What a beauty, the silver pick up in the gold frame really works for me, especially on the blonde wood.
The access is the same as a Strat, the cutaway gives easy access to the 21st fret, so the frets (which look to me to go up to 24) past the cutaway are 'extra'. So there is heaps more acess on your guitar than Jimi Hendrix had and he did OK!
It's a fantastic present, if someone had given me a guitar like that when I was 10 I would have been stoked.