My Trip To Virgin Beach
Will blog my trip to Virgin Beach for you. June 26 my son took me to the Airport Bus of Bakersfield from our home in Tulare California, about one hour drive. The bus company has the same luggage limits as the airlines (2 pieces sof checked luggage at 50 pounds each) but unlike the airlines, the bus company will not accept your luggage if over even by 8 ounces. I had to remove an item on a previous trip, so I made sure it was exact. The airlines usually allow up to 5 pounds over.
Bakersfield to LAX is about 2 1/2 hours and no traffic on Sunday and arrived at 3:30 p.m. I opted for the Philippine Airlines flight PR113 that leaves at 9 p.m. and arrives in Manila at 5 a.m. plus two days (you cross the international dateline and loose a day, but gain it coming back when you can actually arrive in LAX before you leave Manila. Check-in opened for this flight (other flight, PR 103 leaves at 10:30 p.m.) at 4:30 p.m. and I was about 5th or 6th in line. I needed an isle seaat but when I called after getting my ticket to give them my frequent flyer number and add my contact phones, there were no isle seats left, so by checkin in early I requested the isle seat exit row and was surprised to learn those seats on the exit row now sell for $50! But there was an isle seat in the second cabin near the rest room so I got that.
The early flight (PR113) aircraft is a Industry Airbus 340-300 with 4 engine/wide body seating is 2-4-2 (PR103 uses the Boing 747-400 and seating is 3-4-3) but later learned that there is more leg room on the airbus aircraft than the 747 by at least 2 to 3 inches. Usually on a 747 in economy, my knees are touching the seat in front of me, but with the airbus, i had at least 3 inches of room...very nice.
About the time they should have started boarding (usually about an hour before the flight), they announced that our flight would be a non-stop to Manila. Usually they make a refueling stop in Honolulu or Guam and makes the total flight about 17 1/2 hours (747 can fly faster and takes only 17 hours with stop) and San Francisco to Manila is about 1/2 less time since the LAX flight will fly north along the California coast to just south of San Francisco and then head west. Was kind of surprised as the loads are usually heavey and headwinds strong but evidently they calculated the fule, weight and head winds and decided on a non-stop which made the flight about 13 1/2 hours long (we even had a strong tail wind most of the flight) so we left about 1 1/2 hours later than schedule and arrived about 1 1/2 hours earlier than scheduled (3:30 a.m. VS 5 a.m.). Really a nice flight...I took two tylonal p.m. pills and slept about 7 houts total.
Sat next to a Brit (from Wales) who worked for Disney Productions on their ships who had a small resort in El Nido, Palawan and was going to sell it as the hassells of getting the title were wearing hi down and he wasn't arried to a filipina so that his family could have processed all the papers without all the problems he was having. Anyway, when the flight attendant came by, I asked if P.A.L. stood for (pause)...Plenty Attractive Ladies? She said "of course" and we got excellent service the rest of the flight. Of course most people say it means Plane Always Late. But then you may not get the good service we got, LOL!
Meals are almost always served one hour after take-off and about 2 hours before landing. I got a $5 hot dog at one of the concessions about 8 p.m. when they announced it would be a non-stop, so wasn't really hungry for dinner on the flight and started to snooze. All movies on PAL are free, but this aircraft only had the screen at front of the cabin and not very good quality, so I didn't even bother to use the head set. Had a snack about midway thru the flight and always have apple juice or cranberry juice on the plane as carbonated drinks actually dehydrate you. I ususally have a glass of water whenever I wate up. Here's a hint, don't wait till just before landing to use the c.r. as that is when everyone else will be using it. Breakfast wasn't all that great...think about it...prepared more than 15 hours ago!
Airport in Manila opens at 3:30 a.m. and they only had one immigration officer on duty on the transfer side...looked like they had two on the other side. Transfer desk was jammed with lots of people wanting to change their Philippine domestic flight to the earlier flight since they would be able to connect to the 5 a.m. flights. I was scheduled for 7 a.m. flight so thought I would just relax in the business class lounge (Mabuhay Lounge) since I had a frequent flyer award business class ticket (10,000 miles for round trip)...that way I only need to purchase a LAX/MNL round trip ticket. One of the PAL supervisors saw me and asked if I wanted the 5 a.m. flight to Cebu and I mentioned that the counter was too crowed for me to change my ticket, he took care of everything for me and got my luggage changed and escorted e thru customs, doestic security/check in and got me on the plane even before boarding started! Tipped him P500 for the process. Oh, had time to change money at the airport (usually get better rate than in Bogo, Cebu).
Got a window seat on the Cebu flight so I could see northern Cebu when we flew over on the way to Mactan-Cebu International Airport. Sat by a Fil-Am who is setting up a call center in Cebu...the newest rising middle class of Asia (starting salary is over P500 per day).
