Round The World and other travels

Sydney (SYD) - Honolulu (HNL)

This one got off to a rather dodgy start. I was at the gate for the advertised boarding time of 1020 ... just in nice time to see the crew turning up for duty! Something told me we were going to be late. Boarding eventually got underway at 1040, but loading a 747 takes quite some time. Everyone was aboard by 1120, but the captain then had to make a further apology as checks had revealed that there were not enough meals on board! What?! Oh well, no sense getting excited about it.

So I was back in the "nose cone" of a 747, for the last time on the trip, and in this case it was a series 300 model. The potential bad news was that the couple in 1J/K were travelling with a baby. But somehow, judging by the care and attention that both of them lavished on the child and the contented expression on the infant's face, I had the feeling that this one just might go ok. In the event, the little lad was as good as gold throughout the full duration of the long flight - amazing! And the good news - no, make that excellent news - was that 2J was empty ... so I had lots of space to store my various bits and pieces that I might want during the flight.

But back to the details. We finally pushed back at 1138 and, with a relatively short taxi to runway 16R, we were airborne by 1150. Take-off in the older 747s is a strange experience; there is just no kick from the engines at all. But somehow, it eventually makes it. There were to be two meal services on the flight : lunch and a "light dinner." Here's the lunch menu :-

I had the starters, then the beef and the cheese, accompanied throughout by red wine. I enjoyed the meal immensely. I don't know whether it was the extra time available, or the extra space and facilities on a 747, or even just a deliberate decision by Qantas, but I felt that their Business Class product had been raised a couple of notches on this service.

For in-flight entertainment, I began by listening to one of the two classical channels, which was a fixed programme in "radio" format, rather than audio on demand. After lunch, on its second loop through the programme, I watched the movie Duplex. I had never heard of this ... it's about a young married couple buying their first apartment in New York and discovering that they have a most unexpected neighbour from Hell. It is one of the funniest films I have seen and I think I probably let it show. (Later on, I heard a woman laughing hysterically and just knew what she was watching ) I also read for some of the time and tried a few of the IFE system's games. To my (very) slight annoyance, the in-flight map and statistics were not working. This facility may not be available on a 743, but if that's the case, why have it on the menu?

The menu for the second meal was as follows :-