Weekend in Stockholm in Aug 2023: Day 2 – London (LHR) to Stockholm (ARN)

Today sees us catch BA’s first flight of the day from Heathrow to Stockholm at some ridiculously early time in the morning. But we get the chance to (briefly) enjoy the CCR at T5.

I was awake at 4am having thoroughly enjoyed my sleep in a very comfy bed at the The Sofitel, London Heathrow.  The alarm was set for 4:30am and Vick was up promptly.  She now prides herself in being able to be up and ready to walk out of the door within 20 mins.  That suits me!

There were quite a few people with large cases waiting for the lifts on floor 2, so we used the stairs to bypass the crowds. There was also a bit of a queue to check out, so we dumped our key in the express checkout and headed on our way.

It was only a 5 min walk back to T5 and we were soon walking through a very busy looking BA terminal, full of holidaymakers wanting to get away.  The First Wing (TFW) was open but Security wasn’t when we arrived.  The doors to TFW Fast Track Security were finally opened a few mins after 5am. 

Security was pretty quick although it’s amazing how many bags pass along the conveyor belt whilst we waited for ours to appear.  It was as if someone was adding extra bags just to slow ours down.

Through into the CCR and we noticed that further changes have been made to the furniture – good ones at that.  Nice comfy armchairs now available. It was very quiet in the CCR when we arrived for our (relatively) brief stay.

We enjoyed a cappuccino before heading out about an hour before our flight to Stockholm was due to depart. Our plan was to head up to Starbucks and then be at Gate A22 ahead of the start of boarding.

However, we found a massive queue at Starbucks, with only one counter open. When we were finally served, there was a long delay in my venti caramel mac arriving, so when it finally appeared, we couldn’t hang around in our walk to Gate A22.

Arrived at the gate as the announcement for Groups 1 and 2 was made – I assume that meant that there may have been a separate Group 1 only announcement – good if that was the case. 

After breezing through the boarding pass checks, we were onboard and we managed to find locker space.  We settled down and enjoyed our coffees in our normal seats in row 1.

We pushed back on time and after a fairly long taxi we were up into the air on our way to the capital of Sweden.

We were offered a menu which looked like the standard breakfast fare. I went for the full English breakfast (as normal) and Vick had the omlette. It wasn’t bad, but nothing to write home about.

Vick slept most of the remainder of the flight. I kept myself busy playing games on my phone. But to be honest, it didn’t seem that long before the captain announced we were starting our approach into Stockholm!

The flight was nice and smooth, as was the landing. A short taxi and we arrived into Gate 86 at Arlanda International Airport.

We were first off and followed a convulted route through to passport control and then down through baggage reclaim and out. We were looking forward to getting to the hotel, but there was still a bit of a journey left to deal with.

Follow the whole story here: Weekend in Stockholm in Aug 2023