Carfield
May 30, 00, 7:48 pm
Hi Everyone,
This trip report is going to be very long, due to my massive travels during this memorial weekend travel. This trip is one of the worst trips that I have taken this year. United disappointed me pretty much in all aspects, especially an episode at LAX. If United continues to have this crew scheduling and snobbish ground staff problems, I have to switch my loyalty to other airlines. I am planning a try out trip with Continental this fall. CO seems to have this down to earth styles that I have enjoyed much with Alaska. I guess I have to try CO out sometimes in the near future, especially if UA and US are going to merge soon.
My Memorial Day weekend began with the cancellation of my ABQ-DEN flight and an incompetent UA reservation agent at Prem Ex desk. I called the night before my flight and made sure if the DEN-ABQ's Boeing 757 flight came in. Unfortunately, the plane did not come in, and therefore, my ABQ-DEN flight was cancelled. I called UA's Premier Executive line, and the agent offered to put me on the 4:43pm flight. I asked myself, "why will I want to be put on a late afternoon flight, if I am flying a 6am flight?" Then I told her that you were not helping and knew that the agents at ABQ would help me out and endorse me to another airline. United failed the first test.
I went to UAL desk the next morning and the Y class line was long; but the First Class/ Premier line had only one person in front of me. The lady on the Y class line was not too happy and told me that she was going to go next. Well, I said, "fine!" Anyway, the check-in agent told her that she had to check me in because I am a Premier member. I felt sorry for this lady for a while, but after flying all those crazy trips to gain my Prem Ex status, I honestly did not have this guilt feeling. Anyway, this very nice lady, whom had checked in me before, said that they had rebooked me on America West and printed out an itinerary and the ticket. Efficient and I moved to the really long HP line. I was standing on that line for a long, long time before got checked in by a CO agent (CO and HP shared staffs on the ground in ABQ). I asked for an exit window seat, but due to the fullness of my ABQ-PHX flight, I was put on an exit aisle, which did not feature any extra legroom. Anyway, it was a short trip.
HP 2831 ABQ-PHX Lv0630 Arr0651
Boeing 737-300 N330AW with the new livery
Boarding took place at 6:04am at Gate B4. The boarding line was not chaotic because HP still had many passengers to check in at the lobby area. I boarded the aircraft when my row number was called. My seat, 9D, was not bad, but the lack of legroom was very obvious. The seats are those old blue seats with the malfunctionned PTV. Some UA passengers were rather not happy about the tight and narrow HP seats. Since it was going to a non-meal flight this morning, I bought myself a fruit cup and a croissant. I was glad that I did it. Door was closed a minute before scheduled departure time. There were two SWA's Boeing 737s in front of us this morning, but we managed to take off at 6:40am. A rather bumpy departure, till we reached our cruising attitude of 31,000ft.
The flying time was an hour and there were three F/As working on this flight. They were fairly friendly and efficient. There was an express beverage service, which featured the normal array of soft drinks and coffee (only am flights). Different from UA, HP worked from the back to front because the first class F/A is required to serve the Y class passegners, after being done with the F class passengers. For most soft drinks, you got a cup, but you got a mini-can if you request orange or apple juice. HP uses mini-bottle of water, and mini-cans (163ml or 5.5 Fl Oz.) of Welch's 100% fruit juice. A pack of HP's mini-pretzels was served as well. The F-class F/A was not too happy this morning because the coffee maker at the front galley was broken this morning. She had to walk back and forth between the Y class beverage cart and the front of the cabin, when she needed to serve coffee to F-class and front rows Y class passengers. The landing was rather rough and we touched down rather hard at 6:40am. We were quickly parked at Gate B10 after three minutes of taxiing.
HP 2700 PHX-LAX Lv0736 Arr0908
Airbus A320-200 N622AW (broke down) changed to N656AW (both with new livery)
A rather long walk to Gate A7 and the gate area was rather deserted this morning. Our flight was only 60% full and I got a very nice emergency exit seat at 10A. I got no neighbor this morning. Boarding took place at 7:07am and everyone was boarded within the next twenty minutes, but the door was not closing. Then the pilot reported that the aft exit door had a dent and he wanted to make sure that it was recorded on the book. Then the F/As passed out mini-bottles of water (very nice) to Y class passengers and F class passengers got a pre-takeoff beverage service with snack mix. Anyway, many mechanics walked back and forth, and the delay was getting worst. Then the pilots announced that they needed to send in a sheet metal expert, and we were placed on an one-hour delay notice. Many passengers then deplaned and I remained on board until we were asked to leave. The problem was getting worst and after a line built up at the gate and customer service desk, HP announced that we would have an aircraft change. Please proceed to Gate B2. Another long hike to another concourse… The new plane, N656AW, came in from Seattle and was quickly turned around. I was hungry, so I got myself a breakfast sandwich from the Burger King expert. I was grateful that I had done this. The boarding started again at 8:30am, and we took off at 9:50am. We were held on the ground due to flow controls at LAX.
Another express beverage service and the F/As served everyone a full can of soft drinks. In terms of cabin service, I admitted that HP had an edge over WN and UA's Shuttle. You get better snack and drinks. Also, a good thing about this plane was that it came with the new HP's seats. F-class featured headrests, with similar designs as AC's new Executive seats at its A319/320. Y class seats have built-in headrests and had more legroom due to a thinner seat design and no malfunction personal TV. I was pleased with this new seat. The interior color corresponded with the green and red and brighter colors, which is much better than those tired old blue seats. Even the bathroom featured the new designs used by UAL's Airbuses. We cruised at 28,000ft and landed on LAX at 10:49am. We parked at Gate 9 and welcomed by another crazy mob at Terminal 1.
Then I took a Star Alliance shuttle outside of Terminal 2 (AC) to UAL. It was quite a nice shuttle and the bus driver was very pleasant. I found out that the bus ran about every 5 minutes and they did not check any ticket. We just told them that you were going to United's domestic, and she will bring you there.
I rushed to UA terminal for nothing… When I arrived at gate 71B to check in for my LAX-ORD flight, I was told that the flight was delayed for an hour due to crew scheduling. Everything was ready, but the crews were not allowed to fly until after 1pm. That means that I would miss my connecting flight from ORD to BOS. I would have to take the 8:45pm flight from ORD to BOS, plus flying standbys. I was not too happy and the gate agent cheerfully said that he could put me on the nonstop flight, but there was no F class seats. He even checked all the possible connections through DEN, IAD, and ORD, but there was none available. So I took the LAX-BOS flight unwillingly. He gave me a seat at 8E, which was the exit aisle. I was very frustrated with United this morning because I had been unsuccessfully flying a single flight booked originally.
UA 164 LAX-BOS Lv1351 Arr2212
Boeing 757-200 N537UA with the old seats in F and Y
Our flight was fully booked and it was impossible to get an upgrade seats. Even 1K could not get a confirmed F class seat today. Our gate, 75A, was understaffed this afternoon and the boarding was chaotic. There were only two agents and our flight was full. The F/As had to help out with the boarding, and it was not a fun experience. Anyway, we managed to close the door at 1:55pm and took off at 2:26pm due to heavy traffic at LAX. Fortunately, I saw the landing of Delta's winter Olympic SLC livery Boeing 757 this afternoon. Anyway, the flight flew up to 37,000ft quickly and our flying time was four hours and forty-four minutes. Fortunately, the F/As were quite pleasant and kept on passing water/orange juice/lemonade throughout the flight.
First, the F/As came by with a beverage service accompanied by the Classic cheese crackers and pretzel mix, which I passed. I was not too happy this afternoon, as you could possibly tell. Anyway, a lunch was served after the initial round of beverage service. The F/As offered another beverage service with the lunch cart. The choices of lunch today was beef with gravy and mashed potato or chicken breast with a sweet sauce, served with rice and green beans. I took the chicken, which was okay - typical UAL lunch. The lunch came with a salad (lettuce and shredded carrots), a container of Kern's Vermont honey French dressing, a Toufayan's Onion soft breakstick, and a pack of Walker's shortbread cookies. A better lunch than the DEN-PHL lunch two weeks ago. For the rest of the flight, I read a very good July edition of the Airways magazine and slept for a bit. "Snow Day" was showed, but I already watched it a week ago on UAL. Anyway, our flight was put on hold before landing at BOS. Boston had bad weather during the morning and the winds were pretty bad. Anyway, we landed at 10:42pm and was parked at gate 21. This flight was pretty good and the F/As were tirelessly serving the Y class passengers. They were very professional and I wish all United F/As were like that.
Boston was a very nice city and I did a little sightseeing and shopping myself. I went to a very nice Japanese restaurant, Ginza, in Chinatown. Ginza was not a really elegant Japanese restaurant, but the food was pretty good.
Anyway, I had a fun few days at Boston.
Then I moved on to Tampa for mileage purposes. Adding this side trip did not affect my LAX-BOS fare much… so why not! It was an extra couple thousands base miles and I had the time.
UA 507 BOS-ORD Lv0745 Arr0918
Boeing 757-200 N529UA (old F class)
I managed to be upgraded on the BOS-ORD segment, but not the ORD-TPA segment. Anyway, it was nice to fly F class at least for one segment. Check-in at Boston was relatively easy and the agent was very nice this morning. The gate was C16 this morning and I was surprised to see no plane when I got into the gate area. BOS-ORD passengers are not too happy this morning. First the 6am flight was delayed till 9am, and now our 7:45am flight was possibly not on time since the plane was not here yet. Then the gate agent told us that United was running late this morning and the plane was actually in the hanger area last night. As minutes passed by, the plane arrived from the hangar area, but more bad news. Our plane had some pressurization problem with one of the cabin door. For safety reason, they had to fix it. As usual, they told us that the problem was minor and would take a few minutes. Connecting passengers were well-informed and UA took care of the San Jose and Honolulu passengers first. They would miss the flight definitely. Then, some passengers wanted to take the 8:45am flight one, but the gate agents said that it would not be necessary, since we planned to leave at 9am. I went to the ticket counter because I would definitely miss my 10:30am flight to TPA. The gate agent protected me on the 1:10pm flight and put me on F class too. I was pleased and boarded the plane quickly at 8:34am. The F/As today were not a happy bunch and the service was only standard. A quick pre takeoff beverage of OJ/Water/Mimosa/ Champagne and the F class cabin was full today. Door was closed at 8:57am but the morning traffic at Boston Logan prevented us to takeoff until 9:22am. Flying time today was two hours and two minutes, with a cruising attitude of 31,000ft.
F/As than started a quick beverage service and then served breakfast quickly. F/A did not take food order, according to any status and started from the front. There was no choice of breads because the F/A decided to make the decision for you. It was up to your luck to get a bagel, muffin, or croissant. The choices were the usual fruit plate with cereal and yogurt, or the breakfast sampler. I had the breakfast sampler, which consisted of a frittata with cheese, a strange ham and cheese sandwich, half a tomato, some red-skinned potatoes, and a sausage. The fruit appetizer consists of one slice of melon, cantaloupe, and pineapple each, one strawberry, and some grapes. The tray came with a bagel with cream cheese. I ate the whole breakfast because of the long layovers at ORD and anticipated more weather delays at ORD. During the flight, an episode of Sport Nights was shown again. (too many times this month). The F/As then retired to the galleys after the quick breakfast service. The descent was rather bumpy due to bad weather at ORD. We technically did not break the clouds until minutes before touching down. We landed at 10:40am ORD time, and the line of aircraft was spectacular. Anyway, we were parked at Gate B14 five minutes later. Although flights were delayed at ORD, I did not make it to the 10am flight. I went directly to a deserted ORD customer service counter (surprise), and a very nice agent put me on the 1pm flight. She did not collect any upgrade certs and gave me a $5 voucher. I was not hungry, so I bought two bottles of water instead. I then proceed to the United Express terminal and spotted landings for the rest of my morning.
UA 1032 ORD-TPA Lv1310 Arr1638
Boeing 757-200 N516UA (old F seats again)
The flight was on time and began boarding on Gate C11 at 12:41pm. It was not a full flight and I had an empty seat next to me for a while. The F/As were very cheerful and offered us a pre-takeoff beverage. Channel 9 was also available too. I was happy with the arrangement and then the F/As passed out the menu, which was a new one. I looked forward to this quick two hours and five minutes flight to Tampa. Finally something was going on right this weekend. Door was closed at 1:09pm and lines were everywhere at ORD. However, we were able to takeoff at 1:24pm for some unknown reasons. While there were lines of aircraft all over the place, we took off quickly and headed to the layers of cloud around the Chicago area. We encountered no turbulence after we leveled off at 37,000ft.
We were served a beverage with a pack of the party mix shortly after takeoff. The F/As once again did not take order according to Premier status. Maybe we had no 1K this morning. They took orders from the front. My empty next door seat was occupied after takeoff. The passenger at 3A, for some mysterious reasons, simply changed his seat to my empty next door seat. He talked to the F/A before he moved, but nobody said anything. I was pretty upset, but this was only a minor issue. At least I won't feel guilty if I moved in and out of my seat a lot this afternoon. Anyway, this minor event did not prevent me from enjoying a superb lunch.
Here is the menu:
To Begin:
Garden Fresh salad (basically a romaine lettuce salad with one slice each of cucumber, tomato, and red pepper)
Accompanied by balsamic vinaigrette or green goddess dressing prepared with anchovies, onions, sour cream and lemon juice. (This Green Goddess dressing was promoted across the friendly sky this month and was actually quite tasty)
Main Course
Seared strip steak with a Pinot Noir and peppercorn demi-glace
Offered with sauteed potato pirogies and a vegetable medley (my neighbor had this entrée and looked very fine to me. The steak was at least not overcooked.)
Or
Sauteed garlic and cilantro shrimp in a white wine sauce
Served over tricolor bow tie pasta with julienned vegtables
(Excellent entrée served a nice pasta bowl. The pasta was not overcooked and there was six relatively large shrimps presented in this entrée. I was more than pleased with this entrée and recommended it to fellow UAL passengers.)
Dessert
Eli's Praline cheesecake (always good)
There was no hot towel service before landing. United seems to cut back hot towel services in F class recently. Anyway, another minor issue! Our plane began our descent at 3:08pm and the Tampa bay area was beautiful. The weather was nice and I looked forward to a nice relaxing day. We touched down at 4:34pm and as HT and FT talkers said, there was not much crazy traffic like ORD or JFK. We parked at a deserted Airside D area - D48 to be exact. However, the terminal was filled with passengers heading back to Denver on our same aircraft, and there was a lengthy delay for IAD bound passengers this afternoon too.
The airport Marriott was indeed conveniently located at the TPA airport. I went directly to the check in desk and settled in a nice room. The room had a nice view, as I requested. I faced the main runway for landing and the US Airways and United/Jetblue/Spirit concourses. I indeed saw the United's Boeing 757 that I just took servicing and eventually taking off too. For the rest of the day, I was glued to the window and waited patiently for the arrival of BA's Boeing 777 flight. Finally, it showed up at 6pm and today it was a world-color designed plane with the Scottish design. Anyway, I was more than happy to see many planes going up and down. My room number is 441 for future plane-spotters at TPA. Take a higher floor if you can. Then I decided to go to the CK revolving restaurant on top of the hotel. It was very nice. I had excellent views of the airport and Tampa area. For the first time, I saw the Jetblue's A320s landing and taking off. The food itself was alright and not quite expensive as other revolving restaurants. I had a nice lobster bisque ($4.95) and a special surf and turf dinner (steak - very nice with tiny shrimps in a white wine sauce… not really surf and turf… but whatever), and then I had a Napoleon cake as dessert (I wanted to pass on dessert but Napoleon was not necessarily an easy dessert to be found in the US). Anyway, the view was enough to me and I enjoyed my dinner. After watching the BA's Boeing 777 takeoff, I decided to take a tour of the TPA airport. The arrival level was very modern looking, but the ticketing level was a bit ancient. I went to a lobby shop and found a new Airliners' magazine. I was happy. Anyway, I walked around the deserted ticketing level, in search of timetables, especially BA ones. Unfortunately, the BA counter did not have the timetables out - only the USA vacation brochures. Then I stayed up till I saw the landing of United's Boeing 757 from ORD - almost midnight. I could not help out but stared out the window for the whole day. I can't help it…
Here is a quick list of planes that I saw at TPA:
BA 777 (Scotland design)
US 737-200 (Metrojet)/ 300/ 400
UA 727/737/757
AT D9S/717
NK M80
DL L10/757/763/M88
Delta Express
Jetblue (B6) A320
CO 737/M80
WN 737-200/300/500/700
TW M80
NW 727/320
More tomorrow…
------------------
Carfield
Menu Scavengers
Inflight food critics
This trip report is going to be very long, due to my massive travels during this memorial weekend travel. This trip is one of the worst trips that I have taken this year. United disappointed me pretty much in all aspects, especially an episode at LAX. If United continues to have this crew scheduling and snobbish ground staff problems, I have to switch my loyalty to other airlines. I am planning a try out trip with Continental this fall. CO seems to have this down to earth styles that I have enjoyed much with Alaska. I guess I have to try CO out sometimes in the near future, especially if UA and US are going to merge soon.
My Memorial Day weekend began with the cancellation of my ABQ-DEN flight and an incompetent UA reservation agent at Prem Ex desk. I called the night before my flight and made sure if the DEN-ABQ's Boeing 757 flight came in. Unfortunately, the plane did not come in, and therefore, my ABQ-DEN flight was cancelled. I called UA's Premier Executive line, and the agent offered to put me on the 4:43pm flight. I asked myself, "why will I want to be put on a late afternoon flight, if I am flying a 6am flight?" Then I told her that you were not helping and knew that the agents at ABQ would help me out and endorse me to another airline. United failed the first test.
I went to UAL desk the next morning and the Y class line was long; but the First Class/ Premier line had only one person in front of me. The lady on the Y class line was not too happy and told me that she was going to go next. Well, I said, "fine!" Anyway, the check-in agent told her that she had to check me in because I am a Premier member. I felt sorry for this lady for a while, but after flying all those crazy trips to gain my Prem Ex status, I honestly did not have this guilt feeling. Anyway, this very nice lady, whom had checked in me before, said that they had rebooked me on America West and printed out an itinerary and the ticket. Efficient and I moved to the really long HP line. I was standing on that line for a long, long time before got checked in by a CO agent (CO and HP shared staffs on the ground in ABQ). I asked for an exit window seat, but due to the fullness of my ABQ-PHX flight, I was put on an exit aisle, which did not feature any extra legroom. Anyway, it was a short trip.
HP 2831 ABQ-PHX Lv0630 Arr0651
Boeing 737-300 N330AW with the new livery
Boarding took place at 6:04am at Gate B4. The boarding line was not chaotic because HP still had many passengers to check in at the lobby area. I boarded the aircraft when my row number was called. My seat, 9D, was not bad, but the lack of legroom was very obvious. The seats are those old blue seats with the malfunctionned PTV. Some UA passengers were rather not happy about the tight and narrow HP seats. Since it was going to a non-meal flight this morning, I bought myself a fruit cup and a croissant. I was glad that I did it. Door was closed a minute before scheduled departure time. There were two SWA's Boeing 737s in front of us this morning, but we managed to take off at 6:40am. A rather bumpy departure, till we reached our cruising attitude of 31,000ft.
The flying time was an hour and there were three F/As working on this flight. They were fairly friendly and efficient. There was an express beverage service, which featured the normal array of soft drinks and coffee (only am flights). Different from UA, HP worked from the back to front because the first class F/A is required to serve the Y class passegners, after being done with the F class passengers. For most soft drinks, you got a cup, but you got a mini-can if you request orange or apple juice. HP uses mini-bottle of water, and mini-cans (163ml or 5.5 Fl Oz.) of Welch's 100% fruit juice. A pack of HP's mini-pretzels was served as well. The F-class F/A was not too happy this morning because the coffee maker at the front galley was broken this morning. She had to walk back and forth between the Y class beverage cart and the front of the cabin, when she needed to serve coffee to F-class and front rows Y class passengers. The landing was rather rough and we touched down rather hard at 6:40am. We were quickly parked at Gate B10 after three minutes of taxiing.
HP 2700 PHX-LAX Lv0736 Arr0908
Airbus A320-200 N622AW (broke down) changed to N656AW (both with new livery)
A rather long walk to Gate A7 and the gate area was rather deserted this morning. Our flight was only 60% full and I got a very nice emergency exit seat at 10A. I got no neighbor this morning. Boarding took place at 7:07am and everyone was boarded within the next twenty minutes, but the door was not closing. Then the pilot reported that the aft exit door had a dent and he wanted to make sure that it was recorded on the book. Then the F/As passed out mini-bottles of water (very nice) to Y class passengers and F class passengers got a pre-takeoff beverage service with snack mix. Anyway, many mechanics walked back and forth, and the delay was getting worst. Then the pilots announced that they needed to send in a sheet metal expert, and we were placed on an one-hour delay notice. Many passengers then deplaned and I remained on board until we were asked to leave. The problem was getting worst and after a line built up at the gate and customer service desk, HP announced that we would have an aircraft change. Please proceed to Gate B2. Another long hike to another concourse… The new plane, N656AW, came in from Seattle and was quickly turned around. I was hungry, so I got myself a breakfast sandwich from the Burger King expert. I was grateful that I had done this. The boarding started again at 8:30am, and we took off at 9:50am. We were held on the ground due to flow controls at LAX.
Another express beverage service and the F/As served everyone a full can of soft drinks. In terms of cabin service, I admitted that HP had an edge over WN and UA's Shuttle. You get better snack and drinks. Also, a good thing about this plane was that it came with the new HP's seats. F-class featured headrests, with similar designs as AC's new Executive seats at its A319/320. Y class seats have built-in headrests and had more legroom due to a thinner seat design and no malfunction personal TV. I was pleased with this new seat. The interior color corresponded with the green and red and brighter colors, which is much better than those tired old blue seats. Even the bathroom featured the new designs used by UAL's Airbuses. We cruised at 28,000ft and landed on LAX at 10:49am. We parked at Gate 9 and welcomed by another crazy mob at Terminal 1.
Then I took a Star Alliance shuttle outside of Terminal 2 (AC) to UAL. It was quite a nice shuttle and the bus driver was very pleasant. I found out that the bus ran about every 5 minutes and they did not check any ticket. We just told them that you were going to United's domestic, and she will bring you there.
I rushed to UA terminal for nothing… When I arrived at gate 71B to check in for my LAX-ORD flight, I was told that the flight was delayed for an hour due to crew scheduling. Everything was ready, but the crews were not allowed to fly until after 1pm. That means that I would miss my connecting flight from ORD to BOS. I would have to take the 8:45pm flight from ORD to BOS, plus flying standbys. I was not too happy and the gate agent cheerfully said that he could put me on the nonstop flight, but there was no F class seats. He even checked all the possible connections through DEN, IAD, and ORD, but there was none available. So I took the LAX-BOS flight unwillingly. He gave me a seat at 8E, which was the exit aisle. I was very frustrated with United this morning because I had been unsuccessfully flying a single flight booked originally.
UA 164 LAX-BOS Lv1351 Arr2212
Boeing 757-200 N537UA with the old seats in F and Y
Our flight was fully booked and it was impossible to get an upgrade seats. Even 1K could not get a confirmed F class seat today. Our gate, 75A, was understaffed this afternoon and the boarding was chaotic. There were only two agents and our flight was full. The F/As had to help out with the boarding, and it was not a fun experience. Anyway, we managed to close the door at 1:55pm and took off at 2:26pm due to heavy traffic at LAX. Fortunately, I saw the landing of Delta's winter Olympic SLC livery Boeing 757 this afternoon. Anyway, the flight flew up to 37,000ft quickly and our flying time was four hours and forty-four minutes. Fortunately, the F/As were quite pleasant and kept on passing water/orange juice/lemonade throughout the flight.
First, the F/As came by with a beverage service accompanied by the Classic cheese crackers and pretzel mix, which I passed. I was not too happy this afternoon, as you could possibly tell. Anyway, a lunch was served after the initial round of beverage service. The F/As offered another beverage service with the lunch cart. The choices of lunch today was beef with gravy and mashed potato or chicken breast with a sweet sauce, served with rice and green beans. I took the chicken, which was okay - typical UAL lunch. The lunch came with a salad (lettuce and shredded carrots), a container of Kern's Vermont honey French dressing, a Toufayan's Onion soft breakstick, and a pack of Walker's shortbread cookies. A better lunch than the DEN-PHL lunch two weeks ago. For the rest of the flight, I read a very good July edition of the Airways magazine and slept for a bit. "Snow Day" was showed, but I already watched it a week ago on UAL. Anyway, our flight was put on hold before landing at BOS. Boston had bad weather during the morning and the winds were pretty bad. Anyway, we landed at 10:42pm and was parked at gate 21. This flight was pretty good and the F/As were tirelessly serving the Y class passengers. They were very professional and I wish all United F/As were like that.
Boston was a very nice city and I did a little sightseeing and shopping myself. I went to a very nice Japanese restaurant, Ginza, in Chinatown. Ginza was not a really elegant Japanese restaurant, but the food was pretty good.
Anyway, I had a fun few days at Boston.
Then I moved on to Tampa for mileage purposes. Adding this side trip did not affect my LAX-BOS fare much… so why not! It was an extra couple thousands base miles and I had the time.
UA 507 BOS-ORD Lv0745 Arr0918
Boeing 757-200 N529UA (old F class)
I managed to be upgraded on the BOS-ORD segment, but not the ORD-TPA segment. Anyway, it was nice to fly F class at least for one segment. Check-in at Boston was relatively easy and the agent was very nice this morning. The gate was C16 this morning and I was surprised to see no plane when I got into the gate area. BOS-ORD passengers are not too happy this morning. First the 6am flight was delayed till 9am, and now our 7:45am flight was possibly not on time since the plane was not here yet. Then the gate agent told us that United was running late this morning and the plane was actually in the hanger area last night. As minutes passed by, the plane arrived from the hangar area, but more bad news. Our plane had some pressurization problem with one of the cabin door. For safety reason, they had to fix it. As usual, they told us that the problem was minor and would take a few minutes. Connecting passengers were well-informed and UA took care of the San Jose and Honolulu passengers first. They would miss the flight definitely. Then, some passengers wanted to take the 8:45am flight one, but the gate agents said that it would not be necessary, since we planned to leave at 9am. I went to the ticket counter because I would definitely miss my 10:30am flight to TPA. The gate agent protected me on the 1:10pm flight and put me on F class too. I was pleased and boarded the plane quickly at 8:34am. The F/As today were not a happy bunch and the service was only standard. A quick pre takeoff beverage of OJ/Water/Mimosa/ Champagne and the F class cabin was full today. Door was closed at 8:57am but the morning traffic at Boston Logan prevented us to takeoff until 9:22am. Flying time today was two hours and two minutes, with a cruising attitude of 31,000ft.
F/As than started a quick beverage service and then served breakfast quickly. F/A did not take food order, according to any status and started from the front. There was no choice of breads because the F/A decided to make the decision for you. It was up to your luck to get a bagel, muffin, or croissant. The choices were the usual fruit plate with cereal and yogurt, or the breakfast sampler. I had the breakfast sampler, which consisted of a frittata with cheese, a strange ham and cheese sandwich, half a tomato, some red-skinned potatoes, and a sausage. The fruit appetizer consists of one slice of melon, cantaloupe, and pineapple each, one strawberry, and some grapes. The tray came with a bagel with cream cheese. I ate the whole breakfast because of the long layovers at ORD and anticipated more weather delays at ORD. During the flight, an episode of Sport Nights was shown again. (too many times this month). The F/As then retired to the galleys after the quick breakfast service. The descent was rather bumpy due to bad weather at ORD. We technically did not break the clouds until minutes before touching down. We landed at 10:40am ORD time, and the line of aircraft was spectacular. Anyway, we were parked at Gate B14 five minutes later. Although flights were delayed at ORD, I did not make it to the 10am flight. I went directly to a deserted ORD customer service counter (surprise), and a very nice agent put me on the 1pm flight. She did not collect any upgrade certs and gave me a $5 voucher. I was not hungry, so I bought two bottles of water instead. I then proceed to the United Express terminal and spotted landings for the rest of my morning.
UA 1032 ORD-TPA Lv1310 Arr1638
Boeing 757-200 N516UA (old F seats again)
The flight was on time and began boarding on Gate C11 at 12:41pm. It was not a full flight and I had an empty seat next to me for a while. The F/As were very cheerful and offered us a pre-takeoff beverage. Channel 9 was also available too. I was happy with the arrangement and then the F/As passed out the menu, which was a new one. I looked forward to this quick two hours and five minutes flight to Tampa. Finally something was going on right this weekend. Door was closed at 1:09pm and lines were everywhere at ORD. However, we were able to takeoff at 1:24pm for some unknown reasons. While there were lines of aircraft all over the place, we took off quickly and headed to the layers of cloud around the Chicago area. We encountered no turbulence after we leveled off at 37,000ft.
We were served a beverage with a pack of the party mix shortly after takeoff. The F/As once again did not take order according to Premier status. Maybe we had no 1K this morning. They took orders from the front. My empty next door seat was occupied after takeoff. The passenger at 3A, for some mysterious reasons, simply changed his seat to my empty next door seat. He talked to the F/A before he moved, but nobody said anything. I was pretty upset, but this was only a minor issue. At least I won't feel guilty if I moved in and out of my seat a lot this afternoon. Anyway, this minor event did not prevent me from enjoying a superb lunch.
Here is the menu:
To Begin:
Garden Fresh salad (basically a romaine lettuce salad with one slice each of cucumber, tomato, and red pepper)
Accompanied by balsamic vinaigrette or green goddess dressing prepared with anchovies, onions, sour cream and lemon juice. (This Green Goddess dressing was promoted across the friendly sky this month and was actually quite tasty)
Main Course
Seared strip steak with a Pinot Noir and peppercorn demi-glace
Offered with sauteed potato pirogies and a vegetable medley (my neighbor had this entrée and looked very fine to me. The steak was at least not overcooked.)
Or
Sauteed garlic and cilantro shrimp in a white wine sauce
Served over tricolor bow tie pasta with julienned vegtables
(Excellent entrée served a nice pasta bowl. The pasta was not overcooked and there was six relatively large shrimps presented in this entrée. I was more than pleased with this entrée and recommended it to fellow UAL passengers.)
Dessert
Eli's Praline cheesecake (always good)
There was no hot towel service before landing. United seems to cut back hot towel services in F class recently. Anyway, another minor issue! Our plane began our descent at 3:08pm and the Tampa bay area was beautiful. The weather was nice and I looked forward to a nice relaxing day. We touched down at 4:34pm and as HT and FT talkers said, there was not much crazy traffic like ORD or JFK. We parked at a deserted Airside D area - D48 to be exact. However, the terminal was filled with passengers heading back to Denver on our same aircraft, and there was a lengthy delay for IAD bound passengers this afternoon too.
The airport Marriott was indeed conveniently located at the TPA airport. I went directly to the check in desk and settled in a nice room. The room had a nice view, as I requested. I faced the main runway for landing and the US Airways and United/Jetblue/Spirit concourses. I indeed saw the United's Boeing 757 that I just took servicing and eventually taking off too. For the rest of the day, I was glued to the window and waited patiently for the arrival of BA's Boeing 777 flight. Finally, it showed up at 6pm and today it was a world-color designed plane with the Scottish design. Anyway, I was more than happy to see many planes going up and down. My room number is 441 for future plane-spotters at TPA. Take a higher floor if you can. Then I decided to go to the CK revolving restaurant on top of the hotel. It was very nice. I had excellent views of the airport and Tampa area. For the first time, I saw the Jetblue's A320s landing and taking off. The food itself was alright and not quite expensive as other revolving restaurants. I had a nice lobster bisque ($4.95) and a special surf and turf dinner (steak - very nice with tiny shrimps in a white wine sauce… not really surf and turf… but whatever), and then I had a Napoleon cake as dessert (I wanted to pass on dessert but Napoleon was not necessarily an easy dessert to be found in the US). Anyway, the view was enough to me and I enjoyed my dinner. After watching the BA's Boeing 777 takeoff, I decided to take a tour of the TPA airport. The arrival level was very modern looking, but the ticketing level was a bit ancient. I went to a lobby shop and found a new Airliners' magazine. I was happy. Anyway, I walked around the deserted ticketing level, in search of timetables, especially BA ones. Unfortunately, the BA counter did not have the timetables out - only the USA vacation brochures. Then I stayed up till I saw the landing of United's Boeing 757 from ORD - almost midnight. I could not help out but stared out the window for the whole day. I can't help it…
Here is a quick list of planes that I saw at TPA:
BA 777 (Scotland design)
US 737-200 (Metrojet)/ 300/ 400
UA 727/737/757
AT D9S/717
NK M80
DL L10/757/763/M88
Delta Express
Jetblue (B6) A320
CO 737/M80
WN 737-200/300/500/700
TW M80
NW 727/320
More tomorrow…
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Carfield
Menu Scavengers
Inflight food critics