Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Our Travels
- Blog
-
Location Date Asia 1485820800 1435446000 Oceania 
1434668400 Europe 1431817200 South America 1431039600 North America 1404255600 -
Location Date Queensland 1434668400 South Australia 1424304000 Victoria
1423612800 New Zealand 1386460800 - Melbourne
-
Location Date Sat, 14 February 2015 1423890060 Fri, 13 February 2015 1423803600 Thu, 12 February 2015 1423717080 Wed, 11 February 2015
1423630560
After a hugely busy day, yesterday, in Hong Kong we eventually made it to the airport to drop our bags only to hear those magic words 'you've been upgraded!'. What a nice surprise, and we don't even use the Cathay mileage programme, preferring to stick with our BA Avios. To be honest, we have travelled Cathay Business Class before and both hated it as we were isolated in separate, high-sided pods, unable to see, let alone converse with, another human being. This time we were on an Airbus A330-300 in the middle two seats and it was fantastic! Everything was super comfortable and modern with lots of gadgets, a huge 16" plus TV screen, fantastic service and we really enjoyed ourselves.
We landed on time and negotiated the formalities without too much difficulty, although I can never understand how they expect you to read the instructions for going through the gate when they insist you take your glasses off! Everywhere was hugely un-busy but we had to walk the entire length of the airport to join a taxi queue of one. The temperature was, apparently, 35 degrees C, but it felt much cooler than that.
We arrived at our hotel to find that it was no longer Hilton on the Park as expected but had morphed into an Accor Pullman hotel, now called Melbourne on the Park. Worse still, they had no record of our booking! This was somewhat irritating, especially as we had paid in full in advance! We managed to keep remarkably calm in the circumstances and they finally agreed that we were entitled to a room and would get one. Not sure where they will get it from, considering the hotel is apparently full! Never mind, what will be will be, and they gave us a free (large) glass of wine each so who cares?! We sat in the rather stately lounge drinking our wine and booking tours for the rest of the week while they prepared our room. So this is Melbourne!!
The room, when we eventually got there, turned out to be spacious and comfortable with a great view of the MCG. We had the best of intentions to go out and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring, but jetlag and the wine resulted in a long nap which, in turn, resulted in us being awake half the night and having beer and room service pizza at 2am. We are on holiday, after all!!
We landed on time and negotiated the formalities without too much difficulty, although I can never understand how they expect you to read the instructions for going through the gate when they insist you take your glasses off! Everywhere was hugely un-busy but we had to walk the entire length of the airport to join a taxi queue of one. The temperature was, apparently, 35 degrees C, but it felt much cooler than that.
We arrived at our hotel to find that it was no longer Hilton on the Park as expected but had morphed into an Accor Pullman hotel, now called Melbourne on the Park. Worse still, they had no record of our booking! This was somewhat irritating, especially as we had paid in full in advance! We managed to keep remarkably calm in the circumstances and they finally agreed that we were entitled to a room and would get one. Not sure where they will get it from, considering the hotel is apparently full! Never mind, what will be will be, and they gave us a free (large) glass of wine each so who cares?! We sat in the rather stately lounge drinking our wine and booking tours for the rest of the week while they prepared our room. So this is Melbourne!!
The room, when we eventually got there, turned out to be spacious and comfortable with a great view of the MCG. We had the best of intentions to go out and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring, but jetlag and the wine resulted in a long nap which, in turn, resulted in us being awake half the night and having beer and room service pizza at 2am. We are on holiday, after all!!
- comments