Business Class (Part 2)

I arrived in Hong Kong with not a lot of time to spend in the airport. I generally like the airport experience – from drop-off to take-off – so I don’t mind layovers. In this case (my first time in Hong Kong), I realized I wouldn’t have that much time due to the vastness of the airport. It was like a small city! It was huge! I knew I was going to have to go to my gate and skip out on the lounge here. It didn’t bother me too much because I was in business class for the next segment so I would not have access to the first class lounge. This next segment was to be on Cathay Pacific business class.

Cathay Pacific Business Class

[box style=”none”] Cathay Pacific Flight # CX711

Hong Kong (HKG) – Singapore (SIN)

Departure 4:00PM (HKT) / Arrival 7:50PM (SGT) – 3 hours and 50 minutes

Plane – Boeing 777-300 / Seat 15C  (Business Class)

Layover – 1 hour and 10 minutes

Singapore (SIN) – Colombo, Sri Lanka (CMB)

Departure 9:00PM (SGT) / Arrival 10:15PM (IST) – 3 hours and 45 minutes

Plane – Boeing 777-300 / Seat 15C (Business Class)[/box]

When we boarded, it was a full plane. Just from hearing the various conversations from the suited individuals around me, there were a LOT of banking reps on this flight. It was a large business class cabin and fit many people. The seats were very nice and the service was excellent. Even with the full business class cabin, the service was very prompt and attentive – even getting everyone their pre-departure drinks before the doors shut.

The seat was very comfortable with decent width and great recline (along with foot rest). The configuration was a little crowded as it was 2/3/2 but I still felt comfortable. As is normal for business class, they had blankets and pillows for us when boarding. The TVs were not that great as far as picture quality. The sound was breaking up a bit and the channel buttons took a lot of pushing. It could have been my seat, but looking at the age of the multimedia equipment, I wouldn’t be surprised it most of them were similar. I actually got to watch a rerun of the Melbourne (Australia) Marathon, which was really cool! All in all, it was a nice flight as far as the equipment/seat went.

I was surprised at the quality of the menu for such a short flight.It was definitely more than they have for US business class flights of this length. However, I was still too full from the previous flight so I did pass on the food on this flight.  Sorry, I wanted to be able to review the food for you all but heading to a race I had to listen to my gut 🙂

Starters

Smoked duck breast with tea smoked raisin and mustard seed dressing 

Seasonal salad with balsamic vinegar dressing

Main Courses

Braised pork with preserved bean curd sauce, steamed rice, choy sum and carrots 

Pan-roasted cod on tomato caper sauce, buttered fingerling potatoes, broccoli and roasted pumpkin

Mutton karma with biriyani rice and gobhi matar

 

Cheese and Dessert

Cheese selection

 

Fresh Seasonal fruit

Mango cheese cake with mixed berry compote 

 

We landed in Singapore and came off of the plane for a little while. Since we were going to be taking the same flight, they gave us a special boarding card to give when we reentered the boarding area. I took off to find some water bottles to have for my overnight in Colombo and was very surprised to find that there were no drinks available for sale. There were many stores and shops (this is Singapore, after all!) but they did not have any coolers (there were some small shops like we have in US airports but they were missing the snacks/drinks). I did not have a lot of time to browse the airport. I did see the transit hotel signs, though, if you are in the airport overnight.

When I went back to our gate, I found that our gate had its own security entrance. So, back through the metal detectors! It is funny to see the different security procedures in the different countries. For example, in the US, they make us take off our shoes, no liquids, etc. In other countries, they laugh when you ask about your shoes and even if you buy bottled water past security, you still have to get rid of it before the plane. In this case, the security was very low-key and they really did not even pay that much attention as we passed through.

When they called the boarding, we made our way down the jetway. This time, there were only two of us in the business class cabin. Even the economy cabin was somewhat empty. Probably not a whole lot of people traveling to Sri Lanka at this time of the day !

Wait until the next report of what happened when I arrived in Colombo! You will learn, as I did, that entry procedures for certain countries can change without notice and really leave you hanging in a sticky situation!

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