The official handover of the Airbus A380 to Lufthansa took place on May 19th and at the same time the interior was presented online on the web site. Most of us will be flying economy class of course and as we all know, flying long haul in economy can be a pretty miserable affair. I have used Lufthansa a few times on long haul and one of the issues that I have been very unhappy with is of course the lack of a personal TV screen. On the Lufthansa A380 each seat does have a personal TV screen of course and that will at least make the flight pass faster for me - and at least I don’t have to sit and watch the German bundesliga updates like I had to last year when I went to Dubai (see my trip report on my homepage)
If you are extremely lucky you will get to experience the business class. As you can expect the business class seats are wider, you have a bigger screen, probably better food and drink selection and so on. Most of the upper deck on the Lufthansa A380 is filled with the business class seats but I have to say that both the seat and the configuration is a bit of a disappointment at first glance at least. Both Singapore Airlines and Emirates have been able to make the business class into something special with huge seats - on the Lufthansa A380 you have a pretty standard business class seat that doesn’t recline to 180 degrees. There are seats that are comfortable for sleeping even if they don’t recline all the way but normally it is better to sleep if you have a flat bed. I’m also surprised over the configuration - many of the other airlines have tried to come up with solutions were all have direct access to the aisle but on the Lufthansa A380 you have a pretty standard configuration.
The very lucky and very few have the money to fly First class. On the Lufthansa A380 there are only 8 of these seats. The other airlines that have bought the A380 have used the opportunity to really show off in the First class setup with Singapore Airlines having small compartments and Emirates having showers available for the first class passengers. I did have a chance of flying Lufthansa First class last year in a 747 from Frankfurt to Hong Kong (see the trip report on http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=470 ) and that was a wonderful experience. But actually the configuration and plane was quite old so the most amazing part of the experience was the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt and the service there (see http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=457 ). But back to the new Lufthansa A380 First Class. From what I can see Lufthansa has taken a more moderate approach to the first class: the seat looks like a flat bed seat, the screen seems to be large and so on. But there is no WOW factor as you see on Singapore Airlines and Emirates. And it is also strange to see that there are only 8 seats compared to something like 14 on the 747. But I guess in these days with economic difficulties there is not a large market for first class seats. But all in all the Lufthansa A380 first class looks very comfortable but maybe a bit on the boring side. The bathroom seems large and that it is of course great as it can be tricky to slip into pajamas in a small toilet 
Congratulations to Lufthansa with the new plane - I hope that it will provide a comfortable and safe ride for lots and lots of passengers and I hope to fly it myself one day soon 
The images above are taken for the Lufthansa web site. Check out the Lufthansa A380 site to get a virtual presentation of the various classes of the Lufthansa A380.
Air France has just announced that this summer they will fly from London to Paris and back again and you can get it for “just” £80 for a round trip on economy class (£280 for business class). But I think it is a bit sad using such a large plane and obviously made for long haul, for such a short flight. But I guess it will give you some sort of idea of how the plane will be on a long haul trip. I had the pleasure of flying Emirates A380 last year from London to Dubai (see http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=31) and this year from Dubai to Sydney (and the 14 hour trip back gave me lots of time to experience the plane ). Anyway, you can read about the offer from Air France on their web site.
From time to time there are articles on various travel sites and discussions in various communities on how to blend in with the locals when you are traveling. I’m not sure I understand all the fuzz when it comes to this topic….most likely you are going to stick out like a sore thumb if you are traveling to an exotic destination no matter how you dress or if you try to hide your camera or not I think you can come a long way just by being friendly, by smiling to the people you meet, have an open mind and be open to the fact that things can work differently than what you are used to back home. On the right is a photo of me trying to blend in with the locals in Berlin by drinking a large beer - I know, I sacrifice myself to fit in Anyway, here is the list from Independent Traveler.com on how to blend in with the locals.
TripAdvisor has released their Travelers’ choice award 2010 and you can see all the lists on their web site. The top 10 lists are split into categories like top 10 for beach & sun, for culture & sightseeing, for food & wine, for romance and so on. I’m not sure I trust these lists completely but at least they can give you some ideas if you have no idea where to travel Have you looked at the list and do you agree with the awards?
So far Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Air France have received their A380’s. Now it is time for Lufthansa to receive their first plane and they plan to use this on the route from Frankfurt to Tokyo in Japan. Later on this fall they will receive more planes and these will be used on the routes Frankfurt - Beijing and Frankfurt - Johannesburg in South Africa. Here is the seat map of the Lufthansa A380 and it looks like the lower floor will be all economy while the upper floor is mainly business class with a few first class seats. You can read more about the Lufthansa A380 on their website.
I’m a big fan of the Google maps but the main problem when it comes to my hometown Stavanger has been that the downtown area has been very blurry when checking out the satelite image. But a few weeks back this was fixed and now you can finally check out how Stavanger looks from above. This combines with Google Streetview will now give you an idea of what to expect when you visit Stavanger
It is not long ago since Burj Khalifa (also know as Burj Dubai) opened officially and the viewing platform called “At the top” opened up for the first guest on the 124th floor. But now there are news saying that the viewing platform has been closed indefinitely. The reason for this closing seems to be vague but things like “unexpected high traffic” and “electrical problems” has been mentioned. Nikki and I went to Dubai last year (as you can see in this Dubai trip report) and at the time the building was not open - but what an impressive building! But now it remains to be seen how long it will take before guests once again can enjoy the view from the 124th floor.
A few years back Google introduced the service known as Street View. They basically take car and drive through the city strrets and they take photos. This is linked up to Google Maps and this means that you can take virtual walks in cities like London, New York, Paris etc. But now the turn has finally come to my beloved hometown Stavanger It seems like the photos have been taken on a pretty nice autumn day last year and you can walk around a lot of the streets in downtown Stavanger. So the only thing missing now Google is a good satellite image of the city center itself!! So start by a walk from the Norwegian Petroleum museum, Or maybe walk past the iron age farm, check out the beach at Sola, check out the view of the city from the bridge leading over to Hundvåg etc. Welcome to Stavanger…both virtually and in real life
The travel magazine Travel + Leisure has just published an article where they list the world’s most beautiful airports. On the list you can find airports in Beijing, Madrid, NYC, Bilbao, Denver, Seoul, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur etc. You can find the list of the 15 airports in this article. So which airport do you think is the most beautiful in the world? I have to say that my favorite is still the tiny little airport at Samui in Thailand. It is basically just a couple of large huts with straw roofing but it fits really will in as Samui is quite a small island filled with coconut palms. But it also depends where you are hanging out at an airport. Frankfurt is not one of my favorites but when I got to stay in the Lufthansa First Class terminal I changed my mind
There is a new hotel in town and the name is Marina Bay Sands. Hotels opens all the time you might say but some hotels are more of an eye catcher than others and Marina Bay Sands is one of them it looks like. First of all there are three towers with 55 floor each and on top they are all connected on top with the so called Skypark which includes one of the largest pools in the world and it is even an infinity style pool so this is not for people with fear of heights