t.
Conrad Tokyo
Business Class on Dragon Air to HKG
Going through immigration and to the departure area took about 5 minutes due to the fact that the officers took forever flipping through my passport. She saw that my China visa had expired and wanted to make sure I did not over stay my 60 days within the country. Security check was not a hassle since I did not have any liquids and I took my lap top out. At 10:30AM, I was at the departure area waiting on my plane B-HTG as passengers were still alighting. The boarding time was scheduled for 10:45AM and we stated boarding20 minutes later.
Since
I had visited the generic airport lounge the last time I departed from the
airport, I decided I would skip this time since it was nothing special. While it is small, it does have a decent
selection of snacks and drinks. The wifi
was lacking/not connectable the last time I visited them and there was not a
dedicated restroom at this lounge. I
wanted to keep the lounge invitation as a souvenir so I skipped the lounge and
decided to wait out the time in the general boarding area.
There
were 7 passengers in business class with me. Normally, the Airbus 320 aircraft
(Dragon Air owns 11) holds 8 passengers in Business Class. Once on board, I noticed that we were on a
bigger aircraft… the Airbus 321 (Dragon Air has 6 of these) with an expanded
Business section on 24 aircrafts.
Everyone in Business Class literally had their each own personal row/2
seats on the aircraft and with enough space to spread out. Pre-departure beverage included Dragon
Sunrise (mixed drink), orange juice, or water along with a wet napkin. We were offered newspapers and the head
purser came by to greet everyone in the cabin.
We
departed at about 20 minutes later as we waited to take off. The meal service was a choice of braised beef
with rice or grilled chicken breast. They were served a fruit plate and a
choice of roll or garlic bread. I chose
the beef and it was better than the bland fish dish I had back in October but
this time it was a bite on the salty side.
I watched an episode of Modern Family during my meal and chatted with
the flight attendants a little while. All I get is a bag of snack mix or nuts on a short domestic First Class US flight on American or United... so a full meal on a short flight is great in my books. We
arrived into Hong Kong a few minutes late and were parked at an apron position. We were shuttled by bus into the immigration
area and I proceeded to the transfer desk to see if I could get my boarding
passes for my evening flight to Seoul and then to Tokyo.
One
of the agents working at the desk told me that the Asiana representative will
be back at 2PM so I had to wait about 30 minutes. Hong Kong airport has free wifi so that
helped me pass the time to update my iphone/ipad apps, check my emails, and
play a turn on my Words with Friends games.
At about 2 PM, I proceeded to the desk and the Asiana representative was
there. She printed out my boarding
passes, gathered my claim tags from my Dragon Air luggage and had another agent
retag them with the Asiana Luggage priority tags. She told me I had to wait about 8 PM to see
what the departure gate would be for the flight and confirmed that I wanted
aisle seats on both the flights. I was
presented a lounge invitation for the CNAC lounge across from G16 (Dragon Air)
Lounge.
Based
on reviews I read online, that lounge is nothing special and I will likely use
the other lounges instead (Singapore, Thai, and United) and possibly the Plaza
Premium that I get with my Priority Pass.
Then I was on my way to the immigration, arrivals hall and headed down
to Terminal 2 to use Cathay Pacific’s The Arrival Lounge. That marks my #2 visit to HKIA (within a
year) and I only need only one more to enroll in the HKIA frequent visitor card
program so I can skip the general immigration line in the future. I only regret not researching about it before
and going through immigration and back the last 2 times I was there in
September and October of 2011 and thus would have access to the card now.
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