MY Holiday (there'll be more holiday stuff over next few weeks. Poor you!)

 Hi there

Most of today's mind-gripping text is about - wait for it! -  the PLANE RIDES

Well..  My 2 week Vegas holiday has been and gone in a trice.  Because I'm getting, ahem, older, I decided to fly over to Los Angeles on Air New Zealand Skycouch.  No skiting (showing off) allowed because the skycouch is still in Economy, with the same meals and attention as other Economy passengers - sadly,  I didn't get led onto the plane by an Air New Zealand entourage, with confetti, balloons and trumpets lining the route. 

The Skycouch is great.  I got all the three seats in the row.  There's a leg rest on each chair and they can be locked to seat level when needed to turn the chairs into a couch.  Up go the inside arm rests and I was given a mattress layer, an extended sleeping seatbelt,  three blankets, and a couple of proper pillows.  Divine.

I loved having these three seats, including the window and aisle.  They were my personal domain. I used whichever tray table I felt like eating from. I had my own stuff all around me.  No other passengers bothered me.  I was in a lovely little nest..

stock photo

Though Air New Zealand advertises that two people can sleep on one skycouch, I can't recommend it.  However, one parent and a child can fit great on a skycouch.  There are a few other configurations that work on an okay level, eg, if a couple book one skycouch, one person can sit on the third seat while the other tries to snuggle down on what is now a two-seater skycouch.  Feet on loved one's lap?

Or... One person can sit in Economy, the second in Skycouch.  They can swap during flight?

Returning home, I was in Premium Economy, with a posh seat with more leg room, the tray table is in the seat arm, the back of chair is in more relaxed mode, and I had a leg rest.  However, the leg rest literally was a leg rest.  My feet dangled off the end which annoyed me no end. 

In Premium Economy there was a menu choice for breakfast and dinner (I liked the Alaskan Cod).  The staff were attentive (there were only six passengers in Premium Economy, but about thirty empty seats). We were handed out wet towels at various times, and encouraged to stretch out on empty seats.  The seats of only two arm-rests could be lifted so even though I was in a four seat row setup, I could only stretch out on the two middle seats.  So...  I may as well have been in Economy, or Skycouch where I had three whole seats to go to sleep on.  Costs roughly same price as Skycouch, depending on when and how you book.  And no sleeping seatbelts.

Two people booking the one skycouch is cheaper than one person.  

NB:  a booker has to book their economy seat first, and only then do they get asked if they want skycouch.  There are only about a dozen skycouches per flight.  I guess maybe there are ways a flyer can check to see before booking if any skycouches are free.

Alcohol drinks were free in Premium Economy but as my choice is Diet Coke (yes, yes, you know by now that I am an addict), I wouldn't have saved much money on the journey.

There was a Premium Economy check-in counter at Los Angeles Airport so the snob factor was there, and I was allowed a 10 kg cabin bag instead of 7 Kg as in Economy.   I only took a cabin bag with me. 

(The weirdest thing: my baggage scale at home said my bag weighed 7.1 kg, but when I weighed it at Air New Zealand Wellington Airport, it was 6.8 kg.  An hour later at Air NZ Auckland Airport, it was 6.4 kg.  On leaving Vegas for home, and after buying quite a bit of stuff, my bag weighed 7.1 kg again.  Go figure.)

Oh, and Premium Economy passengers are allowed on the plane a good two minutes before Economy so, wow, that's a extra incentive to travel PE, yes?

So, all in all, if you want to be refreshed when you land, I would go for Skycouch over Premium Economy...

below: menu, main meal, Premium Economy. The breakfast was lovely too.

LAS VEGAS -

I didn't really take a swag of photos as I'd been to Vegas before.  I have loads of photos from Vegas in this blog of the years pre-Covid.

The highest day temperature was 47c. (117f). The lowest high on other days was 41c.

above:  view from my Flamingo Hotel window.  The 'High Roller' ferris wheel.  And 'The Sphere' auditorium which has revolving colours going all around it, all day, all night.  Music acts appear inside The Sphere, along with examples of technical advancements, eg robots.  The Sphere is maybe 30 stories high???

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above :  An outdoor Paris Hotel and Casino cafe.  As people walk by on The Strip, they are very lightly sprayed with water to ease the heat.

above:  me at the above cafe, sitting on outside patio.  Hot, tired...

above: view of Eiffel Tower at Paris Hotel and casino.