On October 6th it happened – I embarked on my first ever long-haul flight. To make the experience even more special we spent our waiting time at the airport in the La Valette Club Lounge. It is very nice and super clean. What is amazing is that there is unlimited ‘free’ (you would have paid for it in the pass) food. It has the system of a buffet where you can grab a plate and choose the food you like. The food selection is not too big but it is enough. There was (of course) pastizzi, small pieces of Maltese ftira with tuna, wraps, some sweet selection and more. For drinks, you would just open the fridge and take whatever you want from soft drinks to alcohol and coffees.
As you might have read from Jannik’s post ‘Singapore – Travel Tips‘ we headed to Singapore last October. We flew from Malta to London Heathrow Airport. Originally, we had 1hr 50mins to change planes in London. However, things had to get spicy and from Malta to London, we had a 1hr delay! That meant that we were left with only 50minutes to get on the second plane to make our connection. Upon arriving in London, at terminal 4 we had to go to terminal 5C – which meant taking at least a 15minutes bus ride internally at the airport. Thankfully, we were greeted by a guy engaged by British Airways to help us to get to the other side of the airport to make it to the aircraft. We were literally running (yes! me running!!) through the airport looking like we are being chased for committing the worst crime. Making it to the boarding pass check, the person in charge didn’t want to let us through because ‘oh no no, it is too late already for this flight’. But some nice talk and ‘please please let us try’ (insert puppy eyes) he let us through! Run, run, run and we made it to security were since the guy (really unfortunate that we didn’t get to know his name) was an airline employee he was asking the people to let us jump the queue. At this point, I was out of breath and my legs wouldn’t cooperate anymore but we were determined to make it on this flight, so EVEN more running, and we made it to our gate!
Fast-forward half an hour after and we were sitting in the A380 – a huge impressive aircraft (it also has 2 floors). This also meant 13 and a half hours of flight awaiting us! Having been on this aircraft for the first time I had to spend some time exploring the in-flight entertainment system – I felt like a child in a toy shop. The entertainment system has all kinds of entertainment that are films, music, games and possibility to see where in the air you currently are. There is also a section dedicated to children. The films are quite recent-ish. I was watching the film Baywatch starring Zac Efron. It is also a possibility to play games with other passengers or on your own. The games vary quite a lot, there were games such as Pac-man, Solitaire and battleship.
We had two meals on the flight – dinner and breakfast. There is the possibility to book in advance any special dietary requirements for the meals. As dinner, we had some pasta with sauce, purple cabbage slaw and chocolate fudge. For breakfast, we opted for English Breakfast.
Dinner
Breakfast
Overall my experience flying long-haul was good. I must admit that it is not something I am fond of and at times it even felt like it would take forever. However, the final destination is definitely worth the time spent flying!
