Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022 – Day 2 – Budapest (BUD) to London (LHR)

I woke up early, feeling quite queasy after eating so much late afternoon and into the evening; perhaps combined with the 3 glasses of champers I was forced to consume.  Rookie mistake, but perhaps sometimes you need to make those types of mistake to learn (or relearn) valuable lessons.

Walked from the hotel up to the terminal, which as I suspected, the entrance to the path was slightly to the left of the exit on the arrivals level.  Not a big deal though.  Headed up some stairs up to the departures level and then headed to the right and went through the Fasttrack security lane, which had very few people in it.  To be honest the main security line didn’t look too busy either.

Once through and I was impressed by the quality of the terminal.  It was light and breezy with a good selection of restaurants.  It was a very pleasant environment for passengers. I can’t remember whether it was like this the last time we were here; I suspect it was.

There were a number of lounges in the main terminal concourse, but the BA lounge is through at the B Gates, which is through passport control.  When I got there, I recognised the steps heading up to the lounges.

Although my packing list said I needed to pack some adaptors, it wasn’t explicit about thinking about both USA and Euro adapters.  Consequently I had packed USA travel adaptors, but I hadn’t packed a Euro adapter.  As a result, my laptop and phone were struggling for juice.  When I got into the lounge, luckily there was a series of USB cables with various connectors.  I found one for my phone and plugged in.  Problem was that the lead was limited and therefore I couldn’t use it at the same time as charging it! Doh!

After boarding had completed 10 mins after we should have departed, the captain blamed the delay on how long it took to board.  What he didn’t mention was that the crew turned up 30 mins before departure, it took the flight crew a good five mins to do an external check of the aircraft so we didn’t start boarding until 25 mins before departure. If he wants to have a chance of leaving on time, perhaps the crew should turn up a little earlier?

Left from Gate B6 or Gate 33 in old money.  It was a short taxi out to the runway and other than a short wait for one aircraft landing, we were on our way back to Heathrow.

For the first time ever I used the USB charging on a short haul flight.  I even helped an older US passenger with plugging in too.  Although we were not advised to remove our charging cables for takeoff, the power was turned off.

A drinks service was offered fairly quickly after takeoff together with a menu. I had a tea in a cute paper cup which had the words « A little pick-me-up » written around the outside. Did I need that pick-me-up after a poor night for sleep?

I debated a while about whether to abstain from breakfast onboard and wait until I got back to the CCR. In the end I decided to try something different acknowledging that I wouldn’t have much of it. So the omelette with chervil and sundried tomatoes was rather pungent when it arrived. I had a few mouthfuls but decided it wasn’t worth the calories.

It was time for a visit to the facilities onboard so I carefully picked up my meal tray, moved the fold-out tray out of the way and stood up. As I was putting the meal tray back down my glasses fell off (having been perched on top of my head) and in trying to catch them, my paper cup (with a small amount of tea in it) fell to the floor, close to my elderly neighbour. We looked at each other, in one of those oops moments and after firstly apologising for being clumsy, we both laughed when I declared I would try harder to splash her next time.

The elderly couple were sat in 01C and 01D and they were both doing crosswords in puzzle books. That’s a very oldies thing to do isn’t it? I guess when Vick and I get to that age, we will still be using mobiles, so at least we won’t need to carry these crossword books around with us!

We arrived into Gate A21 and after helping the oldies off, I headed off to Arrivals to test my brand spanking new passport which was bound to work first time, wasn’t it? Nope – tried twice and still no dice. I guess all of those posts suggesting that the reason us regulars keeping failing to get through automated passport control is something like having a name similar to that of someone they are looking to catch at the border. Perhaps it will never work at Heathrow?

Luckily there was no one in the queue for the Seek Assistance, which I am getting way too familiar with. So I was through in a few mins. I like whinging about these sorts of things, but I don’t let them get me down for too long!

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