- Introduction
- The Renaissance Saigon
- Cathay First Class
- InterContinental Hong Kong
- Cathay First Class Lounge
- Park Hyatt Tokyo
What I forgot when starting all this is that Cathay’s First Class Lounge is currently under renovations. In the meantime they’ve sectioned off one of the business class lounges and turned it into a temporary first class lounge. While the lounge I experienced was certainly worthy of Cathay First Class it was by no means mind blowing. Really no reason to show up early for this lounge, but the first class lounge invitation said that when their renovations are done their first class lounge experience will be unrivaled.
Check-in took 20 seconds. There are 10 kiosks and only 9 seats on most of their first class flights (and we were the only two on mine). Though, I’m sure at peak times it’s no over-kill but it seemed like it after I saw the long winding line for business class. The funny part was my greeting. Now, I know I don’t dress or look like a CEO, wearing jeans and carrying backpacks, but elite agents are normally flawless and make you feel elite regardless of who you are. However, my greeting went something like this:
“Checking in?” She asked.
“Yes.” I answered confidently heading for the kiosk.
She quickly asked with a higher inflection, “First Class?”
Boy, now it feels as though I shaved and put on my nicest shirt and jeans for nothing. Hmm. How should I have responded? “No, no, I’m the pilot…”, or “There are different classes?”, or “I hear First Class has free booze!”… I guess “yes” did fine.
If there is a reason to show up early to the lounge it would be the restaurant area. An al a carte (buffet) set up like a fine restaurant – waiters in tuxes, finely set tables and fine champagne. Although, as I said earlier, I couldn’t even finish my food on the flight. The lounge was fine but small and fitted with the slowest computers on earth.
When our flight was ready it was announced over the loud speaker and then we walked 10 minutes to the business/first-class line. A pretty underwhelming experience, but the flight is certainly the best part of a Cathay First Class experience. However, I’m interested to see what the “unrivaled first class lounge experience” could mean.
