[Anonymous]

[Diotallevi]

Dulles to Narita in Spring 2009 and December 2010, business class. The same trip is coming up in Spring 2012.

I boarded the plane in Dulles from the now closed Air France/ANA Lounge. That was a wonderful boarding feature and new to me. I never boarded a plane directly from a lounge before. I’m going to miss that when I fly to NRT spring 2012. However, in the B Terminal near the ANA gates, I have read great review about the Lufthansa business lounge, and they share it with ANA, so that could be a fun, new experience. I’ll come back with a full report.

The service on the flight was fantastic, and the flight attendants were wonderful and very accomadating. They immediately asked me if I wanted a drink of champagne or saki, I asked for saki and they ended up giving me one of each, which made me laugh ;-). It was a communication error due to the flight attendant’s english being not very good (and maybe me not knowing any Japanese!). That did not bother me and I gladly consumed both. Dinner was served about an hour after takeoff and the food was extraordinary. I’ve tried both the Western and Japanese cuisines and you cannot go wrong with either. The quality of food was similar to the food you would expect at a fine restaurant. They also have a snack menu which features a nice mix of western and Japanese cuisines such as sandwiches, udon noodles, etc. This is a fourteen hour flight, so they actually served a total of 3 main meals with the final meal being a little smaller than the first two (breakfast). There was no shortage of food on that plane !

I thought the seats were very comfortable for sitting upright or reclining. It is not a complete 180 degree seat though, and I could not sleep well when laid flat. I did play around with the seat controls for a while and found that I could sleep well in a very reclined position that was not completely flat, similar to the way I might take a nap on a lazy sunday afternoon in a lazyboy at home. I’m also 6’1 and I had enough legroom, but chose not to use the footrest, which came up to my ankles when I was in my reclining position. This did not bother me as I prefer to dangle my feet or keep them on the floor anyway.

There was a nice snack bar in the back of business class with drinks and food that business class passengers could help themselves to, as well as an assortment of US and Japanese newspapers and magazines.

The entertainment systems was great. Before the flight I had been meaning to watch the movie Paranormal Activities but never got around to it, and it was one of many movies available, so I got to watch it and that pleased me. I also enjoyed watching the map of the flight path. Another thing available I used on the entertainment system was the “how to learn japanese” section. On the plane I learned how to count to 20 and also learned some key words that helped me get along in Tokyo the few times during the trip when I was on my own. The bendable reading light was also a very nice touch, easy to use and conveniently located just over my shoulder.

Everything was very neat, clean, modern looking and functioning, and very Japanese. This flight is definitely a great way to ease into the Japanese world from the Western world, and I highly recommend All Nippon Airlines.

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