Holiday to New England in Oct 2023: Day 1 – London Heathrow to Boston Logan

By Nige on October 11, 2023 at 8:00 pm
Type: Post
Story: Holiday to New England in Oct 2023 Category: Travel
Tags: BOS | Boston Logan | British Airways | Doubletree | Hilton | LHR | London Heathrow | Massachusetts | New England

On the car parking bus, we obviously had to do the full guided tour of the very large car park, but we eventually arrived at Heathrow about 15 mins later.

The bus dropped us at Stop 21 at T5 on Level 0.  We took the lift up to level 5 and found T5 nice and clear. We headed south along the concourse to The First Wing (TFW).

The BA check in team at TFW quickly validated our passports and we walked through into an empty security area. It always surprises me how many trays I need to set out all of my stuff for heading through the scanner. For the first time in a very long time, I also wearing a puffer jacket, so that’s just another thing to add in to the mix. As it happens, there was no requirement for secondary screening.

Into the First Lounge, then on into the CCR.  We were heading into the CCR about 90 mins after driving away from the house. We found some seats with access to power points and settled down.

I tested out my new Beryl AX, which is a personal wifi access point. After a tricky initial config back home, worked like a charm in connecting to the BA WIFI, serving both my laptop and my mobile. No big deal in this scenario but if we have to pay for WIFI access, using this solution allows you to pay once and serve many devices.

At this point it was about 1:30pm and we were both a tad on the hungry side, so we headed out on to the terrace for lunch. It’s always a nice start to any trip from Heathrow T5.

Chicken Caesar followed by a burger for Vick and a pork/apple pie for me.  Two glasses of LPGS got the afternoon off to a great start.

We had a brief walk through the terminal and on the way I bumped into Guenther Steiner, who is the Haas F1 Team Head – he was walking onto the terrace.  I guess he was on his way to Austin, Texas for the next Grand Prix.  He was the only celeb that either of us picked out on this visit to T5.

I was looking forward to testing out the Group 0 boarding process, which is something I have been asking for for years. Finally a genuine service enhancements for their top tier members – similar to the way AA treat CK members.

We headed down to Gate B34 about an hour before boarding was due to start.  We were in the first 5 or 6 at the entrance to the queuing system and I managed to muscle my way to the front. 

Just a few minutes later and some gate crew arrived to open up and I quietly asked whether Group 0 boarding was going to be announced.  It was.  The Vickster and I were the first through and we headed straight down the escalator.

It wasn’t until we were at the bottom of the escalator when we heard the dreaded announcement: we would be taking a bus…  FFS – what sort of premium service is this BA?

The bus of course filled up with every man and his dog, before finally heading out to remote stand 567. The bus driver insisted on everyone boarding the aircraft from the front of the bus, which meant we had a bit of a wait.

But it wasn’t long before we were into 1A and 2A, having received a very warm welcome from the crew.

Glass no 3 of LPGS was quickly delivered, together with nuts, a menu and a vanity case.

We also received a visit from Ellen, the cabin supervisor on this flight, which was a nice touch.

For a change, everything seemed to be running around about on time, which is a big surprise for a BA flight.

We ended up pushing back about 5 mins beyond our scheduled departure time, but that’s neither here nor there.

We joined a short queue of aircraft waiting for runway 27R. By 17:30, we were up in the air on our way to Boston.

I was served my next glass of LPGS and my amuse bouche by 17:40. This team was fast!

I ordered a starter of the souffle, which was really tasty.  It was light and delicate – just want you want from a souffle!

A lovely sauce with it as well. A great start to my meal on board with BA.

Whilst eating, I checked out what was available on movies. Vick and I were a tad disappointed in the choices available. In the end, I watched Zodiac again – such a good film.

I uncovered a problem with my Bose headset – no sound coming from my right headphone. That led to me getting a new headset which was fine.

My choice of main was the lamb. Unfortunately, it was very overdone, just like BA’s steaks! This is a regular complaint from frequent flyers.

Whilst eating, I checked out the power situation. I was specifically interested this time, now that I had my new Beryl AX with me. The USB ports didn’t seem to offer sufficient power to keep it running.  It started up, but kept rebooting.

No surprise that the socket power outlet wasn’t sufficient to charge my laptop battery, but it did allow me to provide enough power via USB to run my personal wifi hot spot.

For pudding I ordered the crepes suzette, which was very tasty indeed.

After pudding and having reached about 75% of my way through Zodiac, I was feeling a little tired, so got some sleep. Started off a bit chilled and when I woke up I was roasting!

I had the opportunity to partake in a second meal, but I decided to give it a miss.

At this point, Vick was sleeping like a baby, so she missed the second meal as well!

We landed relatively early and as normal, the captain was overjoyed to announce the fact we were so ahead of schedule. However, we were then faced with a 30 min delay due to an aircraft occupying our gate! How many times does that happen?

We finally arrived into Gate E12. No significant delays in connecting the air bridge, followed by a short delay whilst we queued behind the small Club World cabin to deplane. Then, we were on our way.

It was good to stretch our legs once off the aircraft as we followed the signs to Passport Control. The queue for immigration looked horrendous – first time I have seen such a long queue for a long, long time.

It was great to walk on by and through to the Global Entry kiosks, which have such a fab, seamless process. I just showed my face to the machine and I was away. No passport scanning needed; just headed through and was called by name. Asked whether I had anything to declare and I was in!

It was then a long walk to the parking garage, where we waited an age for a driver to be assigned to our cheap Uber into town.  I had been monitoring prices as they fluctuated greatly over a 20 min period – I seemed to find a point at which prices were low when I booked.

Arrived at the hotel after a 15 min drive.  On the way, I checked us in and we received a complimentary upgrade into a one-bed corner suite.  Nothing very special, but it is always nice to be upgraded.

We were both knackered, but we popped out to a 7-Eleven to pick up some snacks for when we woke up early.

First time we have done that (as far as I can remember). We will see how important that might be tomorrow!

Holiday to New England in Oct 2023