darthlemsip

Part two - I have NEVER been so happy to be getting on a plane

I've mentioned before that I no longer do any of our packing as I have been declared 'rubbish' at it. Which is fine by me - I leave out what I want and Mrs Lem activates Mary Poppins mode and gets it all in a suitcase, along with enough of her clothes and shoes for approximately three times as long as we're away for. I lug this downstairs, into the back of our waiting car and then don't worry about it again until the other end of our journey.

Except this time our flight was at 10pm, I was working at home during the day and was taking the public transport route, as the M25 would be a nightmare in rush hour.

Some people like to have a home away from home - I can only assume that Mrs Lem is one of those people and had packed our actual house brick by brick. It's the only plausible explanation for our case weighing as much as it did. So, at 6pm, some 90 minutes after leaving home and having navigated the bus, a train, a tube and then the Heathrow Connect, I arrived at the Cathay check-in verging on exhaustion, with one arm now about 4 inches longer than the other. I should have just got a cab.

But we were at the airport and excited to be off on holiday. We just had to get checked-in first.

As you can imagine, it wasn't that easy. We used the F check-in as it was empty and were faced with some very confused looks - "You seem to be on the plane twice" etc. Explained what had happened, met some more furrowed brows, confused looks, and finally defeat from the check-in agent who escorted me over to ticketing. Long and the short of it was BA were to blame for not correctly processing the cancellation, which she was able to do there and then. Just as I was about to leave, it occurred to me that I'd like our original seats - cue more telephone calls (as the seats were now blocked), one of us in the original seat and one in the old, then that switched around, before finally we were both in our original seats. I thanked the check-in and ticketing staff profusely, before we headed off to security, some 40 minutes after arriving at the airport.

T3's fast track was surprisingly quick for a change, although I did get that one jobsworth officer who was insistent that I went through my hand luggage to make sure there were no liquids in there (I'm perfectly aware of what I packed thank you) and if there was, she would personally make sure that I spent an hour waiting for a secondary check. How pleasant. I just smiled, said "OK, thank you" and walked through, leaving her to repeat the same spiel at the guy behind me.

Having navigated the zombie infested shopping centre you're forced through, with the promise of shiny things making people forget basic motor control and awareness of their surroundings, we reached the sanctity of 'Lounge Corridor' and went hopping - BA's GF lounge for some pink bubbles and a delicious pork belly, before heading round to CX's F lounge just after the preceding flight had boarded for a shower and some more bubbly. I have to say, CX's F offering wasn't that great to me, and the quiet was ruined by someone watching TV shows on their laptop without headphones, ignoring numerous requests to at least turn it down. It did, however, have a very good view of the runway at take off point though, it was incredible how much noisier a 747 is at takeoff than an A380!

Before too long it was time to board, and we headed off to the seemingly different postcode that the plane was waiting for us in. Much like VS impressed me in my previous report, CX use two doors for boarding, with first and business passengers embarking at their leisure, while premium and economy passengers are held back in the waiting area.

Coming up next (as someone at work has just rudely interrupted me with some actual work), our first time on Cathay (which certainly won’t be the last), a miracle, and arriving into HK. Maybe a picture as well