Thrillin',Chillin', Feet Are Killin': August 2015: Day 1 Travel Day ; Terminal Trials

[WileyCoyote]

4 airports, 3 flights, 2 teens, 1 hour delay and 0 meltdowns .
Remember this from yesterday ? Link is here

LHR-PHA-ATL-MCO

It looked so simple written down.

It was cheap.

It would be a doddle.

I just needed to remind myself of that before the day ahead.

So we sprang out of bed fully refreshed from a night of deep and restful sleep.

No wait , that was the family next door.

I woke up at 0550 . Normally I am just leaving home at that time so even this feels like a luxury.

Andy and the boys were up soon after and even though we were all pretty tired there were not many grumps or moans and amazingly we were out the door by 0640.

Or may be that was because the Hoppa bus was due at 0645.

And it was bang on time.

As the others told me because I had to make a final loo stop on the way down – so the bus had to wait. Total cringe time.

The bus was empty though and only charged for myself and Andy ( £9 for the two of us)

It rattled off down Bath Road and I was fully expecting it to make many stops and take an age to get to the Terminal.

But it only stopped at 1 other hotel and before we knew it we pulled up at T3.

A short walk down to the Heathrow Express ( make sure you take the free HE and not get on the Underground by mistake ! ) .

We arrived at 0707 ( I know this as I looked up at the train board)

The train for Terminal 4 came 10 minutes later – very smart and lots of room. Definitely one of the benefits of early travelling.



There were only half a dozen people before us at Bag Drop which all went very smoothly with the instructions to collect the bags at Philadelphia.

Onto security, which did not have a long line which is just as well as we took up about 15 trays with hand luggage, ipads etc.

We were delayed a little due to a very large family all wanting to go through together and not seeming to understand the instructions. It always staggers me how hard “EMPTY YOUR POCKETS” seems to be for people to realise that means NO you cant leave your keys , phone and money in there:angry:

Sigh.

We were soon through though and at 0740 – just 55 minutes after getting on the Hoppa Bus we were out onto the Airside wonderland of emporia that is Terminal 4.

First stop was breakfast .

We had declined the Travelodge meal deal as we knew 6.30 am would be too early for the teens to eat and we had a 15% off voucher from eatdrinkfly website for the Bridge Bar. We had eaten here at the start of our 2013 trip. I still think its a bit pricey in here but hey, captive audience and all that.

Plenty of seats available and we were served really quickly.

We had :

Cumberland Sausage Bap (me)



Eggs and Bacon on Toast (Jamie) - this had nice sourdough bread



Pancakes (Connor) and Full English (Andy)



Plus coffees and Cokes.

After the discount it came to £42.

It was all very nice, very fresh and good service. We left Andy to read the paper while we went to WH Smith to buy drinks, sweets and snacks for the journey. I bought a book as well. It came to a slightly staggering £30 for what seemed like a very paltry amount of shopping !
Can you tell how thrilled the teens were with this photo opp ?



But we parents know, its just got to be done !

Andy and I went off for a wander on our own looking at all the lovely things in the Bulgari store – I think I may have been a magpie in a former life. I am totally attracted to shiny stuff !

By the time we got back to the boys, our gate had been announced ( 0905 by now) and after a slow walk down to the gate, we found ourselves boarding at 0945 – a real plus of the economy comfort seats is the priority boarding.

I know , where else can pics of aircraft be sooooooo exciting



Happy travelling band ..



Honestly





Love these ELR seats



These seats seem nice and wide and lots of leg room for a small person like me.

After we had endured the squabble over who had the window seat – Connor likes the window seat, Jamie doesn’t really but doesn’t want Connor to have it. I say I will have it but they say no, as they don’t want to sit next to each other – so Jamie sneaks in and the deal is they swop half way. This does not in fact happen and they were STILL going about this on the bleddy journey home !

So, I am wedged in between the Chuckle brothers and Andy is one row ahead of us in an exit row seat for his infeasibly long legs.

Happily , beavis and butthead soon made up for the poor nights sleep by getting some shut eye almost straight away.

Which is good because the first 30 minutes was spent with them constantly talking across me to each other ( and there I was thinking they wanted nothing to do with each other).

We take off on time at 1030 and after it being a bit bumpy at first out over Ireland, it soon settled down.

My view for the first few hours looked like this



And this

Jamie



Connor



Ah well, all the more peace for me to enjoy this then !



Of course, I am in the infamous white trousers so consumption of clear liquids is highly desireable. Slurp. More white wine please.
I settled in to watch the Marvel Avengers film , pausing briefly for a very nice lunch .



hmm, marinated chicken rotation - sounds yummy.

It was nice , once you had got past the "seaweed" as Andy described, er, that would be spinach then. The creamy potatoes and chicken were nice. Virgin - take note. Delta serve Chicken Breast not the tough thighs that you do !



I think cookies were a bit of a lightweight dessert but did dunk nicely in my coffeee ( which stayed in the cup , no spillages, phew)



Yes i really did take a pic of my coffee

After lunch I ventured to the loos – oh they were fab , clean and not in the slightest bit whiffy so no need for the trusty Dove. I did also note the sign that said aerosol use could trigger the smoke detector – they clearly knew I was on board. Oops.

I watched Insurgent - hadn’t seen the first film but picked up the thread and did enjoy this one. Although what was Kate Winslet’s character Janine doing a Keith Lemon impression with that bandage for ? Or maybe that was a key bit from the first one ?

Next up was one of my all time fave books, Far from the Madding Crowd. Oh I love that story and the film did make me a bit teary. Beautiful film, loved it.

ooh , then some ice cream , it was just like being at the piccies !





Jamie had woken by now – just as the afternoon snack arrived.



I am told this was nice. I wouldnt know as he ate it ( he had missed lunch being asleep and was starving)

Chicken and Sweetcorn wrap with Chocolate tiffin



Overall , the flight went smoothly and was very pleasant. The boys got 4 or 5 hours sleep and the food was very nice. This was our second Delta flight and continues to impress us with their service.

Dinky amenity packs too





We landed on time at 1.30 and were off the aircraft pretty quickly.

We also had the best landing announcement ever
“ please stay seated until the captain turns off the seatbelt sign. You may try and get up beforehand to be the first to get your luggage but never in the history of aviation has a passenger made it back to the terminal before the aircraft so that’s why we suggest you stay in your seat” . Very droll.

There was a queue for immigration but the line behind us grew even quicker so we were pleased to be fairly near front.

After about 30 minutes they opened up the line for returning US citizens and starting sending other people through so we were lucky to get called forward and after that nailbiting few moments of eye and finger print scans , we were waved through – so all in all 45 minutes from landing to being at the baggage carousel.