A Blast From The Past- American 777

Introduction
Tale of Two Lounges - Dulles Airport
Onward to Tokyo - First Class United & ANA Dreamliner
Castle in the Clouds - Park Hyatt Tokyo
Day Trip to Kamakura
Tokyo Hilton
Tale of Two Lounges - Narita Airport
A Blast From the Past - American First Class
The Joan Rivers Hotel - W Chicago Lakeside
Wrap-Up of Trip

To get home from Tokyo, I had few options available to me. The best option available was to spend 62,500 AA miles to fly from Tokyo to DCA with an overnight in Chicago in First Class. I earned the miles for this flight from applying for the American Airlines Citi Visa with a 75,000 mile offer.

Boarding to the flight was a little chaotic. First, boarding was delayed by 30 minutes with no announcement. Second, the ground staff was not very good at keeping the crowds in an orderly fashion.  Eventually, First Class was invited to board the plane.

First Class is a 1-2-1 configuration. If you are traveling with a companion, take the two middle seats as the seats swivel to face each other for meals. I was surprised by the size of the First Class cabin. It wasn't huge, but it was significantly bigger than United's cabin.

The seat suite was very comfortable. Not much privacy, but on this flight there was only 9 people in the cabin.

The seat converts into a lie flat bed. 

The bed was very comfortable. Much better than the one in United First and ANA business. I didn't feel like I was laying on a concrete slab or in a coffin like the other two. The pillow was super soft as well.

 The other cool feature of the chair is can change 90 degrees to allow for a different dining experience.

The dining experience made the flight feel like I was flying in the 1950s. This was no Thai, Cathy Pacific or Lufthansa experience, but it reminded me of a different time of flying. A time when the customer experience was the focus.

I was offered a chance to do a wine tasting before dinner. There were five wines and I tried them all. Why not? It doesn't cost any extra.

         

 

 There new table setting was sleek and very modern. Small touches go a long way in a customer experience.

 First up was an amuse of salmon with cream filling. It wasn't good or bad, just blah.

They offered a variety of different breads.

 Here is a copy of the first part of the menu:

 I asked for both appetizers and they kindly obliged.

The tuna was delicious. It was the right cold temperature and had great depth. Look at the color on the food.

The mushroom pate lacked salt, but it was fun. It was something different. Two thumbs up!

Next came the Chicken Consomme. Another great course. Amazing presentation and contrasting colors.

The salad course had a great creamy wasabi dressing. I should have passed on the salad. It was to fussy. Nothing special except the dressing which I could have dunked everything in it.

Main Course: Macadamia Nut Chicken with pineapple sweet potato mash.

This was disappointing. One of those dishes that sounded good on paper, but bad in practice. The chicken was hard as a rock. The potato mixture was hard and soft at the same time and the veggies are rubbery. Luckily I had plenty of food prior to this.

 Dessert was the best. Yum Yum Yum! A sundae with everything plus more and a coffee with Baileys

 An hour before landing, I had a quick meal.

The seafood chowder was great. Creamy with large chunks of seafood, bacon and potatoes. Nothing is better than good chowder in the winter.

This salad was so much better.

                                       

The best part was the apple crumble with a cup of cinnamon vanilla sauce. My mouth is still watering now thinking about it. Can I get a piece shipped to me now?

Every passenger has their own overhead luggage compartment which saves you tons of space. The overhead compartments were not the easiest to close. The angle they come down is akward.

The foot rest had a pocket for your stuff.

Plenty of space under your foot rest

And an awkward hook to hang stuff except during takeoff and landing.

The last thing to mention is the IFE. First, push this button and the screen pops up:

The size of the screen was a good size for an airplane.

You can control the screen via a remote control. Mine broke midway through the flight. I had to touch the screen to make stop the video, turn down the volume, pretty much anything.

Each of us in First Class was given Bose Headphones. I had never tried Bose, but they are pretty cool. The headphones block the sound completely. 

My headphones kept on shocking me. I would shift a little and I would get a massive shock from the headphones. I cut short my movie to avoid getting electrocuted on the plane. How does the new Batman end?

My only major compliant about the flight was the purser. She was a gruff old lady that needs to retire for the betterment of AA. She introduced herself to every passenger when they arrived except me. My first interaction with her was 90 minutes into the flight when she asked me what I wanted for dinner. I mentioned that I had not received a menu. Her response was lovely, "oh, you need one of those to order?"

My next weird interaction was the wine tasting. She asked me I was participating and accused me first of not handing in my wine sheet to her and then asking for 5 wines after marking only 3 wines on the sheet. Which one was it? Did I not hand in my sheet or did I only mark 3 wines on my sheet? Five minutes later she comes back with a tray with my sheet on it with 5 wines marked. Where did that sheet go? Economy?

Right before the flight was to end. She accused me of trying to steal the Bose Headset. Her proof of me stealing them: I still had them after she collected them. Again, she never came to collect them from me. The final kicker was that she wished everyone in the cabin safe travels except me. She must have jad a bad day.

The rest of the staff was amazing. If all American Airlines flight attendants were like the rest of the staff, American would be in great shape. 

Overall, the flight was amazing. Great product, amazing food, and semi-good service.

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Tail of Two Lounges - Narita Airport

Introduction
Tale of Two Lounges - Dulles Airport
Onward to Tokyo - First Class United & ANA Dreamliner
Castle in the Clouds - Park Hyatt Tokyo
Day Trip to Kamakura
Tokyo Hilton
Tale of Two Lounges - Narita Airport
A Blast From the Past - American First Class
The Joan Rivers Hotel - W Chicago Lakeside
Wrap-Up of Trip

I took the Narita Express to the airport from the Hilton. The bus leaves from the Hilton almost on the hour, but it is important to book your ticket in advance.

The check-in area was empty. Empty! Maybe five people in American's entire check-in area:

After checking-in and dropping off the bags, I cleared security and customs with easy. I was told that I could visit the American Airlines Admirals club located in Terminal 2. So, I went there to kill four hours before my flight. Both First and Business class passengers use the lounge space.

The lounge has an open layout with a bank of windows that lets in tons of natural light.

The lounge has amble places to sit, relax and plug in. Wifi strength was strong, so I spent some time checking emails, blogging and surfing the net. They had a few computers for those without laptops.

The food offerings were less ample. Some plastic wrapped sandwiches, sushi, and some hot dish:

A fountain drink machine, some beers, and average type hard liquor:

I was a little disappointed in the offerings. The lounges had a few bathrooms with showers, but I didn't explore them. After an hour, I was bored. As a First Class passenger, I felt like I deserved more. I went to the OneWorld Alliance (which American Airlines is apart of) website to find what other airlines had lounges in the terminal. OneWorld's website has a page devoted to lounges. At Narita, the website showed a handful of lounges

I decided to check out the JAL Sakura Lounge. So I packed up my things and went to find the JAL lounge, which turned out to be an adventure. After 20 minutes of walking around the terminal, I finally asked someone to point me into the direction of the lounge, which literally was right around the corner.

The JAL Lounge hosts both the First Class Lounge and the Business Class Lounge in the same area. With my American Airlines First Class ticket, I was excepting to be invited to the Business Class Lounge. To my surprise, the desk attendant walked me to the First Class Lounge and handed me off to another employee.

One of the first things I did was to ask for a shower. The attendant said it would be no problem and escorted me to my bathroom holding my shower. She point out the toiletries in the bathroom and wished me a happy shower.

The bathroom was not huge, but big enough not to feel cramped. It had a place to store my luggage, hang up my clothes, and maybe do a jumping jack.

The shower felt so nice. I am a big fan of taking showers before flights. Flying clean makes the experience so much better. After my shower, I signed up for a 15 minute complementary massage. They had three options available:

I choice the upper body option and was to the next appointment was at 4:00pm. The attendant invited me to get some food and drink and she would come get me for my appointment.

My first impression was WOW! The lounge screams exclusive.

The lounge was empty. Maybe 10 people tops, but the place could hold 200 easily. The food selection in the JAL lounge made AA's look like inferior.

I decided to grab some tomato soup and candy before my massage:

After my massage, I had some small plates, deserts and a marzipan fruit:

When it was time for my massage, I was lead to small dark room with a table for me to lie on.

The massage was really nice. I am not a big massage fan. I tend to tense up during them, but that never happened during this massage. I didn't tip the guy, was I suppose to? I am never really good with when and how much to tip people.

The drink options were very impressive as well from a basic soda fountain, various juices and coffee machine:

To mid-shelf liquor and wine:

If you want something higher up the shelf, this lounge has a bartender to help with that:

The lounge had places to lock up your luggage, which I did. I liked not having to worry about it.

As you can obviously see, the JAL beats the AA lounge by a long-haul. I walked over the business lounge side and it had the same offerings as the First Class lounge, but it was bigger, more places to sit and multiple bars:

If you are flying out of Narita in AA Business or First Class, I would highly recommend the JAL lounges over the AA lounge. You will have a better time and feel pampered. AA should be ashamed of themselves, spend a little money and give your travels something more than cafeteria food and drink.

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