I'd contacted Hawaiian Airlines to request our confirmation codes and enable us to check in online. I'd used the free wifi in the Sheraton's Lobby and confirmed our seats as 2H / 2J.
We made our way back to the airport at about 7:45am, which was just as well as, even at that early hour, the airport was really busy with American's returning from their Thanksgiving holidays.
We had to go to the check in desks to deposit our hold luggage and collect our boarding passes. It was busy and, although travelling in first class, were called to the economy desk. There was some confusion when we were asked to pay for our luggage, but an apology swiftly followed.
There was a separate line for Security for the premium passengers. The Agent was surprised to see British passport holders travelling to Hawai'i; apparently we're a bit of a novelty.
We familiarised ourselves with the Hawaiian lounge but, in need of breakfast, we went to the little diner just after Security. We had a very good breakfast of eggs and hash browns and then returned to the lounge. Certainly no clubhouse, that's for sure! There were soft drinks and coffee that you could help yourself to. We did manage to make ourselves a cup of tea. There were a few snacks, too. Some lovely Mac Nut cookies, packets of cheese and biscuits and bags of cracker-type snacks. It was a nice area away from the crowds, with a good wifi connection, but not somewhere you would want to spend longer than you have to. The guy on the door did announce the flights as they were ready for boarding.
We wandered down to the gate on the first announcement, but they were not quite ready for boarding. It wasn't a long wait, though and first class are called to board first with those passengers requiring extra assistance.
The first class cabin has 3 rows in a 2-2-2 configuration (18 pax in total). The first thing we noticed was the 2 dogs in the cabin. Both were small, a puggle and a terrier and both had coats stating they were assistance dogs. I have to say both were very well behaved, but still very surprising to see them in a general cabin.
We were offered a pre-flight drink and took the Guava juice, as far as I'm concerned the taste of Hawai'i, as we had it everywhere. The crew, there were 3 of them in first, were very professional and polite, but there was none of the interaction you get with a good VS crew.
The crew announced that all electronic items were to be switched off with seats upright for take off. The crew members made a quick check of the cabin and then took their seats. There was clearly no enforcement of these rules in first class on board this flight. Pax had seats reclined and electronic devices remained on and in use. Perhaps this is normal for an internal American flight (the return was actually the same), but I did think it was odd of pax to ignore crew instructions.
The flight time to HNL was 5 hours 20 minutes, and this was a very bumpy flight. The seat belt signs were rarely off. Again, this wasn't enforced in first class, pax were free to use the bathrooms and access the overhead storage even with the seat belt signs on.
I do want to mention that the loo in first class had fresh flowers in it; having tried one further down the plane I can confirm that flowers were only displayed in first class.
Shortly after take-off, we were offered a hot towel and a drink with a snack mix (the same ones that can be found in the lounge). A menu was also given out. On these flights, you select one starter from a choice of two (scallops or mac nut pate) and then two entrees from a choice of three (fish / duck or veggie spring roll). These are served with a warm bread roll, no longer of the purple variety. After lunch we had carrot cake served with tea. I only sampled the spring roll, which was not of the variety from your local chinese takeaway, but quite tasty. The cake was pleasant, too.
We did have access to movies in first class; although these were a similar offering to our VS flight. There were additional drink runs and the remainder of the flight passed relatively quickly.
Having had a slight delay in take-off, we landed about 25 minutes later than scheduled. But, we still had over an hour and half before the next flight to the Big Island.
