Holiday USA SW Road Trip in Apr 2022: Day 1 – London LHR to Dublin DUB

The First Wing (TFW) security was empty, so it was easy to get through into the First Lounge.  It was fairly busy but when we walked through to the CCR, it was fairly relaxed – not too many passengers around.

We immediately walked out to Starbucks and chose the wrong queue.  Our queue (the south side) only had one till open with two women gassing as they attempted to prepare coffees, leaving the guy managing the only till that was open to go and get all the other foods.  The other queue (the north side) had three tills open at one point.

After getting back to the CCR, we chilled out for 30 mins enjoying our coffees, but we were both pretty hungry by 1pm, so we grabbed a table on the terrace and ordered lunch.

We started off with a salad: a Waldorf for me and an orange salad for Vick.  For main, we both went for burgers.  Very nice overall.  The burger is well criticised on forums, but we thoroughly enjoyed the two that were presented for consumption today!

A walk around the terminal was next on the agenda, followed by another chill session in the CCR.  We were asked numerous times as to whether we wanted anything, which was good to see.

We popped into the First Lounge to enjoy afternoon tea, ordered via the App.  The warm scones, cream and jam were delivered to our table, but we were invited to get our own tea from the hot drinks machine.  Not exactly what the menu suggested was going to happen.  Not the end of the world though.

The flight was due to leave from Gate 15 – managed to get that info out of the lounge staff prior to the info being widely publicised on the departures board.  Headed down to the gate and started the Priority Boarding queue! Heard the normal announcement about it being a full flight and bags could be checked free of charge.  Boarding commenced about 30 mins ahead of departure and we were soon on and into seats 1D and 1F.

We were delayed by 10 mins in pushing back.  Some excuse related to waiting for the final hold door to be closed.  A 10 min taxi before taking off westward.  It was a very short flight today – only 45 mins or so.

Even though we had eaten our way through the BA lounges this afternoon, we were both hungry when dinner was served on board the A319 service to Dublin.  Two salads were on offer: one based around salmon and one that included fennel.  We had two salmon salads and we did a swap on components so that Vick could avoid the fish.

As it happens, dinner was pretty decent.  What really made it for me was the sauce that came with the salad – it made the salmon more than digestible.

We arrived into Gate 201.  We were first off and quickly into the rabbit run of corridors that led to passport control.  As we arrived, it was clear we arrived at the same time as another flight, but to be fair the queue moved pretty quickly.  We expected to be in a non-EU queue, but surprisingly, the UK was lumped in with EU and two other nationalities (perhaps it was Swiss?  I can’t remember).

We were lucky to pick up a short cut offered by one of the passport control staff members and we were straight into an automated gate and unbelievably, my passport worked!

As we walked through Customs, I ordered an Uber and headed to Zone 18 which wasn’t clearly marked.  However, we managed to find our car and about 10 mins later, we were at the hotel.

It looked very familiar and I think I stayed here once when I was starting a US TP run clearing customs in Dublin.

Check in at the Hilton Dublin Airport was super-speedy and within  30 seconds we had a key and were heading up to room 528, which was a corner room, even though it’s not really on a corner! We booked the shuttle at 5am to get back to the airport.  I hadn’t been able to check in online so we needed to allow for more time at the airport for checking in and getting through security.

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