- Introduction
- Austin to Frankfurt: United Economy & Lufthansa First Class
- Frankfurt to Osaka: Lufthansa First Class
- Osaka to Bangkok: Thai Business Class
- Bangkok to Male via Singapore
- Seaplane Transfer to Conrad Maldives
- Beach Villa and Water Villa at Conrad Maldives
- Routine in Paradise
- Male to Dubai via Colombo: Emirates First Class
- Dubai to Paris: Emirates First Class
- Radisson Blu Champs Elysee
- Exploring Paris
- Paris to Houston via London: British Airways First Class
We arrived at the airport much earlier than we’d like to since our missing bags were still not found at this point. The baggage handling agent on Emirates claimed that our missing bags had already been checked in on the flight to London and onto Houston. Sure enough, this turned out not to be true as the British Airways check-in agent could not find any record of our bags. I appreciated that she made a couple of phone calls trying to help us out but made no progress.
We were resolved to simply filing a claim once we got
back to the Austin but Lydia smartly realized that Emirates was in the same
terminal as British Airways and thankfully Emirates also had a morning flight
so their check-in counters were opened. We made some fuss to what appeared to
be a supervisor and after realizing that we were first class passengers she promptly looked
into it. She confirmed that they still could not find the bags and was shocked
that we had no case number filed and quickly got a case opened for us.
Once we got through security, we saw a Laduree shop and
bought the biggest box of macaroons they had. We initially had wanted to try
these world famous macaroons in Paris itself but ran out of time.
With only 10 minutes to go till boarding, we decided to still head to the Cathay Pacific lounge that British Airways uses in Paris. It would be my first time in a One World lounge and I liked it. It was spacious and well furnished. Since we were short on time, we didn’t get anything to eat but I did sneak a can of Asian soya bean milk (yum!) out of the lounge to be enjoyed later.
Boarding was underway when we got to the gate. There were
no hot towels or pre-departure drinks served which made my decision to sneak
the can of soya bean milk to enjoy pre-departure on the flight a good one!
The English breakfast served on this short flight was
pretty decent. The scrambled eggs were creamy just the way I like it! Overall, just another uneventful flight one would expect on this short hop.
Our flight landed in Terminal 5. It would my first time
connecting through Heathrow and I can see why people loathe it. Even bypassing
most of the lines as first class passengers, we were stuck in a security line
for a good fifteen minutes.
I was excited to try the British Airways first class
experience but was left pretty underwhelmed. We had made reservations for a
head and neck massage through the YouFirst service. It was one of the worst
massages I ever had. We were seated in a massage chair with wasn’t too bad but
the masseur simply wasn’t good at all. There was no pressure at all from the
massage and was just a waste of time.
The Concorde Room, reserved for British Airways first class passengers, was average for a first class lounge. There wasn’t a “wowness” to it similar to Lufthansa’s first class terminal or Thai’s first class lounge in Bangkok. We were still full from breakfast so we didn’t eat anything but enjoyed a couple of glasses of champagne and coffee.
