Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022: Day 14 – Los Angeles (LAX) to London (LHR)

After checking in at the Flagship lounge, we were advised that the Qantas First Lounge was now open, so we popped over there to check out the lunch options.  Vick was cold in the lounge, so I did a quick jog back to the AA lounge to get Vick’s hoodie.

From my perspective, lunch was excellent: I tried the salt and pepper squid which was good; Vick had the burger; I had the spicy pork and we both had fries and a salad with parmesan.  Vick wasn’t quite as impressed as I was.

Back to the AA Flagship Lounge and I left Vick there for 30 mins whilst I did a walk up to T8, T7, T6 and back.  All good exercise.  Very quiet throughout LAX: I guess due to it being the summer hols, it being mid-week and there being a smaller number of business travellers using the airport. I got back in time for us both to be able to get a shower.  The AA showers are so much nicer than those at Heathrow.  Vick described them as the type of shower you would have at home.  I couldn’t agree more.

We left the lounge for Gate 157 at TBIT about an hour before departure.  That was the third time I had headed up that way today, but at no point had I returned with a Starbucks!  Gate 157 was fairly busy with passengers, but no one was queuing up for boarding when we got there, so we positioned ourselves subtly close to the gate on one side which seemed to do the trick.

The crew arrived late and consequently there was a 10 min delay in the start of boarding.  Pre-boards were prepared and then we followed them through.  We waited a further 10 mins just before the air bridge and then we were on into seats 1K and 2K.  I was offered the first of 3 glasses of LPGS and a “hot” towel that was neither hot, nor even lukewarm.  To be fair, when I explained why I was sending back an unused towel, it came back 10 mins later steaming!

We pushed back about 10 mins late, but we didn’t taxi for too long, before we were on our way home to our pussie-cats.  After take-off, I was asked about my dining choices, and it appeared that the crew were aware of our feedback from our last flight that the food wasn’t hot enough.  This had been noted and we were assured that the food would be hot this time.  It was indeed.

The food was good; I was offered an extra prawn canape that Vick had rejected and I somehow managed to get two beef canapes and missed out on an aubergine canape that Vick received – odd!

Watched a film called The 355 which was as flimsy as anything with Jessica Chastain – a waste of 2 hours of anyone’s time.  I then started All the Presidents Men again (much to the amusement of Vick).  It was the only film on the list that I had any interest in.

Not a great deal of progress on the sleep front.  It was a little too hot and Vick had to ask for the temperature to be turned down in the cabin (which they did). Breakfast was ok – decent scrambled egg, bacon, sausage and mushrooms.  Toast on the side.  Pot of tea went down well and I was ready for heading home.

We landed an hour early and arrived into Gate B44.  Door 2L was opened, so we had to wait for the small CW cabin to empty before we could exit the aircraft.  We were soon into Passport Control.  Vick whizzed through and my passport threw a wobbly as normal.  I’ll be sending my passport in for checks in the next few days – must be a manufacturing flaw.

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