Air Canada Business Class Vancouver to China Review
In late April, I made the journey from Toronto to Shanghai at the start of my trip to China for the spring and summer. I've at present exited my 14-day quarantine, and I'm spending this week in and around Shanghai before heading back to Beijing.
In this article, I wanted to document the travel feel from start to stop, including my pre-travel preparations, my flying on Air Canada 787 business organisation form, and the hotel quarantine experience at Shanghai's Blueish Sky Hotel.
I've likewise made the post-obit YouTube videos to testify you the entire outbound journeying of this trip, which y'all tin can watch below:
Preparing for the Trip
Getting a Visa
China has implemented strict edge controls since the onset of the pandemic. Previous visas for foreign passport holders have been suspended until further find, and new visa applications are beingness screened through a dedicated electronic mail service earlier you're invited to submit your awarding at your local visa centre.
Equally I mentioned in the intro mail for this trip, I was travelling to Cathay on a newly-issued family unit reunion visa which I obtained on humanitarian grounds.
I completed the visa procedure over several weeks back in January (after renewing my Canadian passport at the turn of the twelvemonth), which required a considerable volume of supporting material, including infirmary records and documents to evidence family relationships.
If any readers are hoping to make a similar trip to China, I'd recommend contacting your local visa office in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, or Montreal for the near up-to-engagement list of eligible applicants and required documents.
Booking the Flight
Like many other countries in the Eastern hemisphere, China also currently places strict limits on the number of international flights coming into the state.
Travellers coming from Canada must accept non-stop flights on their inbound journeying, and I had booked myself on the once-weekly Air Canada 787 business class service from Toronto to Shanghai.
(Thanks to an involuntary schedule change on an Aeroplan accolade ticket that I had booked under the old program, I didn't take to pay the dynamic pricing of 200,000+ Aeroplan points for a newly-booked one-way flight. While I would've preferred to take the in one case-weekly Vancouver–Shanghai service, I wasn't able to get the origin inverse from Toronto to Vancouver, so I instead flew Air Canada premium economy to Toronto to brainstorm this journey.)
COVID-xix Testing
Prior to travelling, I needed to have two separate COVID-19 tests: a PCR test and an antigen examination, both within two days of the flying.
(The antigen test in detail is very heavy-handed compared to other countries which only require a PCR test, as it could create complications for someone who had previously already recovered from COVID-xix.)
Moreover, the "two days" requirement might've proven tricky, considering that my flight was departing at ane:20am on a Sun, and I nevertheless needed to travel from Vancouver to Toronto in the days prior to it.
Fortunately, I confirmed with the consulate that it wasn't a strict 48-hour rule. Instead, since check-in would take place on Saturday evening, I'd exist okay if I took my tests on the morning time of the preceding Thursday.
That's exactly what I did, booking my PCR test at PolyCan Wellness Centre near Simon Fraser Academy for a full toll of $315. Upon completing my examination, I was then directed to the LifeLabs facility on Eastward Hastings St for my antigen test, which cost a further $75.
Both examination results came through within 24 hours past Fri forenoon, via a single email from PolyCan.
Pre-Flight Procedures
With the two negative tests in manus, I then boarded my Air Canada premium economy flight en route to Toronto on Saturday, in advance of my Shanghai-bound flying in the early on hours of Dominicus.
It was only after I landed in Toronto that I finally got effectually to uploading the 2 negative tests to the Health Declaration Document portal, which all international travellers must complete before boarding their Prc-bound flight. But after someone reviews and approves your wellness documents do you receive your green wellness code, which allows you lot to lath.
(Indeed, when I tried to check my numberless at the Air Canada business class cheque-in counters then that I could head to Downtown Toronto with a lighter load on my layover, the agent said that she'd demand to see my "greenish spinning thing" to be able to check me in and take my numberless, so I ended up having to bring my bags with me.)
I waited very nervously for my green health lawmaking to show up for the rest of the day. Just equally the clock struck 9pm and I was nearly to head back to the drome with a mindset of "any will be will be", the dark-green wellness lawmaking finally appeared, granting me safe passage onto the flight in almost iv hours' time.
In hindsight, I should've definitely taken action on this sooner instead of leaving information technology late. After all, when information technology comes to travel these days, fifty-fifty a small misstep or filibuster tin can be costly.
Air Canada 787 Concern Class, Toronto to Shanghai
It's been a while since I had written our in-depth review of Air Canada 787 business class.
I had considered writing a full-length report of this flight from Toronto to Shanghai. Just given its many unusual characteristics in these unusual times, I'll simply share some brief impressions from the 17-hour journey, and I'll save the refreshed Air Canada business organisation course review for a future trip.
(Why 17 hours? Well, Air Canada currently operates both of its Shanghai-spring services with a one-hr technical stop in Seoul, because South korea'south crew quarantine requirements are plainly much less strict than China'south. I set of flight crew operates the flight from Canada to Seoul, and and then another crew takes over for the Seoul–Shanghai segment before doing a direct turn, thus avoiding the demand to quarantine in Red china.)
At the Aerodrome
After completing my check-in procedures at a deserted Toronto Pearson International Airport, I headed to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge to unwind before my flying.
The international lounge remains closed for the time being, although information technology'south possible to visit the domestic lounge for some refreshments before making the long walk to the international last.
The Maple Leafage Lounge à table nutrient service had already ended by this late hour, so I simply enjoyed some catch-and-go snacks and a glass of wine – in the company of simply i or two other passengers in the entire lounge.
Information technology was about a five-minute walk to the "Due east" gates, large stretches of it with not a single soul in sight. I and then spent a good 30 minutes picking out a laundry list of duty-free items for my mum, after which information technology was time to board.
Boarding
All 30 business concern class seats were occupied on tonight's flight, and many of the passengers appeared to exist Chinese students returning home after their semester of academy. I got the sense that few, if any, of them had redeemed Aeroplan points for this flight rather than paying cash. 😉
I had originally assigned myself Seat 7A, having been stuck in an aisle seat previously before snagging a window seat at the last minute. The passenger in Seat 4A asked if I'd swap seats with him so he could sit next to his partner in Seat 7D, and without thinking near it too much, I agreed (every bit I ordinarily practise when it's a reasonable seat bandy request).
Yet, I soon realized that I probably shouldn't take. Our seat numbers were beingness carefully tracked for contact tracing purposes, later on all, and the swapped seats could put me in a spot of carp if, say, the person in Seat 8A ended up testing positive afterwards on.
Thankfully, that item nightmare scenario did not play out in the end, but it was a reminder to myself of how we must remember more consciously about our travel behaviours as we emerge into a mail service-pandemic world.
Settling into an ever-so-familiar Air Canada 787 business organization class seat, I took detect of the fact that all of our in-flight items at present came in a single plastic bag marked with "Travel Essentials". Inside, I discovered the headphones, CleanCare+ kit, and amenity kit by Want Les Essentiels.
Other than that, cipher felt as well different compared to flying in the old days. Every bit with most early-forenoon departures, I dozed off for a while during the takeoff roll, waking up only as the crew were rolling out the meal carts.
Meal Service
As I discovered to groovy please, Air Canada has phased out the "boxed meals" in concern class. They haven't quite restored the full multi-grade repast service, and in that location's yet only one titbit and primary form to cull from – but at least the individual dishes are served in proper bowls and plates.
Asia-bound flights are catered by Chef Antonio Park, and I very much enjoyed his ginger-inspired beef and chicken dishes for my titbit and main course, along with a glass of the Laurent-Perrier champagne.
In my eyes, Air Canada has restored its international business class catering to a respectable level, but no more than that. By at present, many airlines around the world have resumed their full onboard service with multiple choices per meal (including vegetarian and vegan options), so Air Canada's streamlined service concept boils downwardly to continued cost-cutting rather than motivated past wellness and hygiene.
In-Flight
After the repast, I got a chip of work done on my laptop, and then proceeded to sleep for an entire 9 and a half hours uninterrupted (which is probably the longest continuous sleep I've e'er had on a aeroplane).
I had been awake since very early in the morning time the previous day back in Vancouver, and it was well past 3am Eastern Time by at present, so I naturally had very picayune energy left in the tank.
Indeed, I vaguely recall the crew fellow member asking if I'd like to eat my second repast, and and so placing information technology down on my table afterwards I nodded in agreement. When I actually woke up, though, the meal was nowhere to be seen, as we were 30 minutes away from landing at Seoul Incheon International Airport.
Our one-hour technical stop in Seoul took place in the wee hours of the morning, and as passengers we weren't allowed to get out our seats or get off the airplane.
The pilots and flight attendants gathered their property and shuffled off the aeroplane, before beingness replaced past a new fix. In the meantime, I stared wistfully outside at the airport gates, reminiscing about all the good times on Asiana Airlines Get-go Form and Korean Air First Course back in the day.
One time we took off in the skies again, we were treated to a truly spectacular sunrise view – the kind of wingtip views nosotros've all dearly missed over the past twelvemonth or so!
It was only some other 90 minutes to hop across the E China Sea, and the repast service on this short segment was express to a packet of snacks and some coffee or tea. Having missed out on the more substantial repast before on, these snacks would need to be enough to tide me over until lunchtime in Shanghai.
Disembarkation
Upon landing, a health official came onboard to audit the aircraft, decked out in full personal protective equipment – as everyone we'd come across from now on would exist. I'm not quite certain what kind of "inspection" they had to perform, but we were told that we could disembark later on a few minutes' time, starting with business concern class passengers.
We were ushered into the inflow concourse of Shanghai Pudong International Airport in a roughly single-file formation.
The drome's existing concourse has been segregated into a more complex maze of walkways using temporary metal walls, directing us from the aircraft as follows: first to a registration desk, then to another desk-bound to option up our COVID-19 PCR sample container, and then to the actual testing facility to consummate our tests (nasal and throat, with the nasal one extending specially deep), and and then onwards to the usual clearing checkpoint and luggage queue.
Eventually, after picking upward our numberless, nosotros were directed towards a serial of "pens" in groups of nearly 20 passengers, with each group headed to a different quarantine hotel. Our passports were collected at this signal, and would be returned to us upon checking in to our quarantine hotel stay.
(Technically, we aren't given the choice of which quarantine hotel to stay at. Yet, it'south my understanding that this is the stage at which I might've been able to ask one of the staff members which quarantine hotel the group was headed towards, and and then request a dissimilar hotel if I didn't similar the sound of it. In my state of exhaustion, though, I decided to leave things upwardly to fate.)
Heading downwards even so another series of walkways, we somewhen gathered at Exit 29 of the airport, before making our style onboard the bus – sealed on the inside betwixt the entering travellers and the coach commuter – en road to a mystery location for 14 days of hotel quarantine.
14-Day Quarantine at the Blueish Sky Hotel, Shanghai
After about half an hour, our coach pulled up also a nondescript building in the Yangpu District, correct next to the Wujiaochang roundabout. This was a place I'd get to know very well: Blue Sky Hotel, my home for the next 14 days.
Toll of the Hotel Quarantine
Kitted-out personnel boarded our motorcoach and informed the states that the price of the hotel quarantine would exist 500 RMB ($100) per dark, for a total of seven,000 RMB ($1,400) for the 14-dark stay.
That'southward no small expense, of course, and I believe it could've been even more than pricey at a dissimilar quarantine hotel, too. At that place was no backing out of things now, so I went alee, signed the document committing to staying in my room and following the quarantine rules for the side by side 14 days, and paid for the stay.
(It'south too bad I didn't get a Novotel, Holiday Inn, or Wyndham hotel, which are apparently all possible quarantine locations here in Shanghai. It would've been nice to at least earn some hotel points for the $one,400 I spent!)
Check-in
Nosotros were ushered into the hotel via a side entrance, far abroad from the regular hotel guests in the main anteroom. Afterward taking payment for the stay, the hotel as well took note of whatsoever meal preferences or allergies I had, earlier handing me back my passport and the keys to the room.
One by one, we boarded a plastic-lined service lift up to the 15th flooring of the hotel, which had been entirely blocked off for centralized quarantine purposes. It was placidity upwards here, and the hallways were ominously empty also the lonely table sitting in front of every door.
And with that, I stepped into Room 1514, not to step back out until a fortnight later.
Hotel Room
I thought the room itself was fairly big for a standard non-suite guest room, and I was pretty satisfied with most parts of information technology.
The centrepiece of the room was the rex-sized bed, which provided me with ample rest during the ii-week stay – non that at that place was too much to do also resting.
I spent virtually of my time in quarantine working from the desk in the corner, although the chair was quite uncomfortable to spend long periods sitting in. To intermission up the work sessions, I made employ of the aplenty carpet space around the bed to do a some floor workouts.
I made peachy use of the television for watching 3am UEFA Champions League matches – a real blast of nostalgia from my high school days. Meanwhile, the counter infinite in forepart of the television would play host to dozens of snacks and drinks that my friends and family would deliver to my door.
While the chamber was more sufficient, the bathroom left a fair bit to be desired.
It had all of the essentials: a sink, toilet, and shower/bathtub combo – but the shower would leak h2o all over the identify, and it also became very chock-full over the course of two weeks (with no housekeeping service allowed in the room during that time, of course).
I ended upward trying to spend equally little time as possible in the bath, and needless to say, I was very happy to be out of there past Day xiv.
Meals
The Blueish Heaven Hotel delivered me a total of 42 meals, starting with lunch on Day 0 (the mean solar day of my arrival) and ending with breakfast on Day xiv. Each meal was left on the table outside my room, and and so the front desk-bound would telephone call me to let me know that the repast was ready.
The meals were adequately consequent, just there was e'er a little chip of variety to keep things interesting from day to day.
Breakfast was served at 7:30am every day, housed in an aluminum wrapper in case I didn't wake upward until later on (even though I was e'er up by early morning anyway). The breakfast box would uniformly consist of a piece of corn and a hard-boiled egg, accompanied by various other breakfast items.
Some days at that place'd be a sugariness bun, other days a savoury bun, and yet other days a sausage, yam, or even a zongzi (sticky rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves).
In that location would e'er be a packet of Chinese pickled vegetables to back-trail the plain stuff, as well as a carton of milk – although 24-hour interval 7 saw the regular milk seemingly arbitrarily replaced past soy milk.
Dejeuner was delivered at 12pm every day. There'd e'er exist a large box of rice, along with a four-role dejeuner box that independent various poly peptide and vegetable dishes. Chicken, beef, fish, duck, shrimp, tofu – I had it all over the xiv days.
(I gauge the Day vii was the day of culinary surprises, because it was the only twenty-four hours that I received a bowl of seaweed soup with my lunch.)
Finally, dinner would arrive at 6pm every day, again featuring a box of rice and a lunch box with rotating contents, as well equally an orange on the side. I noticed that the items appeared to rotate on a roughly weekly ground, as I started getting the aforementioned stuff for lunch and dinner on Day 8 as I had received on the first day.
Overall, the meal contents were healthy, and I idea the portion sizes were decent. On some occasions, I woke up from a jet lag-induced sleep with a grumbling stomach, just that'south where my mum's shipment of cup noodles did the fob for a few hours before breakfast would arrive.
The Blue Sky Hotel did non let me to lodge nutrient delivery from exterior restaurants, although this varies from hotel to hotel – if you lot're travelling to China and get assigned a different quarantine hotel, you might exist allowed to gild in.
Even so, the hotel was happy to take parcel deliveries to my door, resulting in my mountain of snacks on the TV counter.
fourteen Days of Quarantine
I think I handled the 14-day quarantine ordeal pretty well, all things considered. I had started to become a little chip "stir crazy" past Day 6 or seven, simply consciously focusing on piece of work and building a routine into my twenty-four hour period allowed me to get through the entire fourteen days pretty painlessly.
It certainly helped that breakfast, tiffin, and dinner were delivered like clockwork at set up hours throughout the day. In-between meals, I'd set aside some fourth dimension for my floor workouts every other day (there wasn't actually annihilation I could use every bit weights in the room, and then a series of every-infinitesimal-on-the-infinitesimal exercises had to suffice), requite Jessy a recall at domicile, or otherwise piece of work on Prince of Travel.
The days certainly seemed to alloy into each other over the two weeks, and I oft had to end and remind myself which twenty-four hour period I was on as I watched sunrise afterwards sunrise, dusk later sunset in the Wujiaochang intersection exterior.
The jet lag fabricated things fifty-fifty more challenging in that regard. Since I couldn't go out my room, I had no option only to succumb to the jet lag every time.
I retrieve it was around Day four that I had slept from 4pm to 12am, and so from 8am to 12pm, and then from 5pm all the way to 11pm – missing out on dinner entirely!
It would eventually take me near the total 14 days to properly arrange to the local time zone, such was the sheer attraction of the king bed and its fluffy blankets whenever the jet lag kicked in.
Temperature Checks and COVID-19 Test
Every day at 9am and 2pm, a kitted-out staff member would ring my doorbell to conduct a brief temperature check. My readings came in between 36˚C and 36.5˚C every fourth dimension, so at that place was aught to worry about.
In addition to the COVID-19 PCR tests I had done upon arriving in Shanghai, I so had to comport some other test on the morning time of Mean solar day 13, the results of which would allow me to exit my quarantine on the last mean solar day. We each pulled up a chair to the door and had our noses swabbed (again, extra deep).
(I had been under the impression that I'd have to do fifty-fifty more tests throughout this process, then at least I was happy it was only i additional examination later the ane upon landing.)
A few hours later, I received the fateful telephone call letting me know that my test results came dorsum negative, and I'd be able to leave the hotel the next day!
At 7am the following morning, I packed up all my belongings, guzzled down the concluding of my snacks and drinks, and – with my sanity still intact, as far as I could tell – fabricated my way downstairs for checkout.
Determination
Arriving into Communist china during the pandemic era certainly made for a very challenging journey, from the visa awarding back in Jan, to the pre-travel COVID tests, to the 17-60 minutes flying with a stop in Seoul, all the way to a total xiv days of isolation in a hotel room all on my own.
Now that I've come through it all, I'm actually happy that everything went as smoothly as it maybe could, and I'll be looking to make the most of my time here over the next month or so to make all the efforts worthwhile.
In a few years' time, I might wait back on this trip as a somewhat unique experience to have gone through, but I must say that it isn't a process I'd be eager to undergo again.
It's certainly been a tough twelvemonth for many people around the world who have been separated from family or who have faced arduous processes to reunite, and I can only promise that things become better for u.s.a. as soon as possible in the coming weeks and months.
Source: https://princeoftravel.com/blog/the-journey-to-china-during-covid-19/
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