Sorry guys it’s a bit of an epic review to follow but hopefully useful?

Reviews:

I used the business lounge in T2 at Arlanda. It’s perfectly ok, food is fair, drinks fine, plenty of space to sit. One of the best auto dispense coffee/hot beverage machines is there … even chai latte (see pic later). There used to be free Wi-Fi in the lounge but for some reason they want you to pay for it now, which I refused to do !

The aircraft was a rather old 737-800, I was in seat 1F, a window and bulkhead seat within the 3 economy seats but with the centre one blocked … not good enough is it these European business class seats! The seat itself was awful, the seat back was reclined at an angle so that a normal sitting posture was very uncomfortable.

However, that’s the negatives out is the way … the service was excellent, proactive and friendly.

KLM gives pax those cute ‘Delft’ style food boxes in business these days (see pics later). No choices of its contents but still very good. A menu was given also which I like always.

There were a great choice of beverages too.

Coffee was served in cute Delft style mugs.

No complaints at all other than the dodgy seats.

Transfer at Schiphol / Amsterdam:

It’s a vast multi terminal complex but signage is good thankfully. I arrived at C13 and my next flight was from F8, a fair old walk via immigration to get out of the EU.

I had only a short time to visit KLM’s Crowne Lounge close to gate F8, amazing and stylish I thought. It’s huge with two levels having restaurants, bars, many places to relax, shower or even sleep. Most impressive.

Surprisingly there was no additional screening in the transfer process ! Great .

I was seated in 2A in the 1-2-1 business cabin on this B787-9 aircraft. The seats were pretty identical to Cathay Pacific’s business seat (not the latest fancier one though). I don’t particularly like the rather dark colours in the cabin business but the mood lighting is great. The seat was comfortable for sitting and sleeping, maybe a little hard for sleeping to be honest.

Not a lot of storage space but ok. The IFE was excellent, very responsive screen with a huge choice of movie. The map functionality was also one of the best I have experienced.

The cabin crew were really great, always a smile and although all were Dutch their English is always annoyingly so good!

The drinks and food was of a high standard, served in different crockery styles for the various dishes with a Delft theme, BA and Qantas for example take note!

I had ordered the ‘Asia Specialities’ including beef rendang that I love. Good choices for all courses – I had a Thai red curry soup to start and cheese and biscuits to finish (see menu in the pics below).

Choice of drinks was also excellent including a ‘Bols gin’ cocktail that I enjoyed immensely.

About 2hrs out of KL breakfast was served, again nice main course choices and several different dishes along side. The croissant served was great, fresh and unsquashed as it is often served by British Airways .

At the end of the flight they gave us all one of those cute Delft porcelain ‘Bols gin’ houses. There are over 100 different ones now with new ones released from time to time.

They are all displayed in the KLM Crowne lounge in Schiphol.

Even though my itinerary only said there would a ‘technical’ stop in KL we all actually had to disembark, and go back thru security at the same gate to board about 1hr 30 later. Some pax entered Malaysia and some new ones boarded. Malaysian regulations would not allow pax going into Jakarta to stay on board sadly.

Back on board with a new crew we departed for the 1hr 30min flight to Jakarta. Despite that we were served with another delicious meal, see pic of menu below. I had the beef rendang, a bit spicier being prepared in Malaysia no doubt.

Transfer in Jakarta:

As we left the aircraft ground staff were there to escort us pax going to Sydney and Melbourne

to the transfer desk. Despite us all having boarding passes for the next sector we were told that they weren’t good enough and we need Garuda ones!, really?

I queued for 25 mins with only 20 in front just to get a new boarding pass. When I mentioned I was a business class pax I was whisked to the front of the queue, why not have two queues from the start.

Security was a breeze, no queue.

Found my way to the Garuda business lounge for a 5 hr wait .

Able to have a shower and relax. Considering that Jakarta is the main home base for Garuda the lounge was just about ok. The bar was pretty much nonexistent, only one local beer and a red wine on offer. Most disappointing was that there were no Indonesian spicy dishes on offer, what!, no beef rendang, satay or nasi lemak

I was seated in 9K a window seat on this A330-300, hoping this would be in one of their Diamond 1-2-1 seating plans but was disappointed to find it was the very old 2-2-2 version! No different to being Qatared I guess but for a lot less money!

However, the lovely Indonesian crew more than made up for the rather old hard product. Everything was no trouble and with a gracious smile. There was after boarding fizz and after takeoff fizz with spicy nuts. Nice menu, slightly limited selection but thats fine for a 6 hr midnight departing flight.

Breakfast was the main meal to be served before landing. Light bites were on offer after departure. I choose satay but the meat was a tad chewy unfortunately. Proper Indonesian coffee though, very tasty.

A substantial and nicely presented breakfast was served 2 hrs before arrival in Sydney. The Indonesian cabin crew do everything with such grace, it’s very special.

Overall a good way to get from Western Europe to Sydney, Australia.

A (hopefully) useful note on costs:

I usually try to fly with a Oneworld airline, being a BA executive club member, currently Oneworld Emerald (BA Gold) to gain tier points and frequent flyer miles. However, my searches using all possible web sites came up with business fares over £4000, particularly from London! Even from other European airports it was crazy prices.

Then using my old favourite hotel booking site ‘Bookings.com’ I found this Skyteam option from Stockholm for £2970 and snapped it up pronto. Sure I had to get from the U.K. to Stockholm and back but I used my Avios miles to book rtn flights in business.

It worked out just fine and with a chance to experience new airlines for myself as well.

The routing back is with Vietnam Airlines via Hanoi and Paris CDG, final sector with Airfrance to Stockholm. I will also become a Silver ‘Flying Blue Explorer’ member after all that too.

Thanks to Brian Clarke for this review.