So Saturday arrived and it as been a long one! Woke up at 0430 in Melbourne, didn't need to be up but body decided hey ho you are off on a long trip you don't any more sleep. We flew to AKL and then on to SFO (15 hours flying time). We arrived here at 1220, its now 2030 and its still saturday June 6.
Anyway to the TR.
As we were flying PE we were able to check in at the J desks in Melbourne, even though PE isn't offered on the trans Tasman routes. No queue so seen straight away boarding cards issued for the seats we had selected on line. I asked if the SFO flight was full and she said no and re-printed our boarding cards for that sector with A & C in the hope that B would remain empty.
We set off to security and immigration - empty we were through within minutes and no lounge to use OMG what were we going to do for 2.5 hours! We had given ourselves plenty of time as when we went to AKL at Easter it took almost 1.5 hours to get checked in and to get airside (and that was with business check in too).
We took a seat in the coffee shop and the time passed by until our flight was the last one in the departure area place was deserted - but peaceful.
Made our way onto the ANZ T7 and took our seats in 26 A&B these are the PE area seats so plenty of legroom. Very nice seats with leg support, large recline and even noise canceling headsets. All this with a Y service. Nice thing about the ANZ layout on the T7 is the curtain between J and Y is behind PE so even though we were technically in Y the curtain was shut behind us and made the cabin a bit more private.
ANZ allow gate to gate use of the IFE (except games which are only available during the cruise). The skymap is very good too.
Light lunch was offered either a steak pie or chicken something with salad followed by ice cream. Full bar service including sparkling from a full size bottle. All in all a quick flight with everything one could want. The pie was very good tasty and no soggy pastry.
We had approx 2 hours on the ground in AKL this was spent mainly playing musical gates - apparently the 'airport' mixed up the gates so SFO was gate 10 and then suddenly so was LAX, but the SFO was changed to 3 so off we all go, then the flight crew there said they were going to LAX and so it was back to gate 10. As you can imagine there were a lot people laughing their socks off - not.
Finally at gate 10 NZ8 boarded J & PE with *A golds first. Nice touch. So we were seated with drinks and papers before the masses trudged through. Turned out there were only 20 PE pax for the 36 seats. So the two dedicated CC to PE managed to arrange for each party to a have a block 3 seats and moved everyone around before departure while paperwork was being done. Nice touch.
I have uploaded some images to the gallery as I can't make them work here.
After departure amenity kits were handed out along with menus and pre dinner drinks orders were taken. I have to the say the service was second to none and I shall write to ANZ and commend them.
Dinner was served on china with metal knives and forks. And it was by far the best airline food I have ever eaten. I had salmon for main and it was cooked perfectly. I would have happily paid top dollar for it in a restaurant. The OH said the chicken was excellent too.
Snacks and drinks were set up for self service during the night. Relevant drinks on ice etc.
I managed to get about 5 hours of sleep and woke up some 3 hours out of SFO.
Breakfast was a multi course affair too - smoothie or juice, cereal, fresh fruit, yoghurt and a choice of hot main they even had a 'selection' of herbal teas - I don't do caffeine.
The IFE did has a hiccup (although not ours) as it was rebooted 2 hours out o SFO. All too soon we were approaching the US. We landed early at 1220 and we through immigration and customs, into a cab and checked into our hotel within 55 minutes of touching down. The Immigration officer even said 'good afternoon' - what better welcome can one expect in the US.
Overall I would give the ANZ PE service a whopping 11/10. Just hope the high standards are maintained on the trip back. I am not going to try and compare with VS PE as I have not flown VS PE since 2005 and I would be trawling the depths of my mind to come up with something meaningful. Hope I didn't bore you and thanks for reading.
Rob
