The Cairo flight was scheduled to arrive 1:40pm and my onward flight to DUB wasn't until 9:15pm. The original plan was to get to CX at T3 to do reticketing then meet with my friend in central London for dinner, but CX @ T3 took forever...and ever...and ever... (I do not blame them as it was a huge challenge - they invited me to sit on their side of the counter where I could see how complicated it is to reticket a RTW, and how little I know about ticketing despite being on FT and all that. Guess it must have helped when I said 'I only trust you guys' when they asked why I didn't deal with BA instead at T5...
)
It ended up being past 5pm already which meant there was no way I could make it to downtown, so I, typing my millions of apologies to my friends, headed back to T5 again to just sit and wait for my flight and perhaps take a first ever look at the Galleries First lounge.
I took the liberty to check in my bag at the F check in area which the lady was extremely nice and courteous - she was quite curious about my HK origin, British passport and current basis in the US. After the fast track security which seemed like forever, I made my way to the GF feeling very tired and burned out, from a combination of the mess heading to CAI in the morning and the anxiety-ish at the CX ticketing counter, apologising to my friend and all that.
First of all I stopped by at the dining area which was to one side of the somewhat U-shaped lounge. It was busy with a lot of suited businesspeople-type and the office-like (aka tired/uninteresting) decor of the lounge made it feel quite dull compared to my usual enclaves of CX. But I love finger sandwiches so that made up for it right away
To me this was an 'unexpected' visit to the GF (I would be visiting it tomorrow on my layover DUB-LHR-SFO) so I didn't do a lot of snapping and all that, and I was chatting with my friend that I unfortunately had to ditch for dinner along.
I just quickly walked around afterwards and all I can say was it was very busy and also rather worn out here and there:
Entrance area
Seating areas - the bar 'stations' were very well stocked!
The famous terrace, with a nice view
The other 'wing' of the U-shape opened into some more seating, a champagne bar and a media center
The low of all lows
The hour or so went by quickly, and I stuffed myself with some mascarpone pasta that my LHR-based BA elite friend highly recommended. Oh yes it was good and prepared me well for the next flight where I finally descend into the realms of coach.
I made my way to gate A6 where there was no US style gate lice, everyone was happily seated and the sole agent was there preparing for boarding. I soon was able to board first - there were very few elites tonight - and got a first glimpse at what it was like to fly in coach in Europe
We pushed back extremely on time and rolled into the night sky. With the implementation of M&S there was 0 service and the next thing I realized was that we were about to touchdown at DUB. The entire flight lasted for just 47 mins ground to ground. To me it's not very surprising - as a US-based flyer our flights of such length have always been a flight with nothing anyway so...
Weather at DUB was every bit as bad as it is perceived to be, and I waited for the hotel shuttle to the Hilton Dublin Airport for what seemed like forever, until a sketchy black van came by and it was completely off schedule from what the hotel publicized. At least I made it to the hotel before midnight!
I was upgraded to a deluxe room which to me I couldn't tell much difference but it was comfortable enough for a shower and a night's sleep. The room was spacious enough and breakfast the following morning was also heartily sufficient. I think it was good value for <100 EUR but the hotel is a bit far from the airport. Anyway, Golds and Diamonds had free shuttle so that was okay.
The next morning I boarded the shuttle that I had pre-booked the night before and it efficiently sent me back to DUB for my one-night SFO expedition.