Now where was I before I was rudely interrupted by the missing Trip Report notes...ah yes, just landed in the UK - saying goodbye is never easy, Terraces Lounge and DUB flight.
Well, we cleared Customs & Immigration in a flash, the befefit of being 3 pax with EU passports. There waiting for us was Caroline's mum, who had made the trip up from Hurst Green (a town south of London). Mrs QF WP (aka Mrs LW) hadn't seen her in 4 years, so we were soon knee deep in tears and group hugs. At this stage, I felt a little bit out of place, standing to one side until the waterworks finished. I was then introduced to CB's mum and we decided that we needed an early cuppa to settle the state of excitement.
We found some lifts at the side of the Terminal and caught one up to an English Pub that strangely was still open for business, complete with a drunk and a couple of bouncers/bar staff cautiously watching him lurch around talking to anybody he saw (and I'm sure he was seeing people who weren't there :? ).
We had an impending deadline, as our departure for Irelend was at 9.05am, so we finished up and caught the lift back down. We hugged all round and watched CB+Mum disappear out the door to drive home...and we were finally alone, on our honeymoon...
OK, time to snap out of the reverie, back to the real game. Attention switched to the need to change Terminals and catch our EI flight (codeshared with BA). We walked through the maze of tunnels to T1 and after exiting the lifts, looked around for where we needed to go. I caught sight of the "BA UK Departure" signs and lined up at one of the ticket counters. Of course, we were told by the Check-in staff that although our flight was a BA codeshare, we needed to check-in at the EI desks - that's the difference of not flying often in London. Thankfully we hadn't wasted too much time with this diversion and weren't about to miss the flight, so we wandered around the corner to the correct desk and it didn't take long for the CSA to enter our bag tag numbers into the computer and issue BP's for the flight - sequence number 116. It was 8am by this stage, so time to find the Lounge.
Lounge Report - Terraces Lounge T1.
I didn't get the name of the Reception Desk CSA's - they weren't wearing nametags that were visable. Front desk was manned by 4 CSA's who checked our BP's and we walked up the short, straight flight of steps to the Lounge., breakfast bar and seating in a number of areas as well as a smoking room (I think it was). We noticed a lift that accessed another floor, but didn't take it.
As we had been advised it was a fair walk to the Gate, we didn't have long here - enough time to freshen up, grab a snack and send some SMS's advising family we'd arrived safely in London - plus the odd one or two to FT'er Dave Noble.
Gate 86 was couldn't have been any further away had it tried. We made it to the EI Gates and they were teeming with early morning pax and as we quickly found out, delays. Seemed that the flight at the next Gate had gone u/s due to a "technical" hitch so EI were trying to re-ticket pax onto our flight. It was going to be crowded this morning...so I decided to do some plane spotting while we waited. EI-CVD was at Gate 82 and EI-CPD was at Gate 84 (didn't get which one went u/s
). A BMI Midland G-MIDM was at Gate 81 and EI-CPG at Gate 88.
Wednesday, 3 September
Airline: EI Flight Number: EI1153
Rego: EI-CPC (Airbus A321)
Seat: 25D
STD: 9.05am ATD: 9.32am (push back), 9.48am (take off on 27R)
We boarded as soon as we could and found our seats in the middle of the plane, realising that we weren't sitting together but rather across the aisle from one another. Still, better than different row!
Captain was Robbie Conran, F/O Alan Dyke, Crew Supervisor Pauline Brennan, Senior Crew Noel Bulger and FA's Alison Corcoran, Catriona Sheerin, Geraldine and Lorraine.
Capt advised that it was a 50 min flight at 32K feet, landing on the South runway, with the weather in DUB 16C/51F. He came back on a couple of minutes later to advise that a pax re-booked from the other flight hadn't boarded and couldn't be found, thus theirs bags needed to be off-loaded. The guy in 25E was
about this delay, fidgeting and looking at his watch every time an announcement was made, but there was sweet FA he could do about the delay from where he sat.
As we stopped at 27R, G-MIDS passed in front of us. There were 2 jets ahead of us in the queue - AF, LH's D-AMPS and BA's G-EVVN, while BMI's G-MIDM was behind us. Wasn't long before it was our turn and down the runway we rumbled...
Tea and coffee service was quickly handed out at 10.05am and collected at 10.25am. This flight was as most short flight are, uneventful with touchdown at 10.37am and arrival at the Gate at 10.40am. We parked next to EI-DUB and N177DN. Passport control took all of 10 seconds and by the time we were at Belt 2, it was disgorging the bags and we spotted ours already on the other side - so I sprinted around to pick them up and told my wife to meet me near the doors with our carry-on.
Time to now find the Hertz bus and check-out our hire car for the first real part of our honeymoon....