dsimon
May 23, 00, 1:22 pm
CO1081 EWR 100P PBI 343P 757-200 1F
I got to the airport at 1140a for the 100p flight and checked-in curbside out of charity for the skycaps who were standing around at the ghost-like Terminal C. Check-in was swift and I made my way through security to the President's Club adajcent to Gate 73. The club was relatively deserted and was a pleasant change from the norm. I walked by the self-serve food area and noticed that the carbohydrate laden breakfast spread was still out that consisted of primarily bagels, croissants, danish, and other starch-like things. I quickly passed and made my way across the bar area where there was an assortment of bags of chips, peanuts and popcorn. I did manage to find a box of raisins and continued to the northside of the club facing the Manhattan skyline where there was no interesting plane spotting of note. I quickly downloaded my mail (or lackthereof) from the morning, picked up the WSJ, and then headed down to gate 98 to meet my flight to PBI that had just arrived from IAH.
Boarding commenced at 1230 through the second door and I turned left to find my seat, 1F. This was a nice bulkhead seat with the rather firm seats with adjustable headrests. The flight attendent promptly came around to take pre-departure drink orders and I settled for a cup of ice water. First was completely full today, but it appeared as though there were some open seats in the back.
Push back was timely at 100p and we headed to the north to taxi for a departure to the south. We arrived at the active runway and I noticed my watch said 112p on it and thought to myself "I just got a new battery for my watch" and figured that I would have to get a replacement until I asked my fiancee what time she had and she confirmed what was thought to be an impossibility. A 12 minute taxi to get airborne? I thought this to be a truly precedent setting day for ground time at EWR and this fostered high aspirations for the rest of the flight.
Shortly after we were airborne, the flight attendent came around with hot towel service and then proceeded to take lunch orders which started at the front of the cabin on the A-B side on the left of the aircraft. The choices today were:
A garden salad with mixed vegetables and baked scallops mixed in accompanied by a plastic container of some creamy buttermilk ranch dressing
OR the aforementioned garden salad with a bowl of southwestern vegetable soup.
Given with both selections were a choice of warm sourdough rolls or grain bread, and a small frozen (I am not sure if by design)piece of Godiva chocolate.
I chose the former and it was a rather forgettable meal. The salad was dominated by iceberg lettuce (which I defer to romaine) and did not contain many of the advertised mixed vegetables. The scallops were slightly colder than cabin temperature and a little bit firm. I have generally had good luck with seafood on CO flights, but this was an exception. The buttermilk ranch dressing was not quite what I had in mind (particularly considering the scallops), but it would suffice. In fairness, the warm sourdough rolls were excellent. My fiancee also had the garden salad and scallops so I cannot attest to how the southwestern vegetable soup was other than to say that the bowl it came in was enormous. Between my water and soda, my glass never had the chance to empty as the flight attendent was very attentive.
There was a CO Vision presentation that consisted of various shorts ranging from a profile of Andre Agassi, to an episode of Suddenly Susan, to a presentation of CNN espanol, to various other 'shorts' promoting current movies playing on lengthier CO flights. Fortunately for me, the audio system was fairly inaudible so I did not have to take in Brooke Shields. Is it any wonder that NBC pulled the plug on this sitcom? This was the closest that Andre and Brooke have been in recent times http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif.
By the time I caught up on writing some mail, and read a little bit of What Would Machiavelli Do The Ends Justifies the Meanness, by Stanley Bing, we had started our initial descent into PBI.
We hugged the coastline for a while and then turned west over the Jupiter-Palm Beach Gardens area to make the sweep around and land facing the east. After a very smooth landing, we taxied for fewer than five minutes until we arrived at gate B4 for an early arrival at 325p.
Evidently the Elite Priority Tags on our bags did not work with much success because the three bags came out separately and a few minutes apart. My golf bag was one of the first five bags off, but my garment bag was one of the last (with my fiancee's somewhere in between). There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to this as I noticed few other Priority Tags coming off first and more mixed in at the end. I don't know why this still comes as such a surprise to me, but for whatever reason, I still expect these "tagged" bags to come out first. Surely, I am not the only person this happens to, huh Jaws?
All in all, this was a very pleasant trip minus the disappointing lunch service. I was extremely impressed with the relative ease at EWR considering all of the anxiety I generally carry when I fly out of there (though most problems generally occur later in the day with the international traffic)
CO1086, PBI-EWR to follow.
I got to the airport at 1140a for the 100p flight and checked-in curbside out of charity for the skycaps who were standing around at the ghost-like Terminal C. Check-in was swift and I made my way through security to the President's Club adajcent to Gate 73. The club was relatively deserted and was a pleasant change from the norm. I walked by the self-serve food area and noticed that the carbohydrate laden breakfast spread was still out that consisted of primarily bagels, croissants, danish, and other starch-like things. I quickly passed and made my way across the bar area where there was an assortment of bags of chips, peanuts and popcorn. I did manage to find a box of raisins and continued to the northside of the club facing the Manhattan skyline where there was no interesting plane spotting of note. I quickly downloaded my mail (or lackthereof) from the morning, picked up the WSJ, and then headed down to gate 98 to meet my flight to PBI that had just arrived from IAH.
Boarding commenced at 1230 through the second door and I turned left to find my seat, 1F. This was a nice bulkhead seat with the rather firm seats with adjustable headrests. The flight attendent promptly came around to take pre-departure drink orders and I settled for a cup of ice water. First was completely full today, but it appeared as though there were some open seats in the back.
Push back was timely at 100p and we headed to the north to taxi for a departure to the south. We arrived at the active runway and I noticed my watch said 112p on it and thought to myself "I just got a new battery for my watch" and figured that I would have to get a replacement until I asked my fiancee what time she had and she confirmed what was thought to be an impossibility. A 12 minute taxi to get airborne? I thought this to be a truly precedent setting day for ground time at EWR and this fostered high aspirations for the rest of the flight.
Shortly after we were airborne, the flight attendent came around with hot towel service and then proceeded to take lunch orders which started at the front of the cabin on the A-B side on the left of the aircraft. The choices today were:
A garden salad with mixed vegetables and baked scallops mixed in accompanied by a plastic container of some creamy buttermilk ranch dressing
OR the aforementioned garden salad with a bowl of southwestern vegetable soup.
Given with both selections were a choice of warm sourdough rolls or grain bread, and a small frozen (I am not sure if by design)piece of Godiva chocolate.
I chose the former and it was a rather forgettable meal. The salad was dominated by iceberg lettuce (which I defer to romaine) and did not contain many of the advertised mixed vegetables. The scallops were slightly colder than cabin temperature and a little bit firm. I have generally had good luck with seafood on CO flights, but this was an exception. The buttermilk ranch dressing was not quite what I had in mind (particularly considering the scallops), but it would suffice. In fairness, the warm sourdough rolls were excellent. My fiancee also had the garden salad and scallops so I cannot attest to how the southwestern vegetable soup was other than to say that the bowl it came in was enormous. Between my water and soda, my glass never had the chance to empty as the flight attendent was very attentive.
There was a CO Vision presentation that consisted of various shorts ranging from a profile of Andre Agassi, to an episode of Suddenly Susan, to a presentation of CNN espanol, to various other 'shorts' promoting current movies playing on lengthier CO flights. Fortunately for me, the audio system was fairly inaudible so I did not have to take in Brooke Shields. Is it any wonder that NBC pulled the plug on this sitcom? This was the closest that Andre and Brooke have been in recent times http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif.
By the time I caught up on writing some mail, and read a little bit of What Would Machiavelli Do The Ends Justifies the Meanness, by Stanley Bing, we had started our initial descent into PBI.
We hugged the coastline for a while and then turned west over the Jupiter-Palm Beach Gardens area to make the sweep around and land facing the east. After a very smooth landing, we taxied for fewer than five minutes until we arrived at gate B4 for an early arrival at 325p.
Evidently the Elite Priority Tags on our bags did not work with much success because the three bags came out separately and a few minutes apart. My golf bag was one of the first five bags off, but my garment bag was one of the last (with my fiancee's somewhere in between). There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to this as I noticed few other Priority Tags coming off first and more mixed in at the end. I don't know why this still comes as such a surprise to me, but for whatever reason, I still expect these "tagged" bags to come out first. Surely, I am not the only person this happens to, huh Jaws?
All in all, this was a very pleasant trip minus the disappointing lunch service. I was extremely impressed with the relative ease at EWR considering all of the anxiety I generally carry when I fly out of there (though most problems generally occur later in the day with the international traffic)
CO1086, PBI-EWR to follow.