Again, I embarked on another public holiday trip within the span of a month, with an additional 1.5days of vacation leave, for a 4 nights trip to Hong Kong. Having been to Hong Kong a number of times, I am rather familiar with the city and hence this trip would be to seek out new eating places and maybe explore some unexplored places. Tickets were booked more than half a year back and CX actually offered the lowest fares (less than S$300 return, lower than the budget carriers!) over the holiday period, hence it was definitely a great deal!
Checked in at Terminal One slightly more than an hour before the late afternoon departure to HKG. Even though with the totally full flight, check-in counters were rather empty, with 9 counters opened to check in passengers! Additionally, I observed that at the Business Class counters, the check-in staff will stand up and greet/welcome Business passengers prior processing their check-in. Very premium service by CX!
Boarding pass. Would be stuck at the middle aisle seat as the flight was totally full with no choice of window seats available during online check-in. Also the flight was changed from a originally scheduled B772 to a long-haul B773ER. Guess CX's frequent flyers would have enjoyed an upgrade to Premium Economy, with Business Class pax upgraded from Regional J to Long-haul J. Makes their loyal pax happy with the upgrades I guess.
Nothing much interesting in the afternoon, except some European heavies.
Spotted a Hello Kitty EVA B773ER at the Terminal 3 gate (B10?) nearest to Terminal 1.
We would be departing from Gate D34. CX has 2 separate security screening queues for premium and economy pax. Boarding has already commenced when I reached the gate. CX has also segregated a section of the gate for its premium pax for priority boarding vs the rest of cattle class. From the looks of it, seems like half the plane are CX's premium frequent flyer members.
23 September 2015
Cathay Pacific
CX 734
Singapore (SIN) - Hong Kong (HKG)
B777-300ER
B-KPY
Economy Class
Flight Time: 3h27m
A fairly young 3-year old B-KPY would be operating the flight.
Boarding the plane. An empty newspaper trolley was at the door, presumably with all newspapers being snatched up by earlier boarding passengers.
Boarding in progress for a totally full flight.
Legroom was more than decent for the short flight. As mentioned before on by previous CX reviews, the new long-.haul economy seat is also very well-padded and comfortable
Inflight magazines and safety card.
Headphones were pre-set on each seat. However, pillows and blankets were only available upon request. With many of the passengers requesting for blankets, crew had to go back and forth the galley to retrieve blankets for passengers. Cost-cutting here?
We pushed back slightly behind schedule and the animated safety video was played.
Taxi to the runway. Having no window seat, I could only watch the front camera view from the IFE screen.
Took off from Rwy20C for the 3hrs hop to HKG. See the front camera view below.
Flight map shortly after takeoff.
Started watching the animation movie Inside Out, which coincidentally was just being shown in Singapore cinemas as well.
Service started with a beverage service and peanuts. Drinks were served from trays, with a selection of juices, coke and water. From what I can tell, cabin crew on this flight were all HKG-based. Though efficient and professional, a few seemingly newbies seemed flustered with the full passenger load.
Crew preparing for dinner service.
Dinner is served. No menus are handed out and the choices were informed verbally by the crew. This evening, we would have a choice of Fish with penne pasta or Chicken with fried rice.
Meal tray which came with cut fruits and a warm roll with butter. I had a Coke Zero and water to go along.
Fried fish with penne pasta and vegetables. This was not too bad and portion was rather big.
The other choice was Chicken with egg fried rice, which was flavourful and delicious!
Dessert was a Haagen Daz strawberry ice-cream, which I totally enjoyed. Overall, quite a good meal on CX.
Ending the meal with a cup of coffee, served in a Chinese tea cup haha.
More than halfway there after I am done with the meal and movie.
Lavatory view. Hand and face moisturisers are available.
Cabin view. Even with the full load, it was still very spacious and comfortable. 3-3-3 in economy in 777s are still the best, comfort wise!
Grabbed a view of the setting sun from the rear door window.
Spent the rest of the flight fiddling exploring through the choices of the IFE system (lots of short programmes and TV series!). SQ's Krisworld may win in the choice of movies, but CX Studio definitely has much more short TV series, offering almost whole seasons in some cases.
Very soon, we were approaching and landing into Hong Kong, right on schedule despite the late departure.
The entire flight path.
Thank you for flying Cathay Pacific.
View of the very comfortable economy seats during disembarking.
Passing the Premium Economy cabin.
It was a rather long walk to immigration due to HKG airport's massive size, but there was totally no wait at immigration. A short wait for luggage and out of the airport to the city in no time!
Grabbed the first meal, a supper, at a recommended eatery, Macau Restaurant, near my hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. The egg tarts (not pictured) and crispy buns are very tasty, but the rest are just rather average.
Brunch the next day consisted of dim sum at an aptly named eatery, DimDimSum.
Explore a new arty shopping place in Sheung ***, PMQ (short for Police Married Quarters). Interesting place to spend a couple of hours with shops emphasizing on art and design.
Chanced upon a roadside stall selling simple yet delicious tomato soup noodles. Go google tomato noodles sheung ***. Apparently it is a rather famous stall!
Dinner at Chan Kee eatery at Mongkok, just a lane behind Langham Place. This eatery is famous for its roast goose. A must try!
Evening view of the Central district of Hong Kong Island.
A traditional HK breakfast at an eatery beside the hotel.
Doing something different on this trip, we visited Tai-O on Lantau Island. It is a simple traditional fishing village, one of its kind left in Hong Kong.
Followed by a 15min bus ride up to Ngong Ping village and the Big Buddha.
And an amazing 25min cable car ride across the hills down to Tung Chung, with HKIA in full view!
Very tasty dim sum dinner at One Dim Sum near Prince Edward. It is an ex-Michilin 1-star eatery.
Chee Kei Wonton Noodles at Causeway Bay. One of the better wonton noodle chains in Hong Kong.
Thanks for this report,
Once again, CX is definitly a good airline, with such a nice 3-3-3 configuration!
Concerning your nice bonus, Lantau Island is probably the last place unfortunately you can feel like in old Hong-Kong.
Which i didn't feel at all in the main area.
See you
Nice report. Lantau is also a place that I have not travel in details despite my numerous visits to Hong Kong. Definitely need to explore this place before it is commercially exploited.