United Airlines 747-400 in Economy: SIN-HKG-ORD (777) / SFO-HKG-SIN (744/777)

[yflyer]

Thanks for being awake enough to diligently do another one of your great TRs, yflyer! Hope it was too freezing in ORD.

Thanks, CarbonMan! I was only in transit in ORD, enroute to sunny Tampa in Florida, but it was quite cold in Chicago that day -- I had to put my coat on just to catch the Skytrain in between terminals in ORD.

Lovely trip report - but those aren't the Polaris products they're the current ones.

Polaris looks like this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/douggoll.../#65a83542e782

Hi, SQflyergirl! You are right, of course.

The new Polaris seating has yet to be widely rolled out, and all my flights were with the current generation F and J seating. I've amended my initial post to clarify this point.

The way United has rolled out Polaris, they now market Polaris as an "experience" across service, lounge, catering etc, not just the seat. And the Polaris "service" is being launched widely across their fleet and destinations, whether or not the seats are the newest Polaris seats.

Although the equipment onboard the flights I flew were all the existing UA F and J hard product, they were all marketed as Polaris First and Polaris Business.

The UA website FAQ says Polaris is "...is a reinvention of our international premium cabin travel experience"..."We anxiously await the arrival of our new United Polaris seat, which will begin flying in early 2017, but in the meantime travelers can enjoy all other aspects of the United Polaris inflight service, from enhanced dining to restful sleep."

So let the flyer beware! Not all Polaris marketed flights at the moment will have the new Polaris seat. You will get the other aspects of the Polaris experience, i.e. Saks Fifth Avenue pillows, blankets, catering, and other Polaris features, but maybe not the seat!

[yflyer]

Continuing with the TR...

After clearing immigration and catching the ORD Skytrain from my arrival Terminal 5 to Terminal 1, I cleared TSA security through the Premier Access express lane and found myself back in the airside area at ORD.



While ORD is a very large airport, I find it quite pleasant to connect through. There are many shops and eateries, and it is fairly easy to navigate.



At the gate, a 738 being readied for my connecting flight to Tampa, Florida.



UA has a great system for boarding. You have group number clearly printed on your boarding pass. The premium pax are typically Group 1 or 2 with regular pax in Groups 3, 4 and 5. There are different lanes at each gate, clearly signposted with the group number. Pax queue at their respective lanes, and board when the group is called. Clear and simple.

This UA 738 had dark leather seats...



...and widescreen IFE for a fee (I didn't feel like watching or paying)...



The restrooms onboard were a very new design. A little cramped, with a tiny sink, but quite stylish.



This was a 2+ hour sector, and inflight service consisted of just a beverage and a snack.

I spent most of the flight drifting in and out of sleep, and before long, we were descending into TPA...



A nice view of the distinctive split scimitar winglets that UA has installed on many of their 738s. These apparently offer up to 2% additional efficiency/savings over the regular blended winglets, which themselves provide a benefit of up to 4% efficiency improvements.



I spent a couple of days in Tampa before heading to San Diego via Houston, also on UA narrowbodies.

[yflyer]

My hotel in San Diego was the Four Points Sheraton Downtown. This hotel is a distinctive circular tower just a ten minute walk from the waterfront, and not far from the airport.



My room had nice views of the water, and also of the airport nearby.



While in San Diego, I visited a client whose office was located just a few kilometers from Marine Air Station Miramar, an airbase well known as the setting for the movie "Top Gun".

Of course the only F-14 Tomcats there these days are on the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum. These days, the sky is filled with F-18 Hornets and Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey Tiltrotor aircraft.

The Osprey's had a very distinctive (and loud!) sound which often brought our meetings to a standstill until they had passed by our client's office.





"It gets worse when the Blue Angels practice for one of their airshows here. Their flight path goes right over this building..." our client remarked.

[yflyer]

After my meetings had ended, I had just enough time to head to the San Diego waterfront for a run and a quick lunch.

Unusually, the weather was wet and overcast on the 2 days I was there. But the rain had stopped in the late morning, and I was able to head outside for some exercise.

My route that day was a conventional one, from the hotel, I headed to the Embarcaredo...



...and proceeded along the waterfront towards the USS Midway Museum...



...and Seaport Village and the Embarcadero Marine Park North...



...before doubling back along the same path towards the airport.

Total distance that day: 15km, which included doubling back along the route to cover the same section of waterfront twice to make up the distance.



I ended my run outside Anthony's Fish Grotto.

There was a sign outside Anthony's Fish Grotto that said that they were closing their historic outlet by the waterfront in a few weeks time to make way for development.

I headed to the restaurant's quick service "Fishette", which is next to the main restaurant, for a quick lunch...my last chance to eat at this iconic location.





I ordered a shrimp and crab salad, as well as a clam chowder...



Both were really good...the chowder was as satisfying as any bowl of chowder I had tasted in either Boston or San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

Too bad this outlet is closing. Anthony's does, however, have another restaurant at a different location so there is still the opportunity to eat their fine seafood.

[yflyer]

After that, I headed back to my hotel for a 4pm late checkout, and caught an Uber car to the airport for my flight to San Francisco.

I got into San Francisco just after 6.30pm and was in my room at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco at Union Square by 7.30pm.

I had earlier booked a table for one at the Wayfare Tavern, and stepped out of the Grand Hyatt for a leisurely walk to the restaurant.

Outside, I passed by Union Square, where a temporary ice skating ring had been set up...



I continued my walk through the hilly streets of SF to the restaurant, the Wayfare Tavern, which I had called ahead to book a table-for-one earlier in the day.



The Wayfare Tavern is the brainchild of celebrity chef and Food Network television personality Tyler Florence. These days, some people think the term celebrity chef has some less than desirable connotations, but the wonderful American cuisine in this restaurant leads me to believe his fame is well deserved.

A fairly short, but very interesting menu...





A cocktail at the bar while waiting for my table...



My table was right across from the show kitchen...



My starter was bone marrow...



My impressions of this dish? There were too many trimmings and toppings. These were tasty, but bone marrow has a unique taste and texture which is best eaten on its own...I moved the toppings to the side to enjoy the marrow on its own.

And the marrow itself? Outstanding!



Unlike some other restaurants, such as St John in London (Which arguably started the fad of eating bone marrow), the marrow bone is cut lengthwise, not across the diameter of the bone, which means you get long thick strips of marrow.

The marrow was firm yet soft...some of the most beautiful bone marrow textures I had ever eaten.



Perhaps not the healthiest starter on the menu, but a delight to eat.

[yflyer]

For my main, I ordered the organic fried chicken, which was listed as among the best fried chicken in the USA by Food and Wine magazine in 2016...



...and accompanied this with a glass of Hartford Court Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley...



The fried chicken was delicious...the batter had wonderful flavour, and the meat was tender...



Ultra smooth tasting mashed potatoes on the side...



And for dessert...



...I ordered the chocolate cream pie...



A wonderful meal. On a previous occasion I sampled their devilled eggs and steak tartar...both delicious.

A restaurant I would highly recommend!

[yflyer]

The next day, my flight UA 896 SFO-HKG, was scheduled to depart at 1.30pm, which meant I would have enough time to head to the Golden Gate Bridge for another run.

I've covered the route for this run in previous TR's, and it is one of the nicest runs one can do. The main difference with today's run was that it was one of those days where there was thick rolling fog over parts of San Francisco, including the Golden Gate Bridge...

It was clear on the Marin County end...



...but the bridge (and surrounding area) where completely blanketed by thick fog on the SF end...



It was quite incredible how the sky tuned from clear blue, into a dark, swirling grey in a matter of seconds....





Still it was a very memorabe run across the bridge and back, then following the coastline past Crissy Field, the Marina district and ending at Ghiradelli Square.

After ending my run, I caught an Uber car to my hotel, checked out, and took a taxi to the Ferry Building for a few minutes of shopping before heading to SFO for my date with a 747-400...



To be continued!

[yflyer]

The reason why the 747 pic in my previous post looked so fuzzy wasn't fog: there is a screen pattern on all of the SFO international terminal's windows that prevent anyone from taking a decent picture of the tarmac. It is probably there to block the bright California sunlight, but as I said...you can forget about taking pictures of aircraft from within the gate area.

I headed to the UA lounge for a few minutes (Previously covered here) before heading to the gate.

By the time I headed to the gate area, there was already a long queue waiting to board. And not just the general boarding queue, even Group 1 and Group 2 lines stretched more than 20 meters.



This was the back of the Group 2 line...lots of premium and frequent flyers on this very full flight!



At the door of the Queen of the Skies...

[yflyer]

A look up the staircase to the J section (and cockpit) in the upper deck. One regret on this trip was not making a detour up the stairs to check out the mini-cabin for one last time. The upper deck of a 744 is a special sanctuary which I think many of us will miss. The A380 upper deck is a nice place to spend time too, but just doesn't have the same intimacy.

The J cabin, with the same 2-4-2 forwards/backwards fully flat seats as UA's current generation non-Polaris 777 J seats.

[yflyer]

The Economy Plus cabin of the 744, laid out in 10-abreast 3-4-3.



The regular Y cabin, starting just after the overwing emergency exits...



The Y cabin is, of course, 3-4-3, but the sheer size of the 744 cabin meant that this did not feel cramped at all.



Note the full sized armrests.



Each seat came with a pillow and blanket.



A/C power under the Y seats. One for each seat.



Old school audio volume and channel selectors, with an LCD channel display.



Our beloved channel 9 ATC comms was featured, but this was optional...



...on today's flight all I heard on Channel 9 was R&B...

[yflyer]

Snacks were available for purchase on this flight. Soft drinks and beer/wine were complimentary, but cocktails and hard liquor were all chargeable.



No seatback IFE.

The onboard magazine listed the main screen programming...



...but in practice, I think no airline these days would dare to feature main screen programming like the "good old days", where after meal service, they announce that cabin lighting will be dimmed, and all seats reclined, so that pax could watch the movie.

On this UA flight, the movies began without fanfare at the start of the flight and a range of movies and TV sitcoms were screened thoughout the flight almost as background entertainment.



Of course, most folks went instead for the inflight wifi (paid) and streaming movies/TV (complimentary) on their personal computers/tablets/phones, which to me are a perfectly acceptable substitute to seatback IFE these days, as long as the system works reliably.

[yflyer]

A very loud, powerful take-off roll.

Like most fully loaded 744 take-offs, it seemed to be an eternity before we rotated and took to the skies, wings straining and flexing with full fuel load...and a long shudder just after lift-off as the undercarriage was retracted and wheel doors closed. All part of the 744 experience...



A very full flight in Y today.



My Y seat was an aisle seat towards the rear of the aircraft. UA allows advance seat selection either online or via the very comprehensive mobile phone app. However, when I booked the ticket, all aisle seats were taken up. But I compulsively checked the app frequently to see if any seats opened up (As people changed or cancelled their bookings/seat assignments in the days preceeding the flight). Miraculously, an aisle seat eventually opened up, and I snagged it. For me, an aisle seat on such a long flight is not optional: it is a necessity.

[yflyer]

A full drink service after take-off....

Cranberry-Apple juice with ice...



Mini-pretzels and other crisps in UA's snack mix...



Lunch service...a choice of General Tso Chicken or vegetarian pasta...



I chose the chicken...



Unlike my recent UA meals on their 777 and 787, today's 744 lunch was a disappointment...

While the salad was passable...



...the chicken dish was bland, with rice that was way too dry and hard...



I was quite surprised that UA's San Francisco catering would mess up a quintessential Chinese-American dish so badly. General Tso chicken is supposed to be foolproof...just chunks of chicken in a sweet sauce over rice. What could go wrong? A lot, apparently. I did not enjoy this. If I had known the main on this flight was General Tso Chicken, I would have da bao'ed this dish from SF Chinatown, or even the airport food court, and eaten it onboard. It would have been far tastier.

And to add to that, the 744 Y meal trays were also a really strange design, with a cut-out meant to provide room for an in-cart heating element to keep the main warm. This meant the tray would wobble and not sit flat on the tray table unless you arranged it exactly right (i.e. with casserole vertically orientated)...



I washed it down with Miller Lite...



Dessert was vanilla ice cream. Again. Does flavoured ice cream really cost that much more to cater onboard than plain vanilla?



A bottle of water for each pax.

[yflyer]

On the bright side, full unlimited internet access was available for a bargain price of USD 16.99 for this long 14 hour flight.



And even if you did not want to pay for internet, wifi connectivity included complimentary access to the UA website, flight progress information/airshow...





...and free streaming movies and TV...





I watched the Legend of Tarzan...



Picture quality on my iPhone was fine, however the system did seem to be straining under the load of so many onboard users accessing the system, and there were often delays and pauses in the video stream when I was watching the movie. Internet access also seemed intermittent. Not clear if this was a one-off issue, or something regularly experienced on these flights.

[yflyer]

A mid-flight snack was served...





I supplemented this with a Nissin cup noodle I had bought from a convenience store in San Francisco. Once again, the helpful cabin crew were happy to provide hot water, and chopsticks, for my self-catered snack...