I'm stuck in the ORD Admirals club for a few hours, so I figure I'll start on a trip report -- can't promise I'll finish it all tonight, but we will see what we can do!
18 Mar
AA 1520 STL - ORD F100
Due to the availability of seats, my companions and I decided to fly into Brussels rather than Paris. The first leg was a quick hop up to Chicago from St. Louis on my favorite aircraft (sarcasm intended!) the Fokker 100. All I'll say is I really hope AA decides to keep the 717s they are getting from TWA and replace the F100s.
The fligh to ORD was unremarkable. Short, efficient and a few minutes early. Let's leave it at that.
At ORD, I was met by a friend from Ohio who was called about five hours before saying his CVG-ORD flight was cancelled. They got him on a flight out of DAY (which is where he lives anyway!), but only gave him an hour to make the flight and resulted in a four hour layover in Chicago. Better, I guess, than losing a day of vacation!
AA 88 ORD-BRU 767-300 Seat 21A
Arriving at the gate about 90 minutes before flight time, the gate area was packed. A few minutes later an announcement was made, at no surprise to me. The flight was oversold and they were looking for volunteers to take a flight through London later that evening for a $1000 voucher. I asked, since Paris was our destination (we were to take the train from BRU to Paris), if they would book us into CDG rather than BRU from London if we volunteered. They indicated there was no problem and I proceeded to give her a group of four volunteers.
A peek at the monitors a few minutes later gave me hope -- the flight was oversold by 18 in Y, 3 in C and had 2 open seats in F. I figured odds were pretty good for a bump.
Of course, it didn't happen. The flight went out 100% full with no volunteers needed.
I was seated in 21A, the second overwing exit row. I passed on Row 20 since I didn't know if the seats reclined (they do). Next time I'll take 20A -- it has a little more leg room than 21A, but I wasn't complaining.
Beverage service started shortly after take off followed by a meal. Dinner was steak or salmon -- I took the steak which was served with rice and green beans. A small salad, a roll, cheese and crackers and dessert rounded out the meal.
I proceeded to pass myself out after dinner with the help of a bottle of wine and 2 Benedryl. I managed about 4.5 hours of naps which, for me, is excellent.
Shortly before landing we were served a breakfast of a croissant, yougurt, OJ, and a banana. This surprised me a bit as the LHR flight I was on a month ago had a choice of hot and cold meals.
Landing was about 5 minutes late and the trip through Customs and Immigration was hassle-free.
More later -- time to wander down to the gates.
Greg
P.S. One event of note... somewhere over the Atlantic, I completed my Platinum Challenge.
GregL
Mar 26, 01, 2:54 pm
Here's the next installment of my trip report...
Brussels - Paris
Upon arrival in BRU, we had reservations for a 2:40pm Thalys train to Paris. We took the train to Gare du Midi, grabbed a bite to eat at the station and boarded the train. By this point with only 3-4 hours of sleep, I dozed most of the way on the train -- even though I have difficulty sleeping while travelling. Something about the quietness of these trains, the gentle rocking and sheer exhaustion which put me to sleep quite easily.
In Paris
Our stay in Paris was at the Hotel Murat, located near Porte St. Cloud. While it was a little off the beaten path, we were quite happy. We found a rate of 400FFR/night for a double room which included breakfast as an Internet special. The hotel was quite comfortable and nice in general for the rate we paid. The only downside was the trip to the center city was longer than if you stayed in most areas (although we were right around the corner from a Metro stop).
In Paris, we hit most of the major sites -- Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chappelle, Hotel des Invalides, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre. We only had about 3 1/2 days in Paris so getting that much done made me quite happy.
Normandy
Thursday morning we picked up a rental car at Gare du Nord and drove off into the countryside. Our first destination was the city of Caen where we could visit Bayeaux and the D-Day beaches.
We checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn City Centre - Caen, about 4pm. The hotel was a typical mid-level chain hotel. We paid about 65 Euros for a double room, without breakfast.
That afternoon, we went to Bayeaux and saw the Tapestry as well as Notre Dame de Bayeaux. With light rain falling, we decided not to wander far from the hotel and eat at a small Chinese/Cambodian/Thai restaurant just down the street.
The following morning we drove from Caen to Arromanches, location of a British landing on D-Day. From there, we drove down to the American Cemetary -- a truly sobering experience to see the more than 10,000 graves lined up in perfect formation. Finally, we headed south to spend the night at Mont St-Michel.
The best description of Mont St-Michel is WOW -- it's a abbey built on an island about 1 mile out into the Bay of Mont St-Michel. The island is about 1/4 mile wide. Impressive by day, breathtaking my night. We stayed at Les Terrases Poulard on the island itself. The small double room cost 500FFR/night, again without breakfast. Compared to our other rates, this wasn't as good of a deal, but considering the location, it was still a fair price.
Saturday morning we drove back to Paris after a tour of the Abbey. Unfortunately, due to the poor timing of our departure and traffic jams, we missed our original train back to Brussels and had to purchase new tickets at a cost of about $40/person. On the train, I struck up a conversation with a nice Dutch woman about my age and found, while inconvenienced by missing our train, we were lucky since there had been a Belgian railway strike the previous day and no trains ran at all!
Brussels
Arriving in Brussels, we took the Metro to our final hotel -- Swissotel Brussels where we had an excellent rate of 4900BEF for a double room. While this worked out to about $110/night, the hotel's weekday rates were in excess of $300 and the rate included a buffet breakfast.
Our visit to Brussels was short but I managed a walk through the Louise area Saturday night and through the city center on Sunday morning.
The flight back in my next report...
ILuvParis
Mar 26, 01, 3:51 pm
I took this trip (Normandy) a couple of years ago. I would do it again in a minute. The only thing I would do differently is add a couple of days to enjoy it at a more leisurly pace. The Bayeux Tapestry, the beaches and Mont St-Michel are all high on my list of highlights for all vacations, let alone just one trip.
To anyone planning such a trip, I would might add a couple of things if time permits. There is a wonderful ruined abbey (destroyed by fire hundreds of years ago) called Jumiege (near Rouen). It is quite wonderful to walk among the ruins while the wind whispers in the trees and think what it must have been like centuries ago. Another interesting thing to do is Calvados tasting.
Ahh, France!
(Sorry to barge in on your trip report Greg!)
GregL
Mar 28, 01, 4:33 pm
The Trip Home
I woke up on Sunday at about 7:30am so I would have time to wander around Brussels before heading to the airport to catch the flight home. I figured at 3:50pm departure would require leaving the hotel by 1pm.
After taking part in the buffet breakfast at the Swissotel, I asked about Internet Access and purchased a card for 125BEF which gave me 25 minutes of access. Of course the first site I checked was AA.com and found that the flight from Chicago which would turnaround into AA89 left over 3 hours late. AA89's departure time had been moved from 3:50pm to 5:40pm as a result.
A call to AA reservations in Brussels confirmed we could arrive for a later airport check-in and reprotected us on later flights out of Chicago since we would most likely miss our connections with the delay. I asked to be kept on my original flight to STL, knowing the ORD-STL flight ran late more often than not. "Not a problem, I was told"
After wandering around a cold Brussels for several hours, we caught cabs to the Brussels airport and arrived about 3:00pm. I took AAdvantage of my Elite status to use the First Class check-in, saving some time over the lines for coach check-in. At this point, I was told that my reservation on my original flight ORD-STL was cancelled -- something which worried me if we made it to ORD in time to make the connection since the flight was already oversold -- but I was told there was nothing that could be done. I conceded to this, with plans to write a letter if this cancellation mattered in the long run. One nice touch was a 220BEF meal voucher given to each passenger to make the wait a little more bearable.
I killed the next two hours by wandering around the airport, eating at Pizza Hut to use the meal voucher, duty-free shopping and exploring the Diners Club lounge at the airport.
AA 89 BRU-ORD 767-300 21J
Boarding began about 5:15 and seemed quite disorganized. While Premium passengers were called first, the next call was for "Frequent Flyers" -- which didn't seem to differentiate between Elite and non-Elite -- and a mob pushed towards the podiums.
We were ready to go by about 5:50, with a completely full aircraft, only to be told we faced another 30 minutes delay due to flow control out of Brussels. We finally took off about 6:15. With the time change in Europe this past weekend, our 8:15 flight time would result in only 15 minutes changing on the clock!
Service followed the standard pattern -- drinks, followed by dinner and drinks, then coffee. Dinner was a choice of steak or chicken and I opted for the chicked. While I can't be sure, the sauce tasted like a cross between BBQ and curry. Not bad, but something very different from what I had ever had before. Accompanying the chicken was mashed potatoes and broccoli. Salad, a roll, cheese and crackers, a white and dark chocolate mousse dessert and water cup rounded out the meal.
After dinner I dozed for about 45 minutes and spent the rest of the flight reading so I would be tired upon making it home that night.
A mid-snack flight of M&Ms or Toblerone was served and the standard pizza, fruit and cookie snack was served about an hour before landing.
With an estimated arrival into ORD at 6:35 and a scheduled departure of 6:45 to STL, I didn't hold out much hope but decided to give it a go. Immigration didn't present a problem, but I ended up waiting over half an hour for my bags as they were among the last off the plane. Since they were now tagged for the later flight to STL, I wondered if they were prioritized coming out by scheduled departure time.
On my way to Customs a roving agent stopped me and asked several questions about my travel habits, how much currency I was carrying and what I did for a living. He seemed happy with the answers and I moved on to a roving Agriculture agent who asked several questions prompted by the Foot & Mouth disease problem. The actual customs agent took my form and bid me a "welcome home".
Making it to baggage re-check, the flight to STL was shown as still boarding although it was now 7:15pm. I dropped my bag off and dashed to Terminal 3, only to miss the flight by less than 3 minutes. Facing a now 3 hour wait, I proceeded to the Admirals club with my new TWA Ambassadors club membership.
The Admiral's Club
I spent about two hours in the Admiral's Club. It was my first experience at the H/K concourse club at ORD and it's really quite nice. I caught up on phone messages, had something to drink, and used the PCs to get my FlyerTalk fix. I couldn't help but wonder who else from FT might be there.
AA1206 ORD-STL MD-80 Seat 4F
After facing a three hour wait in ORD, I decided to "blow" one of my upgrade credits on the 258 mile flight to STL. By this time, I was exhausted and just wanted to be comfortable considering the delay!
The plane was about 30 minutes late getting in from SEA resulting in the departure to STL running about 20 minutes behind schedule.
Service met my expectations for this flight -- you can't expect too much on a 48 minute trip, but I was left with a feeling better about AA's F class service than my DFW-STL flight several weeks ago.
We made up most of the time in air and arrived only about 5 minutes late in STL.