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I'm back, for a day before setting out on a cruise. The trip was, overall, excellent, and I got very lucky with the weather and my timing.
I'll start posting pictures on Flickr a few at a time with hopefully somewhat useful captions, or a narrative somewhere else with links to said pictures to fill in the gaps. That will take time, though, so I'll start from the end and the flight back.
As I reserved the trip on credit card accrued skymiles, I was surprised to see the option of "business class" for the regular price (in miles) legs on my way back. I hadn't dared hope that they actually would honor this, but it turns out that they did. Also, only two legs were supposed to be business class, but perhaps because of a fair bit of airline grief on this trip some agent had upgraded the remaining leg. In short, the entire flight back was in business class.
From Helsinki to Paris this equated to unparalleled luxury; while the seats were regular size, they had ample leg room and more importantly, I was the only passenger in the entire business class cabin. This meant that I got a flight attendant to myself, I got to sit where ever the view was best and could sprawl out across an entire row. A pretty good flight attendant at that; she caught how many sugars I put in my tea when I first took them, and offered me the same number after that. I was impressed. I assume this is pretty much what having your own plane is like.
Paris was not so nice; as at almost every airport, signage appeared plentiful, but because CDG has TWO E-terminals and the boarding card just had a gate number, and no signs properly indicate which gates are in which terminal, or how to get from one to the other if you're in the transit area, getting to my gate turned out to be fairly complicated -- and a very long hike, complete with yet another security check; still, I made it in time.
The Air France Paris to Atlanta flight was also very luxurious; the business class was completely full, but here the seats were paired up "pods" with an electrically controlled seat that went almost entirely flat; think of a good, nice Laz-e-Boy and you get the idea. Food was very good, there were linens, lots of silvers, many courses, and the entire duration of the flight an open self-service bar with several 10+ year old single malts and scotches free for the pouring -- rather wasted on me, alas. There were tons of very neat and useful touches as well, from the noise-canceling Sennheiser headphones attached to the seats to the mouth washes and make-up accessories in the lavatories. If I ever travel transatlantic or further again, I'd give up a fair bit to get such an upgrade. First class got leather, single pods, and I imagine their seats became real beds, but business class certainly was plenty luxurious for me.
On the ground in Atlanta, the familiar pattern repeated -- while the flight attendants and air crews were uniformly great, the ground operations were a total mess. My luggage was lost, as it was on the way over, and I spend the next several hours standing in crowded lines at several different desks getting a number of conflicting stories at a rather poorly air-conditioned airport. By the time I was done and got to my hotel, there was really no point in trying to get to Atlanta proper, and I had a fair bit of sleep to catch up on, so I proceeded to do as much. At one in the morning I got a call from the luggage department, and forty minutes later I had my belongings again. And back to sleep, with little trouble.
The short trip to Tampa was also in a packed business class; big chairs, lots of leg room, some extra drink service. A noteworthy event was when the captain confirmed that there are bands of heavy thunderstorms we have to fly trough and seated the passengers and flight attendants for the remaining duration of the flight. Looking out the window and seeing the wall of cumulonimbus incus clouds ahead of us, I quickly made sure I had my motion sickness bag handy. Turns out it was not needed; through absolutely wondrous luck, divine guidance, or really shrewd navigating through the clouds (as we did a fair bit of banking here and there) there was very little turbulence at all, and we made it to the rainy Tampa with little fuss.
So now, some more jet lag to recover from, and one catch-up day at work come tomorrow.
I'll start posting pictures on Flickr a few at a time with hopefully somewhat useful captions, or a narrative somewhere else with links to said pictures to fill in the gaps. That will take time, though, so I'll start from the end and the flight back.
As I reserved the trip on credit card accrued skymiles, I was surprised to see the option of "business class" for the regular price (in miles) legs on my way back. I hadn't dared hope that they actually would honor this, but it turns out that they did. Also, only two legs were supposed to be business class, but perhaps because of a fair bit of airline grief on this trip some agent had upgraded the remaining leg. In short, the entire flight back was in business class.
From Helsinki to Paris this equated to unparalleled luxury; while the seats were regular size, they had ample leg room and more importantly, I was the only passenger in the entire business class cabin. This meant that I got a flight attendant to myself, I got to sit where ever the view was best and could sprawl out across an entire row. A pretty good flight attendant at that; she caught how many sugars I put in my tea when I first took them, and offered me the same number after that. I was impressed. I assume this is pretty much what having your own plane is like.
Paris was not so nice; as at almost every airport, signage appeared plentiful, but because CDG has TWO E-terminals and the boarding card just had a gate number, and no signs properly indicate which gates are in which terminal, or how to get from one to the other if you're in the transit area, getting to my gate turned out to be fairly complicated -- and a very long hike, complete with yet another security check; still, I made it in time.
The Air France Paris to Atlanta flight was also very luxurious; the business class was completely full, but here the seats were paired up "pods" with an electrically controlled seat that went almost entirely flat; think of a good, nice Laz-e-Boy and you get the idea. Food was very good, there were linens, lots of silvers, many courses, and the entire duration of the flight an open self-service bar with several 10+ year old single malts and scotches free for the pouring -- rather wasted on me, alas. There were tons of very neat and useful touches as well, from the noise-canceling Sennheiser headphones attached to the seats to the mouth washes and make-up accessories in the lavatories. If I ever travel transatlantic or further again, I'd give up a fair bit to get such an upgrade. First class got leather, single pods, and I imagine their seats became real beds, but business class certainly was plenty luxurious for me.
On the ground in Atlanta, the familiar pattern repeated -- while the flight attendants and air crews were uniformly great, the ground operations were a total mess. My luggage was lost, as it was on the way over, and I spend the next several hours standing in crowded lines at several different desks getting a number of conflicting stories at a rather poorly air-conditioned airport. By the time I was done and got to my hotel, there was really no point in trying to get to Atlanta proper, and I had a fair bit of sleep to catch up on, so I proceeded to do as much. At one in the morning I got a call from the luggage department, and forty minutes later I had my belongings again. And back to sleep, with little trouble.
The short trip to Tampa was also in a packed business class; big chairs, lots of leg room, some extra drink service. A noteworthy event was when the captain confirmed that there are bands of heavy thunderstorms we have to fly trough and seated the passengers and flight attendants for the remaining duration of the flight. Looking out the window and seeing the wall of cumulonimbus incus clouds ahead of us, I quickly made sure I had my motion sickness bag handy. Turns out it was not needed; through absolutely wondrous luck, divine guidance, or really shrewd navigating through the clouds (as we did a fair bit of banking here and there) there was very little turbulence at all, and we made it to the rainy Tampa with little fuss.
So now, some more jet lag to recover from, and one catch-up day at work come tomorrow.
