Holiday to Here, There and Everywhere: Day 1 – London Heathrow to Amsterdam AMS

As my POD arrived at Heathrow T5, I was lucky enough to catch a lift heading up to departures. If you time things badly, you can end up waiting a fair amount of time before a lift deems it appropriate to stop on your floor.

Heathrow T5 seemed very busy, but The First Wing (TFW) was fairly relaxed and although one of the security belts looked blocked, the only seemed to be flowing freely.

Within 5 mins, I was heading into the CCR and although my favourite seat wasn’t available, I found a comfy seat easily enough.

First stop was to head to Starbucks, where I was very disappointed to find that the franchise had stopped accepting the Starbucks app and rewards cards. A complaint was then submitted to SSP, the franchise holder, venting my frustration.

Having missed breakfast, I grabbed an early lunch which was very tasty. I started off with a bucks fizz and a salad as a starter. That was followed by a Mountain Burger with cheese and bacon. That all went down very smoothly.

I fitted in my normal terminal walk and noticed that today was the day that the 25th anniversary BA Amex flight was heading to New York. Everyone was crowding into the Concourse B Lounge, although by the time I got there, I couldn’t see any evidence of any celebrations! I wandered past the gate as they were boarding and there didn’t seem to be much going on there either. The Avios and Taxes were very attractive though. Shame we missed that opportunity.

By the time I got back to the CCR I had already done 16,000 steps and I needed a bit of a sit down! The flight couldn’t come soon enough. I think I’m starting to flag a bit with age.

My flight to Amsterdam was due to leave from Gate A2, which was one of the domestic gates at the ither end of T5. Not too far away though.

I headed down to the gate about 45 mins before departure.

There was minimal activity at the gate but I noticed that the Groups 1 to 3 sign had been changed to Groups 0 to 3. That didn’t give the impression that I was going to get any special treatment!

As it happens, the gate team seemed to be on the ball. The flight was ready for boarding a few minutes after I arrived, and I approached a member of staff at the side access point, where wheelchair users board early. He invited me through.

A moment later and my boarding pass was scanned and I was told I could head straight on down to the aircraft. None of this holding area lark.

A minor delay half way down the jet bridge but I was soon on into seat 01F.

It felt like it had been a long time since I had been on a BA aircraft. I guess my last BA flight must have been the final flight of my double RTW trip: Oslo to Heathrow in mid-June.

Since then, I’ve booked my next RTW, which would take me to Perth to meet up with the family ahead of our two week drive around the southeast of Australia.

There were only 3 rows of business class. There was a captain occupying seat 01A (wasn’t he supposed to be up front?) and I was the only other passenger in the front row.

We pushed back on time and within 10 mins we were waiting to join runway 27L at the eastern end of Heathrow. We had to wait for about 4 or 5 aircraft to take off ahead of us, but we were on our way.

Service started pretty quickly. It has to based on the length of the flight. Dinner options were beef or tofu salad. I opted for the beef.

It was surprisingly good. Glad to see no ghastly starter was provided and the chocolate mousse was lovely.

It wasn’t long before we were on final approach with some lovely lush views.

Taxiing seemed to take forever. But we ended up at Gate D16 next to another BA aircraft.

Once off, I immediately recognised the non-Schengen area – I had been here numerous times over the years and it really hadn’t changed that much.

My mind started thinking bad thoughts about getting through EES. I imagined that I could be in a queue for an hour.

Luckily, after a fair old walk to arrivals, I found no one in the EES kiosks and after being directed along Route 1, which led to automated passport control, that was empty as well. In the end, it took about 2 mins.

Outside the airport it was really busy, but it was still vaguely light, so it was easy enough to find my way to the Hilton, which was about a 7 or 8 min walk away.

Check in was great; even though I had booked through BA Holidays, they upgraded me onto the Exec floor, which was very impressive.

I also got access to the lounge for Happy Hour. Only just though.

Happy Hour ended at 7pm. I only got in a few mins after, but managed to bag two bottles of Birra Moretti and some hot spicy wings. That will do.