We were warmly welcomed and shown in but after the lovely Etihad lounges at LHR and AUH, this was a bit of a disappointment. The lounge itself was ok, and there was an “garden” area – which wasn’t a garden at all, just a glassed in room – but the food and drink offerings were pretty appalling, a couple of ham sandwiches and one or two dried up Danish pastries and very little to drink. But it was hot and we were thirsty so we tried the orange juice – OMG it was VILE – I have never, ever tasted orange juice like it, so I found a carton or some watered down apple juice and managed with that. We were the only people in the “garden” and there were a few rather scruffy sofas, but we were tired and they enabled us to doze for a couple of hours.
We asked the desk attendant to check if the HCMC flight had arrived, only to be told it hadn’t left, so we realised son & girlfriend were going to miss our flight to Krabi! Then she told us there had been an earlier flight but that had arrived a couple of hours before, so we hot-footed it to the departure gate to find it heaving with people but not the ones we wanted to see! By this time, they had called the flight so knowing us missing our flight wasn’t an option, we got into the queue – no priority boarding here! Then racing down the corridor they came. There was quite a queue behind us but I asked the lady behind if she’d mind if they pushed in as we hadn’t seen them for a year – she didn’t speak a word of English so I bowed and profusely thanked her and frantically called them over. They were shaking their heads and gesticulating and I suddenly realised something was wrong. And I was right!
They had arrived on the earlier flight and had been held up in a queue in immigration for 2 whole hours, so by the time they’d checked in for this flight, it was full and they’d been bumped and economy on the next flight was full as well! I could have cried – in fact I think I did. But the kindly agent, after being told the scenario of meeting us and not having seen us for over a year, put them on the next flight in Business, so we’d get to see them at the hotel that evening! Hugs and kisses all round then we had to once again say goodbye and board, while they spent a long time in the “garden”.
I must say boarding was pretty quick and the cabin and seats were clean and everything in working order. We were offer geranium juice, water or iced tea and a newspaper and then were off right on time. After the seat belt sign went off, they brought round a small tray of southern fried chicken with a Thai salad, followed by a coconut dessert. It was very nice – so I’m told – certainly the salad and dessert were. Then it was seatbelts on and time for landing – an hour in all. It was a very quick but also very comfortable flight – apart from the man behind who snored soooooo loudly throughout the flight. I have NEVER heard anyone snore like that before.
We walked quite a way it seemed to the baggage belt and our bags were the very first off. Being a domestic flight there was nothing else to do but walk out to meet our Rep who took us and our two bags to the huge mini bus waiting for just the two of us and off to the Sheraton Krabi Resort.
Gill
