Trip Report: SYD-LAX-SAN
Final leg of my Round the World trip, and also the longest flight time: a little over 13 hours flight time from Sydney (SYD) to Los Angeles (LAX), and another 35 minutes to San Diego (SAN).
The trip started in the SYD Air New Zealand Koru Club, which I'd been to a few weeks ago on my SYD-AKL flight. I took advantage of the pancake machine once again, plus eggs, healthy tomatoes, and not so healthy cream parfait for a satisfying brunch.
I also took a much needed shower in one of the shower rooms. It was really pretty, but sort of sketchy because unlike United Red Carpet Club shower rooms, it's not cleaned after each use. So there was water on the floor, and crumpled tissues on the toilet. Still, a shower's a shower.
Just as I left the shower (and just in time, because the lights mysteriously turned off leaving me in pitch darkness), I was paged to the front desk by the United agent on staff, who found me a seat in business class! This was the one segment on my RTW ticket that wasn't confirmed in business, and I'm not sure how she worked her magic (was told at check in that business was oversold), but I sure am grateful. This was going to be one of the planes with the new horizontal flat beds in business, which I was really excited to try out. The seats are both forward and backwards facing, which makes it an unusual cabin when you first see it.
While the seats are narrower than South African's horizontal beds, they had better cushioning. Plus, I think it makes a big difference to have a horizontal bed, compared to an angled bed like on Turkish or Singapore.
The service was above average for United, which has some really variable flight attendant service. The flight attendants on the upper deck on my flight were disarmingly casual but pretty thoughtful and efficient. After the long, drawn out meal service on Turkish (which I loved), it was refreshing to have dinner over within 1.5 hours after departure with each course cleared out promptly, and only have breakfast start 1.5 hours before landing. Unusually for United, the second meal service didn't involve lots of cream sauce. Just poached eggs, spinach (no cream), tomatoes, and chicken sausage. Thumbs up.
The connection in LAX was uneventful, and so was the LAX-SAN flight. I was sad though about the service from LAX-SAN. I'd flown that route a lot before, and I always looked forward to it because Skywest operates the flight. I always though their flight attendants were the best, and they always served drinks and crackers or cookies. But now it's "too short so it's a non-beverage service flight." Times do change.
