Holiday USA SW Road Trip in Apr 2022: Day 2 – Dublin DUB to London LHR

The alarm was set for 4:30am, with us booked on to a shuttle leaving for the airport at 5am.  The bed had proven to be fairly hard – not to the level of quality that we have come to expect from a Hilton mattress, so getting up so early was not much of a loss!

There were quite a few people waiting for the shuttle bus at 5am; all heading to T2 and flights to the US.  They were dropped off first off, then we were dropped off on the less convenient side of T1, so we had to walk through the car park, before crossing over the road to enter the terminal building.

Our check in area was Zone 10 and there was no one in the queue for Club Europe check in.  The queue for Euro Traveller was fairly long, so we were pleased we didn’t have to wait for that! One of the perks of being a frequent flyer I guess.

The check in agent looked at my Verifly app with our two passes displayed.  She acknowledged that but based on the time it took to get our boarding passes, she clearly had to check through other stuff.  However, she didn’t ask to see anything.

Once we had our boarding passes, we headed to Fast Track security, although « fast » was hardly an appropriate word.  The airport had been selling fast track access for €12.99 and they were obviously popular. As a result it took us 15 mins to get through security.  On previous occasions, it has taken us 2 mins with no one in the queue.  That’s the main reason that « Same Plane Turnarounds » or B2Bs at Dublin are not recommended right now.

After security we headed up to the T1 Lounge.  The lounge hasn’t changed much since I/we last experienced it.  The coffee was certainly no better.

Looked like the flight back to Heathrow was going to arrive early, which would give us plenty of time to get our bags from the car (the car having been left at T5 Meet & Greet). Then we would be able to head through security and in to the CCR for breakfast. We always have a plan!

The flight back to Heathrow left from Gate 207, so we had to walk past Starbucks.  That tempted us to join the queue for 10 mins, which snaked around the back of the store.  Unfortunately, in those 10 mins, Vick moved about 4 feet, so taking that sort of progress into consideration, we thought we might get a coffee by about midday, tomorrow!

So, we left the queue and headed down to the gate where there was already a short queue forming for priority boarding.  Boarding started about 10 mins later and it was a short walk over to the aircraft and into seats 1D and 1F.  We switched over for the flight back to avoid Vick freezing with the aisle draft.  Again (as last night) there were only 3 rows of Club Europe.

We pushed back and took off earlier than scheduled.  The Inflight Services Manager must have been about 80 and was about to retire (we hope).  Quite matron-like.  The breakfast she served was fairly decent though.  We didn’t eat all of it because we wanted to enjoy a CCR breakfast when we got back to Heathrow.

We arrived into Gate A22, next door to the “official” Ireland arrivals gate.  I shot off to go get our cases from the car.  The queue for the lifts to get up to the car park was horrendous, so I had to sneak myself into a small space left, which wasn’t big enough for a trolley. After a holiday full of eating large portions, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to fit into such a small space when we return!

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