Checked in on line and arrived about 90 minutes before departure to minimise the amount of time in the airport. You to have to get checked baggage screened by the US agriculture people and tagged before it is accepted at check-in. Once we had out boarding cards we went through the "fast track security" and through to the departure lounge. All Hawaiian flights check-in in the Inter-Island terminal (IIT), even if they are international, mainland or inter-island flights. Some of the mainland and international flights then depart from the the main terminal rather than the IIT. Ours was due to leave from the main terminal - Hawaiian only have a lounge in the IIT, but from previous experience this isn't worth using so we headed over to the main terminal and found the bar for a last pint of "Longboard Lager".
Again, no flight annoucements are made and there are no screens with boarding information around. By the time we wandered down to the gate, they were well into main boarding with no priority lane remaining. Once we were on board, we were impressed with the lay out of the First cabin. There are 18 seats in 2-2-2 configuration - they are slightly wider than VS premium seats, with quite a bit more leg room and a little bit more recline. There is a touch screen monitor which was of a reasonable size between the seats, which when up leaves an area for drinks etc. We were quickly offered champagne, orange juice or a combination of the two - we opted for the "neat" champagne option - not served in champagne glasses but large tumblers with a nice Hawaiian Airlines logo. A good measure and a good start to the flight.
We were given a menu (which we could keep as a souvenir if we liked) and asked for dinner options before take-off (along with post-take off drinks).
The menu consists of five "tapas" options of which you choose three. On this flight, the options were:
- Cheese plate
- Naked shrimp salad with lemongrass garlic dressing
- Pan seared seabass with chinese blackbean sauce and bamboo rice
- Mongolian lamb chops with merlot demiglace and mashed potatoes
- Penne pasta arrabiata
Between the two of use we ended choosing all five of the options.
Once in the air, tables were laid and the post-take off drinks served with warmed nuts, with refills of the drinks offered. The dinner was served on a tray with all the three options together, along with a roll (which rather oddly was purple inside for some reason). Wine was offered - a choice of red or white. The white was an American Chardonnay, although I wasn't entirely sure what the red I had was (apart from it was very nice indeed). The food was all very well presented and was very tasty (particularly the naked shrimp salad - I could have choosen three of those!). Refills on wine were offered and the crew were in and around the cabin throughout the flight - there were four crew during the food service in / around the first class cabin, so a good crew:passenger ratio. Once the plates were empty (which didn't take that long), they were cleared and we were offered "a sweet treat" - this was a large vanilla ice cream heart covered with white chocolate and which contained a centre ball of strawberry sorbet. Really tasty!! All in all a really good meal.
Once the dinner was over, we settled back to watch a couple of movies - the flight time was about 4hrs 40 minutes in total. The crew were in and about the cabin regularly - the best line was can I refresh your diet coke with something stronger! I asked from an Amaretto - which came in a really cute bottle. We ended up slightly tiddly by the end of the flight - and I don't think we would have been the only ones given how attentive the crew were.
All too soon we were coming into land at LAX airport - HA use terminal 2, so it was odd walking through the terminal which VS use given that we would be in there in two days latter waiting for our flight back to the UK.
Baggage came off quickly as it was priority tagged and then it was time for a cab to our hotel at LA Universal Studios.
This was a really good flight - the crew were amazing (much better than the average VS crew) and the food options / drinks on the flight were great (again much better than VS). If HA fleew to the UK, I would use them without hesitation!
