January 9, 2016

First Class Birthday: Introduction

Introduction
Planning & Booking
Sheraton Gateway Hotel Toronto
Air Canada 767-300 Business Class Toronto To London (LHR)
Andaz Liverpool
Etihad Airways Lounge London
Etihad A380 Business Class London (LHR) to Abu Dhabi
Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi
Etihad Airways First Class Lounge Abu Dhabi
Etihad A380 First Class Apartments Abu Dhabi to New York (JFK)
The New York EDITION

I realize I still have a few trip report segments to finish for our last trip to Singapore but I'm so excited about this trip, I wanted to get the Introduction post out.

I've already posted about booking Etihad's First Class Apartment and will probably be posting about the experience several times before/after the trip.

Since the timing worked out, we decided to make this a trip to celebrate my birthday.  Emily's excited as this is a step up from last year's flying east to get west adventure.

Trip route - courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper

We'll leave after work Friday evening taking United's direct service to Toronto.  The flight arrives late and we have another flight the next morning to London so we'll spend the night at the Sheraton Gateway which is connected to the airport.

The next morning, we'll take Air Canada's day flight (often called the CEO flight) from Toronto to London.  The flight leaves around 8AM and arrives around 8PM.  Pretty perfectly timed to be able to minimize jet lag and get to sleep upon arrival.  I'm still hoping we'll be able to upgrade to a Lufthansa First Class flight (connecting through Frankfurt or Munich) but that would be a last minute change if at all.  If not, we'll be perfectly fine in AC business class and I'm excited to review an option that is widely available on points in advance.

We are both really excited to check out the Andaz Liverpool in London which is located in London's East Side.  We both loved the Andaz in Amsterdam and it will be great to check out another Andaz property in Europe.

After a few nights in London, we're off to Abu Dhabi via Etihad's A380 business class.  Again, I'm hopeful that a couple of First Class Apartment seats open up (only 10,000 more miles each) but it will be cool to review both the business and first class apartment cabins on the A380.  

In Abu Dhabi, we'll spend a couple of nights at the Park Hyatt before heading to the airport for 14 hours in our first class apartments!  We're mixing it up a bit - staying a couple nights in New York before returning home to Denver.


Nearly 17,000 miles of flying

All in, this will be nearly 17,000 miles of flying and a couple of new airlines to review!  I'll post the Planning & Booking segment prior to our departure as well as a couple other posts about Etihad.  Stay tuned for another great trip report!

No comments:

Post a Comment