- Introduction
- The booking process
- Hong Kong – Clark with Cebu Pacific economy class
- Clark – Doha with Qatar Airways Boeing 787-8 business class
- Stopover in Doha with Oryx Rotana review
- Doha – Stockholm with Qatar Airways Airbus A359 business class
- Stockholm – Oslo with SAS business class
- Holiday in Norway with the kids.
- Torp – Copenhagen with Wideroe economy class
- Copenhagen – Doha with Qatar Airways Boeing 777 ‘old’ business class
- Stopover in Doha
- Doha – Angeles Qatar Airways Boeing 787-8 business class
- Angels – Hong Kong with Cebu Pacific economy class.
This series of trip report has taken forever to finish, so I will just rush through the last 2 installments to get it over and done with, before my memory is completely gone 😀
So as I said at the end of the previous post, our plane was parked at a remote stand. I understand that there is not capacity to park all aircraft at the gates, and remote stands has to be used, but what I don’t understand is why they then make us board from the gate that is furthest away from anything? It was a good 20 minutes walk from the lounge to the boarding gate, and we got there just as boarding was starting.
Being in business class I expected to be one of the first to board, but there were no business class busses available, so we had to wait at the gate for a good 45 minutes before we were allowed to board. At this time Marcus fell asleep, and I had to carry him (and my handcarry) down the stairs when the bus was finally waiting for us. Fortunately Alexhandra was still able to stay awake (but looked like a sleepwalker as well) – without her help I do not know how I would have been able to get all three of us on board the plane…
Anyways, we got on the plane as boarding was completed, and we had assigned ourselves seats 3, 4 and 5A, all window seats, and a setup that works very well on the Dreamliner, as I am able to keep a good eye on the kids throughout the flight.
The crew was very helpful to get the kids settled into their seats, and propped them up with blankets and pillows to make sure they were comfortable even sitting up straight for departure (Alexhandra fell asleep as soon as she sat down in her seat too.)
We pushed back and departed on time, and when the crew came around with the menu I told them I wanted to sleep as well, as we already had been traveling for close to 20 hours – I quickly fell asleep, and slept for about 7.5 hours and woke up as we were approaching top of descent.
The kids were still asleep (they slept the entire flight), and I quickly ordered myself breakfast while it was still available.
We arrived in Clark on schedule, about 30 hours after we had left my parents house in Sandefjord, and cleared immigration in a matter of minutes after the aircraft was parked. I love flying into Clark, as it is still a small airport, well staffed and everything there is very efficient.
After arriving our regular driver was waiting for us, and we were back in our house about 15 minutes after leaving the airport.
This was my first time traveling long haul with the two kids on my own, and it was overall a pleasant experience. I was worried beforehand about how it would be to be traveling for that long with the two of them, but it was mostly painless, and they were really well behaved the entire time. Of course, they are both experienced international travelers, so that makes it easier. And flying in business class is a huge difference, I do not think I would have been able to do the same in economy – I am sure the kids would have been ok, but just having the possibility for myself to lay down and get some proper rest and sleep on the flight is almost priceless when traveling that far!