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Old 1 Jul 17, 09:35 PM  
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BONZO
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Join Date: Mar 02
Birthday Bash in the Baltics - Tallin May 2017 Part 1

Cast:

Alison – early fifties, with wanderlust (but insists on travelling in comfort and style)

Me – Shaun, mid fifties, also with wanderlust (used to be happy to travel anyhow but the comfort and style option is more appealing now!)


Background

So, here we go again on another random trip and this time it’s to Tallinn (via Helsinki, as you do – wouldn’t want to be travelling direct!)!

At the end of 2016, there were some great fares available from Heathrow to Tallinn for about £230 in business class. What was good about this was that you could also travel on Finnair's relatively new A350 wide body. This meant that would end up with seats which convert into lie flat beds on a 3 hour flight! We decided to book over my birthday weekend (as it gave us an excuse to go away – not that we really needed one!)

Thursday 4th May

All systems go on the day before so we just had to drop the dog off to kennels before we took off the following morning. After a quick hunt we found the inoculation booklet but noticed that one of his jabs was out of date. A frantic call to the vets as soon as they opened meant that we could take him in for the jabs in the morning, but that wouldn’t cover him for the kennels.

So, couple of options, (1) cancel the trip or (2) find someone else to dog sit while we were away. We were both at work so we ran things past our girls and one of them kindly stepped into the breach and agreed to dog sit for the weekend – relief all round!

The kennels kindly agreed not to raise any charges for a cancellation as we have another trip planned later in the summer, so just shifted the booking a few weeks further on.

Friday 5th May

We were up and put promptly at 5.50am (ouch!) to head off round the M25, and went to Terminal 3 parking (which is a bit different for us as we are so used to T5!) Traffic was fairly light for a change so we made good time and after dropping off the car, we jumped on the transfer bus and headed straight to check in to drop off our case. (It’s quite unusual for us to travel with checked in luggage – we usually go with only hand luggage, but we knew that the flight from Helsinki to Tallin would be on a very small plane with limited room for hand luggage so decided to check in the case and just travel with a rucksack each).

After security we headed straight for the Cathay Pacific First Class lounge courtesy of our BA Gold status, where we had a very nice welcome from the lounge reception staff.



There were only a couple of people in the lounge so it was nice and quiet as we made our way to the breakfast area to make our choices.



Both food and service were very good. I had the usual full English, while Alison had fruit, pancakes and pastries. The breakfast was lovely and washed down with Baron de Rothschild champagne.






After eating we settled ourselves in the runway facing seats with some more champers and took in the view of the runway. We thought we’d do a quick smug check on the traffic and surprise, surprise no delays today so we could have had a bit more time in bed but no matter, more time for champagne then!









Anyway, soon enough it was time to make a move to get on-board our first Finnair flight (and first A350 wide body) and wandered off to the gate. There were a lot of people around and we couldn’t understand why boarding hadn’t started yet, but we took a seat and waited patiently. Eventually we overheard a conversation between 2 gate agents and heard that Terminal 3 had been shut down due to a security incident as someone going through the security screening area had been pulled to one side for further checking but instead he grabbed his bag and made a run for it. Obviously this cased a major alert and no flights took off and the whole terminal was on lock down until they found the person involved.

Eventually (about an hour later) flights started taking off again, and we were able to board (via a bus) and eventually took off 1 hour 10 minutes late. This would leave us with a very tight connection in Helsinki – but I overheard one of the cabin crew saying that there were about 20 passengers on the plan needing to make that connection so they would probably wait.

We had an enjoyable first flight on Finnair – good service, ok food and drinks, and a comfortable seat with big IFE screens.



The plane also had cameras on the tail facing both forward and back which was great!





A first drinks run was done with gin and tonic (of course!) before going on to the food.



We had salmon to start, followed by chicken, mushroom with potatoes and green beans, with a chocolate for dessert (yep just an individual small chocolate!)



We had wine and water to drink with lunch, followed by coffee and then watched a selection of films (or the tail cameras!)

The toilet had a nice view:



We landed about 50 mins late and walked quickly to the gate for the next flight along with the other 18 passengers (it turned almost into a race!) We had to clear security/passport control again as we’d come from outside the Schengen area, but there was no queue so headed straight to the plane which was a tiny 72 seat turbo prop.





At this point we were so pleased that we’d not brought much hand luggage – it was very tight for us, never mind any luggage! It was also absolutely boiling which didn’t help! Luckily it was only a 20 minute flight.








After the quick (noisy and bumpy) journey we disembarked and headed to the luggage carousel. After a few minutes a man from luggage services approached us and asked if we’d been on the delayed Heathrow to Helsinki flight connecting onto the Tallin flight. We said yes and he said that 6 bags hadn’t made the very tight connection. (This was a first for us, but Alison had been semi-expecting it so we had packed hand luggage appropriately with a change of clothes, swimwear and toiletries).

The man ushered us and a couple of others over to the desk and we filled out a form and we were assured that our bags would be on the next flight and sent direct to our hotel that evening.

We went out to the taxi rank and headed to our hotel which came to 9 euro including a tip and got a flavour of the place as we travelled along. We were checked in at the Swissotel by a very pleasant member of desk staff who asked us for our room preferences. As always, we asked for a high floor, away from elevators and were given room 2313 which had a good view





It was a lovely modern hotel and equally good room, complete with bathrobes and fluffy slippers!





We emptied our hand luggage bags of non essentials and decided to pop out for a wander. I felt in desperate need of a coffee and luckily I had spotted a coffee shop nearby on the way in so we took a short stroll to the Reval Café.

It was interesting to see that they sold beer on draught as well as tea and coffee but coffee it was, and oh a couple of cakes for a sugar boost! Total 8 euro.





From here we strolled out and into the old town but were mindful not to do too much as we had a full day to explore the following day. We hit a couple of the high points, including McDonalds just inside the city gates, before taking a slow wander back to the hotel.



We went back to our room, changed and had a nice relaxing swim in the spa area, all very swish with lockers also having fluffy robes and slippers. Fully relaxed it was time to eat and as it was Cinco de Mayo we thought it was time to try and find a Mexican restaurant – how hard would that be in Tallin though?

Strangely enough, it was quite easy and we settled on Ancho which has a TripAdvisor certificate of excellence which is well deserved. We enjoyed some beers, chips and salsa before the main courses of fajitas and burritos which we shared. We had to wait quite a while but they did warn us – so we just had to have more beers while we waited!












It was worth waiting for the food as it was delicious!





Totally stuffed, we staggered back to the hotel and asked at the desk if our luggage had arrived. It had not only arrived but had been delivered to our room – great service! Exhausted, we fell into bed.
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1988 ~ Contemporary ~ Honeymoon
1989 ~ Off site
1994 ~ EuroDisney ~ Santa Fe
1999 ~ Off site
2001 ~ CBR (Aruba) ~ Poly (Tahiti)
2003 ~ WL & HRH
2004 ~ Pop Century, RPH, CSR, PBH, Contemporary
2006 ~ DLP ~ Newport Bay
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2008 ~ All star sports, BCV, RPH, Vero Beach, VWL
2010 ~ OKW ~ BCV ~ HRH ~POP Century ~ Vero Beach ~ VWL
2013 ~ AKL ~ HRH ~ BCV ~ Vero Beach ~ VWL

Edited at 09:43 PM.
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Old 2 Jul 17, 05:40 AM  
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Melbatb
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How did you find the A350 - I see it flying around all the time and it is such a nice looking plane!

Lovely first day!
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Index of my trip reports
2016 Quebec - Kuala Lumpar - New York City 2017 Dubai - Eurocamps France - Ontario and Quebec - So-Cal 2018 Montreal - Bangkok - New England 2019 Argentina - Quebec City - Hong Kong - 2020 Switzerland 2022 Arizona - Costa Med Cruise - Oslo 2023 Hong Kong - Gothenburg
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Old 2 Jul 17, 11:03 PM  
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AlisonB
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It's a nice plane - we found it very comfortable! I'd like to try it out on a longer journey - around 3 hours wasn't really long enough!
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