Even though I had my Philippines ticket in hand for over two months, I didn’t do much more than browse the Philippines threads. Blazers’ guide to AC and Manila were incredible concise and helpful and AC in general seemed like snap to get down. I also printed out some maps from Wayne’s AC Map site and a few friends gave me some places that I should visit in both Manila and Angeles. I took Blazers advice and booked a reservation at the Apartelle Royal in their Executive Room.
I also decided to go ahead and book their Transport Service. It was suggested later on that I look into flying Sea Air from Manila to Clark Air Force Base, but I decided since I had already booked the hotel and transportation that I would stick to that plan for now.
I chose to fly Cathay Pacific Airways, mainly because they are a oneworld partner of American. After reading through Godfather’s great information about American and their AAdvantage frequent flyer program, I decided it was in my best interest to start accumulating miles now that I was traveling more often. When I was traveling once per year, I really could not see the need or advantage and instead chose to save money on the cheapest flight available. Now I even started the Platinum Challenge, a great way to fast track myself to elite status.
I was halfway towards completing the challenge after my trip to the DR, so the segment from LAX to Hong Kong was going to put my over and get me my Platinum status. WooHoo! That meant lounge access on the way back, checking in at the business class counter, and getting to board with first and business class as well. It also meant a 100% bonus on my miles. So 15,000 flown miles actually netted me 30,000 miles total for the trip! Thanks Godfather!!!
I flew United from Tucson to LAX and then had a bunch of time to kill at Tom Bradley before my late evening flight to Hong Kong. I will mention again that I prefer the late night flights to Asia instead of the daytime flights since it allows for a more natural adjustment to the new time zone. I usually can’t sleep on airplanes anyway, but leaving at night around 11pm or midnight does allow me to get some sleep. It also is better to arrive in the daytime or morning than arriving between 10 or 11pm and not being able to do anything that night. That just sucks! I give a “thumbs up” for evening flights out of LAX to Asia. I know both EVA Air and Cathay Pacific have evening flights. When I flew Korean, they left in the daytime.
The other thing I like about Cathay Pacific’s Boeing 747’s is that they have a power port for my laptop in coach. I called and asked them specifically about this and they were able to accommodate me quite nicely. This allowed me to watch movies and TV episodes from DVD on my laptop when I couldn’t sleep. Although I must now mention, Cathay Pacific’s in flight entertainment is quite good. They have something called Studio CX. As I recall, the selection of music, movies, television and even video games was quite a bit better than that of EVA Air. EVA had the personal video screen in Deluxe Class, I don’t remember if they had it in economy. Cathay had the personal video screen throughout economy.
When I boarded the plane I actually had some problems with my laptop power converter. I guess there are two styles for the socket. On American, they are like cigarette style sockets that you plug into. On Cathay, it was a smaller socket with two small prongs sticking out. Uh-oh, I thought. I had an APC Power Adapter that a buddy had loaned me and all I saw was the cigarette lighter style plug on it.
Now I am a techie so I feel a little embarrassed by this. I asked a really cute flight attendant for help. She talked about selling me one for $1000 HK dollar adapters and I was about to buy it, but then we noticed that it was the exact same one I had. She asked another flight attendant for help and as it turned out, the cigarette lighter portion of the plug pulled out to reveal a plug compatible with the socket that had the two small prongs. Whew! I was all set.
There was no one sitting next to me in the center seat so I had some extra leg and arm room to spread out. There was a baby screaming at the top of its lungs all the way through boarding, taxi, and takeoff and the guy sitting in the window seat started screaming, “Shut that damn kid up! Give that kid a pacifier why don’t you!” He said it loudly many times and I was starting to wonder how long it would be before things started to get ugly. Luckily my seat power adapters were not working and someone volunteered to change seats with me. I told him he had to sit with the loudmouth, but he graciously took the seat anyway.
The flight was close to 15 hours, but was not that bad as I had room to spread out. I had almost forgotten how long these damn Asia flights were as it had been almost a year and a half since my last Asia trip. We took the far northern route and I got in a lot of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Star: Trek: Voyager viewing. (Please no insults about my television viewing choices!) The annoying loudmouth finally shut up (both the kid and the guy) and it was a reasonably enjoyable flight.
I arrived in Hong Kong early in the morning. They have the infrared temperature screening there for SARS as you go through your transfer point. There was only an hour or so to kill before the flight to Manila. Unfortunately, loudmouth (the guy) was also heading to Manila to visit his girlfriend. He had pictures and everything. He was in his 50’s and, quite frankly, talked like he was mentally challenged. Turns out it was from a motorcycle and head accident he suffered in the 70’s.
The flight to Manila was only about ¼ full so I really had room to stretch out on this flight. The flight time was about an hour and half and was a cinch. I arrived in Manila and immigration and customs was also a cinch I changed some money before I headed outside and down a ramp. Across the street there was my driver from the Apartelle Royal holding a sign my name on it.
Some friendly staff member from the airport or taxi service started waving their hands vigorously to get his attention. He came across the street to greet me and then ran off to get the van. I waited a while for him to return. During that time I kept getting asked if I needed a taxi and then I got the distinct impression someone was trying to hook me up with one of the ladies holding a walkie-talkie there. He introduced me to her by name. They both looked liked they worked with the airport or one of the transportation companies, which made the introduction somewhat awkward for me.
Finally John the driver came around and we loaded my stuff to head off to Angeles. It took forever to get out of Manila because of horrid traffic, but we finally got on the road to Angeles. Overall it was not that long of a drive. I had heard construction on the road to AC could be very bad at times, but I think we made in about 2 hours total from the time we departed the airport.
Apartelle Royal
198 Fields Ave.
Balibago, Angeles City
Phone: (+63-45) 892-4154/55
Fax: (+63-45) 892-2460
Website: http://www.apartelleroyal.com
E-Mail: apartelleroyal@digitelone.com
Once we arrived in AC John took me back through Camelot to some offices and they told him to take me upstairs. It appears as if the Apartelle Royal just put in a reception desk on the 2nd floor. I checked in and they wanted advance payment for the room instead of just running the credit card and singing a blank slip. Their credit card machine would not accept my AAdvantage credit card for some reason. It kept coming back as an invalid card or something like that. So I had to use my GM MasterCard. That worked fine luckily. It was weird, but there was nothing wrong with the AAdvantage card.
I also rented a Nokia phone at the front desk. It required a 4000 peso deposit and a 300 peso one time fee to use it as long as I stayed there. I then went across the street to purchase a Smart prepaid sim card before heading up to my room to shower and cleanup. After cleaning about 24 hours of stink off of me, it was time to head out into the brave new world of the Philippines and Angeles City, or should I say Porker, Blazers, and Epi’s second home.
Here are some pictures of the LA and Hong Kong airports for good measure.
LAX
Hong Kong
