Flight, Fajitas and Fiestas - San Antonio July 2017 - Day 6

[BONZO]

Flights, Fajitas and Fiestas

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!)

Link to trip report index:
Here

Friday 21st July and Saturday 22nd July

San Antonio

San Antonio to Dallas (Fort Worth)


So, that’s it. Our short trip tpo San Antonio is over and it’s our last morning in San Antonio. We were up bright and early, showered, packed and headed downstairs to get a quick breakfast. We, or rather I, faffed about a bit about breakfast options this morning and didn’t really make myself clear about what I wanted. We ended up in the Starbucks concession in the hotel lobby but I couldn’t really see anything I fancied although Alison already had her eye on the fresh granola. No big deal, I could always catch up once at the airport – I won’t exactly fade away!

We had received an alert from American Airlines the previous afternoon that there was a strong possibility of bad weather in the Chicago area and that we could delay our flights but we couldn’t change the route going back. We did check out what the weather was doing there and it did look bad but we decided to trust to luck and see what happened.

Last night we’d searched for the right bus stop for the No.5 bus to take us back to the airport so we knew exactly which way to go (about a 3 minute walk!). Luckily we only had to wait a few minutes before the bus turned up and the bus driver made sure that we knew this was the bus to the airport and not in the other direction. Some buses in San Antonio do a sort of loop, so I guess the drivers have had their fair share of passengers panicking as they end up going in the wrong direction!

We chugged along the road and made a few stops, picking people up here and there going to work before arriving at the airport, a bit of a grim looking concrete building. We’d tried to download our boarding passes onto the app but some reason it hadn’t worked (probably because we needed to scan our passports as we had an international leg to our flights) so we had to go to the self-serve machines to scan our passports before printing off the boarding passes.

TSA pre check security was a breeze although the queues overall weren’t that huge but it was good to make use of the facility without having to remove shoes and belts, take liquids or electronics out etc. Unfortunately, this airport didn’t have any lounge facilities so we settled down in the small food court area. We had quite a long wait – we were through security by 8.20am and the flight wasn’t due to depart until 10.47. We’d built in plenty of extra time for public transport, plus having to check in.

Now, going back to my self-imposed breakfast fiasco earlier I took a look at the various breakfast options on offer here and settled on a delicious breakfast burrito from Green Beans Coffee.



After breakfast we wandered down to the gate area and sat down overlooking the runway.






When boarding was announced, we lined up and boarding quickly. Unusually we were offered pre departure drinks of a selection of juices (including crab apple flavour!)or water while we waited for boarding to complete.



We took off on time and the cabin crew came round promptly to offer drinks and a snack basket. It was only a 40 minute flight so we had to drink quickly to get through the 2 rounds of gin and tonics each!




We landed at Dallas (Fort Worth) on time and made our way to the lounge at the ‘A’ gates only to find it was yet another one that was undergoing refurbishment, we seem to hit a lot of these on this trip.

I wasn’t too impressed with this lounge compared to others (it had a slightly odd layout with no real natural light) but we got some seats easily enough and settled down to read the papers and have some lunch. The soup (tomato and portabello mushroom) was delicious, and we followed that with cheese and biscuits and a coffee.

Well, I was sitting down minding my own business when a group of people arrived and there was some interest in them from other passengers. I wasn’t really sure what was going on until the young lady in question whipped out her Miss Teen Texas sash from her handbag. Apparently she was on her way to a beauty pageant somewhere and then invited people over to take selfies. Well, I would have done but (a) Alison had gone for a wander and (b) I was keen to keep the seats we’d managed to get as I was left in charge of the bags and phone charging. Well, I did manage to get a couple of sneaky snaps of her before she left.



Dallas (Fort Worth) to Chicago

Well, no rest for the wicked – we left the lounge around 1.45 to head to the gate for our next flight to Chicago this time. We boarded on time (on a 757 with flat beds – woo hoo!) and we took off on time then settled down with some Gin and Tonics and warm nuts








before waiting for our meals to arrive. We had tasty buffalo chicken salad followed by a chocolate.



The weather outside began to worsen the further we flew and sure enough we were told by the flight crew that there would be a delay getting into Chicago. We circled in the stack for a while but we didn’t have enough fuel to stay in the holding pattern so we had to divert to St. Louis to re-fuel.

The rain was really lashing down at this stage but we refuelled ok and took off again ahead of the waiting pack thanks to an earlier slot becoming available. At that point the cabin crew also refuelled the passengers! Another G&T thank you! Coming into Chicago we circled around a bit before landing but there were no further significant delays. We were watching the time a bit anxiously as we really didn’t want to miss our transatlantic flight, but we had a fairly large cushion so kept our fingers crossed.

Well, we didn’t have to rush in the end as the Manchester flight was delayed by 70 minutes (also due to the weather). We had just enough time to spend in the small lounge, no significant food items, mainly snacks and drinks and yes, another lounge undergoing refurbishment!

Chicago to Manchester


We headed to the gate for about 7.50 ready for boarding and hung around for a while, before the boarding time suddenly changed to 10pm! After lots of muttering and grumbling there was an announcement that 10pm was a mistake. Phew! A short while later, boarding started and we settled into our seats, which were one on front of the other.









Now, this crew were really not the greatest – I’m sure that some of them had never flown before. One of the gate agents was telling some of them what to do – wheel out the trolley and offer tablets and headphones (as this plane doesn’t have any IFE, they hand out tablets). Well the flight attendant got about 2 rows down and then was told to stop as the captain wanted to get away quickly. We were also told that we wouldn’t get any drinks until after take off – fair enough, it would be worth it to get away quickly. But we could see out of the window that the weather was horrendous so we weren’t hopeful of a quick getaway.



Apologies here – we sound a bit ‘entitled’ in the next bit. But we’d paid quite a bit for these flights and we wanted a proper business experience!

And yes, we sat there and sat there. The cabin crew could have easily carried on with the tablets and headsets – even if they’d done them by hand! We didn’t take off til gone 11pm in the end, so we sat at the gate for 2 hours. Ah well, no matter – we were comfortable!

So – after take off the crew would leap into action, yes? Nope! We had no hot towel at all, and didn’t see any crew until 11.45pm! First drinks were delivered at 12.05 – that is seriously slow service as we were in row 2!

We finally were served dinner, but didn’t bother waiting for dessert – we both just tried to sleep.





We woke up/got up at about 5am when we were offered breakfast.

Alison here: The menu said that fruit and granola was one of the choices so I asked for that, but was told that it was a choice of only fruit or only eggs, I was a bit surprised and showed her the menu, but she said that’s what it was. Ok, fair enough, I opted for the fruit. She came back a couple of minutes later with….fruit and granola! She said I was right it was granola, with fruit!



Back to me: I had the hot breakfast! There was a bread plate with butter and jam on the tray, but we weren’t offered any bread or rolls. We didn’t have the energy to do anything about it at that stage! We were offered drinks (we both had a juice and coffee) but no top ups were offered, which was a pity. Thinking back we should have used the call button, but it just doesn’t feel right to do that somehow. Maybe other nationalities use the button much more than us Brits!

It was a pity this trip was so shoddy service wise as the other AA flights had been good.

One funny thing happened – the passenger in front of Alison pointed out the lovely view of the coast of Wales as we flew over it – she just shrugged and then rolled her eyes at Alison and said ‘Where?’
We landed at Manchester at midday (exactly 3 hours late) – which wasn’t a problem because, very predictably for us, our flight to Heathrow was delayed by 45 minutes!

We followed signs for airside transfer - although we did consider going through immigration landside and back through again – and in retrospect that’s exactly what we should have done.
We went downstairs and got on a bus – which was a bit weird. The bus dropped us at a security room with about 5 people all sitting round; they checked our boarding passes and said we weren't eligible to use the transport route! But we explained that we'd checked with the bus driver and they let us through anyway.

It was a quick security check and then had to wait for ages at uk border control. It was because it wasn’t staffed, and the security people had to phone for someone to come and check us through. There was only us plus one other person going to Jersey, until 2 Italians showed up who were furious at having to wait - the man got so cross and said it was the worst airport he'd ever been to! The security people argued with him and it all escalated a bit! Eventually the border control officer turned up and the security people said Italian man was aggressive, he argued back and everything got slower still. It was like a soap opera!

He moaned at the officer who said he was rude and went even slower! (We had said the Italians could go ahead of us as they had a short connection). Eventually we got through and walked along the corridor and into the main departure area after getting our photos taken, and into the BA lounge.

Manchester to Heathrow

Phew – the last leg of the journey. At this point we were looking forward to having a shower to freshen up a bit, but one was marked out of order and the other was permanently engaged so we gave up on that idea. Instead we sat down with some snacks and drinks and watched our flight departure time slowly get more delayed.
Finally we were called to the gate at 2.30pm.

There was a long queue to get through uk photo check but our gate was right after that section so headed straight onto the plane and relaxed.

We took off fairly quickly after that and had a short hop down to Heathrow. Alison had sandwiches and a cup of tea and I just had the cup of tea.



After landing we headed back to the car park, got the car and joined the queue of traffic on the M25 in the rain!



Final thoughts:

We had a great trip – lots of flights (which we loved), a few too many delays (which was unlucky), a great destination which we really enjoyed, and we packed a lot in to our few days there.

[Melbatb]

That was a day and a half of travelling!

Thanks for sharing - you manage some great trips!

[Glee Fan]

Wow, that seemed to be a journey and a half home! Really enjoyed reading, thank you!