November 2023 - Rebel Flying

Flight review – Air Canada Business Class, Paris – Montreal

After my flight to Paris and a short stopover it was time for the first long haul flight of my 5-month travel season.

A fortuitous deal meant that this would be in Air Canada’s Signature Business Class.

As my flight was leaving from Terminal 2, I started my travel day in the Extime contract lounge rather than the Star Alliance Lounge in Terminal 1.

The lounge was located after security but before passport control and offered a reasonable selection of food and drink.

After around an hour in the lounge I boarded the flight and settled in.

This flight was operated by a 777-300ER with business class seating in a 1-2-1 configuration. All business class seats on this aircraft offer a fully flat bed and direct aisle access.

I was given a small amenity kit and a pre-departure glass of champagne.

The dinner service began shortly after take-off with nuts and another glass of champagne.

The menu and choice of drinks offered an impressive array of options.

The appetiser was tasty and the salad was fresh.

For the main course, I was informed that the beef cheeks were not available. This was not an issue for me, as I had already chosen the chicken curry.

The curry was tasty and unusually for an airline meal, had a nice spicy kick.

I chose the Côtes du Rhône white wine to accompany the main course and this was generously poured and regularly topped up.

I finished off the meal with the cheese platter, a glass or two of port and a couple of brandies.

By this stage there were only around four hours left of the flight, so I decided to put my seat into flat-bed mode for a short nap.

I had a nice two-hour sleep before a light pre-arrival meal of Arabic mezze with fruit and coffee was served, along with a couple of tasty little chocolates.

After this, we began our descent to Montreal, where I had a one-night layover before continuing to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Air Canada’s Signature Class was a very relaxing experience and a thoroughly civilised way to begin my long-haul travels.

I can recommend this product as a very solid option for a trans-Atlantic flight.

Hotel review – Millennium Hotel, Paris CDG

7 November 2023
by thebouncer

I recently had a two night stopover in Paris between flights.

For such a short time, it didn’t make sense to travel to a city hotel when I could stay at the airport and travel to the city without my luggage for the free day.

For that reason I booked the Millennium Hotel a short distance from the airport.

My arrival was complicated slightly by the fact that CDG is very badly signposted and there is very little information about which shuttles depart from which part of the airport. A quick phone call to the hotel established that this particular bus departs from the bus stops between Terminals 2B and 2D.

A further complication was that the shuttle runs only once per hour, at 5 minutes to each hour. Unfortunately I missed one by around 10 minutes.

However, things improved once I actually got to the hotel.

My room was comfortable and reasonably sized and had everything I needed for a short stay, including tea and coffee making facilities, storage space and a mini fridge.

Some of the furniture was a little battered and scuffed and had seen better days, but this was only a minor cosmetic issue and it certainly didn’t reduce my enjoyment of the stay.

The hotel offers a small indoor swimming pool, which was heated to a pleasant temperature and provided a nice opportunity to relax.

The restaurant offers casual meals in the bar area. I didn’t actually try these and couldn’t get any decent photographs as it was very crowded due to a couple of cancelled flights from CDG.

I did, however, try the buffet breakfast, which at €20 was decent value by European standards. The price included bacon, sausages and eggs, as well as bakery items, cold cuts and unlimited juice and coffee.

Again I couldn’t get any decent photographs due to the number of people at the buffet, but it was a fairly standard hotel buffet and I considered the convenience to be worth the price.

Overall, I feel that this hotel offered a perfectly adequate experience for a short stopover and in a city as expensive as Paris, was reasonably priced at €84 per night, excluding breakfast.