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Long haul flights tips and advice

Sing airport has a lounge near the butterfly garden (upper floor ) where you can pay for a shower (sgd 16?). Worth it.
Butterfly garden is a good shortcut between floors
 
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Sing airport has a lounge near the butterfly garden (upper floor ) where you can pay for a shower (sgd 16?). Worth it.
Butterfly gate den is a good shortcut between floors

I've been there. It's definitely worth it for a shower before the next flight.
 
My partner went on her first long haul a few months back and was insistent she didn't want to spend money on food or specifically drinks.

When she got back, I pointed out the drinks are free on long haul usually.

Last time I did long haul, I had two of those small bottles of wine in about the first 90 mins of the flight and then fell asleep for the next 10 hours.
 
My advice for a long journey is to spend the first hour doing nothing at all. No movies, music or reading. It gets you mentally slowed down and in the right frame of mind for the long haul.

Other than that:

Valium
No booze
Audiobooks
Business class lay flat bed*


*If someone else is paying
 
Emirates all food in booze is free in all classes.

US airlines have recently very much upped their game, they were all awful, but now have spent a lot of money making their cabins better and their entertainment systems are packed with good shit. Paying for a can of lager on a London-LA flight is a bit tight though.
 
Many years ago, having never flown long haul before, my wife (a seasoned long haul flyer from childhood) laughed at me when I asked whether you had to pay for drinks and entertainment. I felt equally smug and miserable when on a flight from Frankfurt to Vegas a couple of years back on Condor Airlines (formerly Lufthansa, now owned by Thomas Cook), they demanded payment for all drinks other than water, and had a paltry number of films available for free without paying.

What made it worse, was the fact that after initially trying to get by with my A-level German to the flight attendants, they assumed I was fluent and spoke to me in rapid German for the entire flight. I was too embarrassed to admit that actually my German wasn't very good at all, and I had no idea what they were asking me, other than demands for payment.

I fly semi-regularly with Malaysia Airlines now, and have always found the comfort levels, service, food and in-flight entertainment to be excellent.
 
My advice for a long journey is to spend the first hour doing nothing at all. No movies, music or reading. It gets you mentally slowed down and in the right frame of mind for the long haul.

Intriguing. Might give it a go next time.
 
most of this has already been said but these are mine:
if you think you might want to sleep on the plane, then sleep when everyone else does (lights turned down) even if you're not particularly tired. i tend to power through most of it cos i love the uninterrupted reading time.
always take a big bottle of water and snacks on (bought after security obv).
on check-in double-check if your bags get automatically transferred to the next flight or if you have to collect them and check them back in (we got surprised having to do this once when we only had an hour and a half lay-over. there was a lot of running and swearing...)
wear something very comfy.
if the drinks are free it's fine to ask for them frequently if you want to. also always ask for a water at the same time so you don't finish your own bottle too soon.
 
Another tip when arriving in Sydney if you didn’t do the E-Boarders pre-notification.

When the immigration officer asks if you have any criminal convictions don’t say:

“I’m very sorry I didn’t know you needed them anymore...”

Yeah never try telling a joke to customs/security people in an airport in any country. They have no sense of humour at all and just see it as "disrespect".:D
 
On the subject of long-haul travel, Airbus has just launched a new A321 variant that will offer the longest single-aisle flights in commercial aviation history.

I know the actual seat pitch and width in sardine class will probably end up being the same as in widebody aircraft, but 10+ hours inside a narrowbody seems a long time...
 
The other thing I like doing, but judging by this thread makes me weird, is looking out of the window. Five and a half miles up over our still mostly empty world is sublime. If it’s a day time flight you can do it from the seat and if most people are sleeping so need the blinds down you can stand in one of the galleys with their smaller windows. You can hold your phone to the window to get a GPS fix and see where you are. I can spend hours of each flight with this magic.
 
The other thing I like doing, but judging by this thread makes me weird, is looking out of the window. Five and a half miles up over our still mostly empty world is sublime. If it’s a day time flight you can do it from the seat and if most people are sleeping so need the blinds down you can stand in one of the galleys with their smaller windows. You can hold your phone to the window to get a GPS fix and see where you are. I can spend hours of each flight with this magic.

Does this work on Airplane Mode? I never thought to try maps on a phone as I thought it needed data. How are you doing this wizardry?
 
The other thing I like doing, but judging by this thread makes me weird, is looking out of the window. Five and a half miles up over our still mostly empty world is sublime. If it’s a day time flight you can do it from the seat and if most people are sleeping so need the blinds down you can stand in one of the galleys with their smaller windows. You can hold your phone to the window to get a GPS fix and see where you are. I can spend hours of each flight with this magic.

I spend most of the flight on long haul looking out the window.
 
The other thing I like doing, but judging by this thread makes me weird, is looking out of the window. Five and a half miles up over our still mostly empty world is sublime. If it’s a day time flight you can do it from the seat and if most people are sleeping so need the blinds down you can stand in one of the galleys with their smaller windows. You can hold your phone to the window to get a GPS fix and see where you are. I can spend hours of each flight with this magic.

On some long haul flight they have tv's on the back of the seat in front of you and there is often a map option to see where you are. I also like looking out the window but on a long flight i'm more concerned about being able to go for a piss easily so aisle seat for me.

Edit - now i think about it one plane i flew on you could see the picture from a camera under the plane on the screen in front of you.
 
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I feel this thread wouldn't be complete without Derek Smalls

tenor.gif
 
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On some long haul flight they have tv's on the back of the seat in front of you and there is often a map option to see where you are. I also like looking out the window but on a long flight i'm more concerned about being able to go for a piss easily so aisle seat for me.

Edit - now i think about it one plane i flew on you could see the picture from a camera under the plane on the screen in front of you.

My last longhaul flight...

CX2.PNG

CX1.PNG
 
The other thing I like doing, but judging by this thread makes me weird, is looking out of the window. Five and a half miles up over our still mostly empty world is sublime. If it’s a day time flight you can do it from the seat and if most people are sleeping so need the blinds down you can stand in one of the galleys with their smaller windows. You can hold your phone to the window to get a GPS fix and see where you are. I can spend hours of each flight with this magic.

Not weird at all. Coming back from Vietnam I spent ages staring at the mountains of Kazakhstan. Beautiful. Also don't understand why seemingly 90% of all passengers don't get up and walk around.
 
I used to know a Swiss lad here who worked his passage out to China on some cargo ship out of Amsterdam. I am pretty tall (6' 2") and used to smoke until just recently but never do much in the way of preparation for flights, just take my chances in cattle class with a good book.
 
Pre internet days I went into a travel agent in Singapore to buy a flight home to UK. I got the cheapest available without checking the details and ended up on a 44 hour mission via three stop offs.

Not fun!
 
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