Weekend at the Tennis ATP Finals in Nov 2014

We went down to London for the weekend to see the ATP World Tour tennis finals at the O2. We had a fab time with Sharon and Simon and saw Djokovic, Federer, Wawrinka and Nishikori.

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Our corner room at the Hilton in Frankfurt
Our corner room at the Hilton in Frankfurt
Our corner room at the Hilton in Frankfurt
Our corner room at the Hilton in Frankfurt

Holiday to the Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006: Day 1 – Home to Frankfurt

By Nige on Mon 28 Aug 2006 at 22:00
Type: Post
Story: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006
Tags: FRA | Frankfurt | Hilton | Lufthansa | MAN | Manchester

The day has finally arrived!  We started planning this trip 12 months ago and we can’t believe we are actually going today!  Everything was packed days ago including chargers (it’s amazing how many you need to take isn’t it?).

We headed down to the airport at about 10am for a 1pm flight – expected this to be plenty of time, but we knew what the queue for security is like at Terminal 1 at Manchester.  It normally stretches all the way through the entrance door on a normal day, let alone with the heightened security, so we were expecting a good wait to get air-side.

We made the change to flying from Manchester to Frankfurt on the day before our main flight to Vancouver as “risk mitigation” against the potential for delays caused by the current security issues with flights from the UK.

Derek was our driver for the day – I promised him 15 mins of fame on our web site and the picture came out blurred (click on photos)!  It was dimly lit and I guess we were in a hurry – I can’t even blame it on Vick’s photography skills!  We may try to recreate this one when Derek picks us up at the end of our holiday.  Anyway sorry Derek!

So much for a long queue to get through security!  We arrived at about 10:15am and we were checked in, through security and settled in the lounge by 10:30am, so we then had 3 hours before our flight was due to depart.  Anyway we kept ourselves busy looking around the airport shops and reading papers and magazines etc.

We amused ourselves at the gate by watching the baggage handlers.  It was hilarious.  Two guys working a conveyor belt, one taking the luggage off the inbound aircraft and the other catching them at the other end and lifting them onto the baggage carts ready for taking to the terminal.  The poor guy catching the bags was obviously new and couldn’t keep up with the speed of the approaching cases.  Either that or the guy in the aircraft was increasing the speed of the conveyor belt.  However you look at it, I’m glad our bags weren’t coming off that plane!  Half of them fell off on to the floor, with case handles falling off, and bags splitting.  In the end most of the passengers waiting to board were glued to this unscheduled entertainment.

Waiting at Frankfurt airport to check in our bagsWaiting at Frankfurt airport to check in our bags
Waiting at Frankfurt airport to check in our bags

Our flight to Frankfurt passed fairly uneventfully – in fact it was fairly quick and the food was interesting.

Frankfurt airport is pretty vast and it took us a while to reach the baggage reclaim.  In the end we decided to hang around for an hour so that we could check in our luggage for the following day’s flight to Vancouver.  We got a cab to our hotel and checked in – wow what a hotel!  We got a great room on the 10th floor as well – a corner room with a good view.

We dined in an Italian close to the hotel.  Nothing special and the service wasn’t brilliant, but never mind.  Grabbed a decaf in the exec lounge and went back to our room.  Nothing decent on TV – it was all foreign stuff, and couldn’t find “Love Island – the final” on any channels!  Went to bed early.


Follow the whole story here: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006


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Author Bio: About Nige

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Nige is one of the co-founders of The Billingham Blog and works as a freelance management consultant. He loves to fly in his spare time!

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