Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022: Day 1 – Los Angeles (LAX) to Las Vegas (LAS)

By Nige on Thu 04 Aug 2022 at 10:04
Type: Post
Story: Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022
Tags: American Airlines | Hilton | Holidays | LAS | Las Vegas | LAX | Los Angeles | USA

Once through security we headed to the AA Flagship Lounge at T4 and spent 30 mins chilling out. That included a little bit of food to keep us going.  It’s always a decent spread here and today was no exception.

Since our flight to Vegas was due to leave from Gate 131 of Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT), we left the lounge about an hour before the scheduled departure time.  TBIT was pretty busy but it didn’t take us too long to reach Gate 131.  We started the priority boarding queue and within about 10 mins or so, we were boarding our final flight of the day.

Boarding always seems to take forever on these flights.  Probably because we are one of the first passengers on, partly because we are sat at the front and we watch everyone else walk passed us.

There were thunderstorms forecast in the Vegas area and consequently after we pushed back, the captain advised that we would park up and wait 30 mins before we would be allowed to take off.  One of those ATC type restrictions. We seemed to taxi around all of the outskirts of the airfield, before finally joining the short queue to take off.  It was very cloudy, so it was only a few seconds before we were up amongst the clouds.  So not a great deal to see from my window of the A321 aircraft.

Flight: BA4774 Equip: A321
Sched Depart: 17:24 Actual: 17:27
Sched Arrival: 18:38 Actual: 19:23
Takeoff: 18:29 Landing: 19:16

Vicky snoozed the entire flight; even I was starting to flag by the time we were on our final approach into Las Vegas.  We arrived into Gate D5 and as with all AA flights, there’s no delay between coming to a standstill and the seatbelt sign coming off, which is always appreciated. There’s no need to delay the scrum in the way that BA insist on!

After a short train ride from the D Gates, we were into arrivals.  I booked an Uber to take us to the hotel and we didn’t need to wait very long before we were pleased to be in an air-conditioned car.

Check in at the Hilton Garden Inn was very efficient and we were then in our room ready for some sleep.  Melatonin was on the cards for our sleep tonight – trying anything to extend our first night in a new time zone!

Follow the whole story here: Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022