First Class - Singapore to Abu Dhabi

Theresa in her suite with doors closed!!

The first thing we noticed in our First Class cabin was a lack of overhead bins!!  It gives a beautiful, spacious, open feeling.  There was a little cubby where our back packs BARELY fit, and then the flight attendants (who were all ladies), took our big heavy bags and humped them off to somewhere out of sight for the flight.  It feels weird having a woman dressed very nicely take my not-really-rolling-anymore bag, and wrestle it off while I sit and watch. Our area was huge!! 

The video monitor is SOOO far away!!

There was no way to reach the video monitor without getting up; I couldn’t even reach it with my feet.  There was a ledge that served as a sort of shelf.   But all of the access things were under it (like head phone jack, controller, tray table), so it required a bit of shuffling around.  We even had our own little “mini-bar”, complete with still and sparkling water, and two cans of soda.  (Improvement idea…provision the cans as requested.  Coke and Sprite are fine, but if I prefer Diet Coke, I won’t drink either of them!)  Also, there was no cup or glass into which to pour the drinks.  I get they can’t have glass floating around the cabin uncontained, but it seemed gauche to drink out of the bottles.

Little bit of stowage.

Very snug fit for the stuffed back pack!

But, it's in and the door closes!

A "mini-bar"??

From the "mini-bar".  All of the water was "Voss".

The ledge with a basket of snacks.

The basket contents lined up for review!

They also gave us a basket of snacks.  In business class, they often put out snacks in a common area to help yourself.  This help-yourself was in arms reach!  But, we had eaten SO much in the lounge, and so much food to enjoy on the flight, eating snacks in between was too much for us.  (So, we had to find room in our bags!). 

Then they brought around pajamas.  Neither of us are the “one-size-fits-all” dimensions, so we typically ignore them.  But Theresa noticed they had larger sizes and the Flight Attendants actually guessed well.  So, she made use of them.  The amenity kits and pajamas were in a large leather Giorgio Armani bag; in fact the pajamas were Giorgio Armani as well.

We should really learn how to eat caviar...
and pancakes??

Nappy time for Theresa!!

Ice cream for Bill!!

Our sort of shared space.  There is a sliding door we opened.

Where we were going...and a SHINY tray table!

Zooming through the airport in our private cart!

We watched a movie, took some naps, ate, drank, and suddenly we were arriving!  As our next flight was booked as “The Residence”, we had some extra things coming our way.  We deplaned and just outside the door was a man with our names on a tablet.  He escorted us off the jet bridge and into a cart whisking us off to Immigration. It was funny passing the people who disembarked before us, as we waved to one of the passengers we met in the Singapore lounge.  They took our passports and interacted with the Immigrations officers for us, like we couldn’t be sullied with normal people contact.  This sort of behavior could get comfortable!!  Then on to the Etihad First Class lounge, but not the normal FC lounge, we were lead down a private hallway, to our own room. 

The poor guy in the back had to handle our bags.  

Welcome to our private room...Abu Dhabi 1!

At that point, we had about 13 hours, and frankly wanted to sleep.  Normally, we would have been given a hotel room (free), but since our scheduled arrival was 00:20, it was the same day, so no room.  ☹  Our room had a sofa, which we made do for a couple of hours.  Theresa researched to find they had sleeping pods in the BC lounge, but a room was not available until 3:30AM, at which point she headed there and Bill got the full sofa.  Suddenly it was 6-7 AM and Theresa was back so we started our day.  What’s for breakfast??

Our private room...and pseudo bed/couch!

Of course a giant TV!!

An "easy button".  You push this 
button, and someone comes 
running!!  But they came checking
often enough I never got to try it!

These were in the room on our arrival.  And they were pretty tasty!!

Breakfast!

We ordered breakfast, and Theresa took a shower in our private bathroom before the food arrived.  We probably got too much food.  Theresa needed an exploratory walk, while Bill worked on the blog (which didn’t seem to fit into our FC flight).

I expected smaller portions!

After breakfast, a little computer work...with Champaign!

Not our plane...but the right type!

Not the world's best spa.
Not even the world's best airport spa.
But the best airline lounge spa!!

Our (complimentary) 30 minutes spa treatment was for 11:00.  We had the choice of head, back, facial, foot, etc.  Theresa got a facial, and Bill chose a back massage (in one of those odd chairs you sort of sit/kneel).  Again, the limits of “back” were mutually understood.  She stated at the very beginning, “11-7, and 30 minutes” which sort of suggested she was going to go until 11:37 and whatever we got to, so be it?  A little on the neck, arms and hands, then a head massage.  It was like a slow and deliberate noogie.  Then behind the ears (didn’t know that was a massage region).  Back to the back, which included hands, arms, and then I think a Tonka Truck, which she vigorously drove back and forth, up and down.  All that was missing was the “vroom vroom” and “beep beep beep” when backing up.  And well…I didn’t expect the “back” went that far down?  Finally, she moved on to the top of the thighs, which was a little ticklish (and arguably not part of the back?), then tried the calves.  Yeah, that was just ticklish and I flinched and she stopped with the Tonka truck, and used hands.  She moved to the other side and it ended similarly.  I’m not sure massages are for me?   Theresa's facial was a bit strange -- lots of goop put on my face, and smeared around...followed by hot towels folded on my face and the smooched into it.  But, my face was soft -- and shiny -- afterwards.

Pre-Flight "lunch"?

My steak sandwich was...a STEAK, 
as a sandwich!!  (It was really good!)

When they offer ice cream...
I'm going to HAVE ice cream!!

Back to the room, we had barely enough time for lunch, and Bill tried the Steak Sandwich, while Theresa had Samosas.  We hurriedly packed up the room because we were to leave about 1PM for boarding.  We were asked if we wanted to board First, Last, or in the middle.  Thinking “the flight is the point” we chose first.  Had we known…we should have said last.  But all of that will be in the next post!

Coming soon!!