FlyerTalk Forums - LA Weekend (long)

I decided back in December that I would be more systematic at taking leisure trips in 2001 in order to prevent the (albeit fun) chaos from taking 5 leisure trips in 10 weeks last fall. So, I picked the weekend after President’s Day in advance. I decided that I’d go to LA, Palm Springs, or Arizona – depending which was cheapest. I would spend up to $225 in airfare, use a 3-day Avis award that I got from cashing in an award F ticket to Europe for my parents this fall, and pick up my last two Hilton stays for their Gold promotion.

As expected, the fare sales hit in early January. Phoenix and Tuscon were $254, but LA was $189. The cost/mile isn’t great (5.4/status mile, 2.6/program mile); but the times worked best and the probability of using the fewest upgrade credits greatest. So, LA it is!

2/23 AA 505 ORD-LAX 6:00p-8:30p
Normally for a personal weekend trip, I would have driven to O’Hare and parked in remote lot F. With my return flight getting in at 1:30am, however, the wait to get to the remote parking lot would be awful. So, I managed to mooch a ride off of my father at 4pm. The drive to O’Hare was quick, and I got dropped off at door 3B at 4:20pm. American has rolled out even more of the One-Stop checkin kiosks. I like them except for the fact that they don’t print receipts in addition to boarding passes. But as this wasn’t a business trip, I didn’t need a receipt so I was checked in after about 60 seconds. Through security and off to the Admirals’ Club.

The airport was very noisy, as the 4:30-5pm bank of flights were in various stages of boarding. The Admirals’ Club was surprisingly quiet, however. I managed to snare the computer closest to the windows and do some websurfing for my trip. As an extra bonus, the printer was working – I was able to print out a bunch of information from Zagat on good Mexican dives as well as some last-minute email. At 5:05 I left in search of food. I walked back to the big W.H. Smith next to security and picked up a liter of water, then stopped at the deli next to K4 and got a turkey sandwich for the flight. I worked my way down to K15 where my 767-200 was waiting, and boarding started at 5:25pm.

I had seat 9G – business class seat, coach service, coach price. I think this is one of the hidden jewels of American Airlines – 6 flights a day (2-LAX, 2-SFO, DFW, MIA) out of O’Hare have this feature. I save $125 on a westbound upgrade, which is why I don’t mind paying 2.6 cents/mile. This 762 had the old brown seats in F, and the new J seats but without MRTB. [The 763 at 3pm has MRTB, btw]. Still, the situation is a little better than domestic F on an MD-80.
Boarding was efficient and most people were on by 5:45. The doors closed promptly at 6, and we were airborne by 6:15. I noticed that there was a used headphone in my seatback pocket, which confused me a little. This plane should have come from Europe, but then the J seatback wouldn’t have had headphones because they get the Bose sets that are collected. So, I think this was a plane that had flown in domestically. The J section was full (once in a while my seat-block holds and I get the seat next to me free!) - Y was mostly full in the AB/HJ seats, but only about ½ full in the center section.

There was a beverage service half an hour after takeoff, but no pretzels. I ate most of my sandwich, keeping a little bit for the end of the flight. I sipped on my Diet Coke, listened to a CD and wrote up the first part of trip report. Then I did some programming for a few minutes until dinner was served. Dinner choices were cheese tortellini or chicken w/BBQ sauce and macaroni & cheese. I took the latter. The chicken was miniscule, the salad was pathetic (note to AA – can we someday have a salad that is not a lettuce salad, maybe a cole slaw or pasta salad or something?) the taste of the mac & cheese I took was surprisingly non-awful, and the green beans were green. The desert was a cinnamon oat bar.

Of course, I’m in row 9, and I’m finished with dinner well before they’ve started to pick stuff up. Fortunately in the J seats, you can put your tray on the table, rotate the table 90 degrees, and then use the laptop on your lap. Back to programming and CD-listening for the rest of the flight. Well, the FA didn’t bother looking where he was walking when he came to pick up the trays, and promptly knocked mine onto the floor… http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif He mumbled something to himself that was more polite than an epithet but had the same meaning. I just glared at him and went back to my writing. Flight attendants not looking where they are going is one of my greatest pet peeves. After the dinner service, the FAs pretty much disappeared, except for one pass through at the midway point with more beverages. The last two hours of the flight, however – nothing.

They comped everybody the entertainment – I guess they’re trying to compete with UA on this point a little bit. The movie was some atrocity with John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow about a lottery. After that came a full hour of CBS Eye on American.

A couple of interesting things: 17H was occupied – 17 HJ are FA rest seats when the plane flies internationally. He had his own little room there. Also, my lumbar support would fully inflate every time I got up! Not a big problem, just a minor annoyance. Otherwise, the flight was rather pleasant. We landed at gate 47A right on time.

Wandering around the Southland
I find my way out to the Avis counter. The entire weekend, I kept on thinking my car was from National because it was a Chevy Lumina. I turned in my weekend rental voucher and was out of there reasonably quickly. I figured out how to get the car pointing south and made my way to the Doubletree Club LAX/El Segundo. It only took about ten minutes, most of that getting back to Sepulveda Avenue. The Doubletree was not really a Club in its normal sense – it was just a smaller normal Doubletree mixed in with some office buildings. Checking in was pleasant. I didn’t get an upgraded room per se, but I got a King (paying for a double/double) on a floor that didn’t have the bus full of high-schoolers that arrived about five minutes after me. After I checked in, I was a little hungry, so I went up the 405 to Culver City and found Tito’s Tacos – one of my goals on this trip was to only eat at some unique Southland experiences. I picked up two tacos and a tostada, and somehow got a box full of nacho chips and salsa to boot which I didn’t really want. I ate one taco on the drive back, and finished off the other taco and tostada back in the room. Good stuff. I finally crashed about 11pm. I woke up at 6am the next morning, cleaned up, and checked out. There was a light drizzle, but nothing bad. Yet.

The day’s goal was supposed to be a 10km walking tour of Santa Barbara, but by the time I made it up there, it was beyond pouring. So, I had to settle for a 45-minute driving tour instead. Of course, it took me 90 minutes to get there and 90 minutes to get back. Thank goodness I love driving. I headed back towards the city. Since it was supposed to rain even worse on Sunday, I decided to try to see as much as I could by car today in hopes that the rain would eventually let up. My path took me roughly along 101-134-210-10, and after an In-N-Out lunch in Azuza I found myself out around Banning at an Indian reservation which was bisected by I-10.

The reservation had a very nice upscale outlet mall, and a casino. I spent a little time at each. The casino had this psycho rule that you had to pay 50 cents/hand “contribution” to play blackjack, and $1 if your wager was $25 and up. To pretend to compensate, they offered various prizes from $100 (for 3 7s making 21) to $10,000 (four blackjacks in a row). After a while, it was time to point the car east towards (the) Staples Center and the Clippers-Trail Blazers game. For some reason, LA residents don’t use the word “the” when they talk about the Staples Center.

When I checked tickets online the day before, there seemed to be a reasonable number of tickets available. I didn’t buy any because I wasn’t sure I’d get back from Santa Barbara in time. This was a big mistake that worked out well in the end. Turns out I got the last non-courtside seat, but instead of the the $25 upper deck seat I wanted it was an $85 sixth row seat. Once I got inside, I realized that I wouldn’t have been happy in the upper deck, as it was located in Tiajuana. The game was a thriller, with the Clippers blowing a 12-point lead to eventually win in double-overtime. Essxjay must have had a coronary if she was watching on TV.

After the game, 20,001 people managed to exit Staples Center in an amazingly orderly and traffic-free fashion (as a traffic engineer by original training I found this a marvelous feat). I pointed the car back towards El Segundo. This time, my destination was the Hilton Garden Inn, about four blocks from the Doubletree. It was a much nicer hotel, although it wasn’t “full-service” in terms of restaurant and bar. It just made more sense for the casual traveller. There was a nice pantry next to the front desk where I got Hhonors points by charging my Diet Coke and my ice cream bar to the room. I got a room in a special section of the hotel (the hallway/doors were decorated differently), but no upgrade – just a double-double away from the train tracks. But they noted that I was a Hhonors gold and told me to come back in the morning for my breakfast certificate.

A momentary break
I woke up Sunday morning and was amazed to find out that it wasn’t raining. I took my time, got my breakfast, and eventually checked out. Then I drove up to Santa Monica, where it still wasn’t raining. I took advantage of my good fortune to walk about 2.5 miles up and down the coastline, onto the pier, and into downtown Santa Monica. I was winding down just as I felt a drizzle, so I got back in the car and started north along Route 1. Soon the rains were as bad as Saturday (it must be my luck on mileage runs – it poured when I went to San Antonio last fall to meet a bunch of Fters), so I got back to the Interstate and made my way to the Getty Center.

The Getty Center is a wonderful place, and that’s coming from somebody that’s not an avid museum-goer. I spent about 3 hours there, and would have spent more if it had not been raining and I could have taken the architectural tour. The views from the Getty Center are fantastic, except it was raining and foggy and so visibility was pretty lousy.

After having been cultured-out for the day, I still had over four hours until my flight. I was originally going to go wander around the UCLA campus and Westwood, but with the rain that just wasn’t going to happen. I remembered that QuietLion had strongly recommended a place called Apple Pan in one of his trip reports, so I found a telephone directory and got an address. I took side streets down so I could drive by the Los Angeles National Cemetary, and was there in a couple of minutes, continuing my tour of local flavor. The burgers and fries were as good as advertised, although I wasn’t crazy about the apple pie. I forgot to try the napkin trick, however. The price was a little steeper than expected, $13+tip for a burger, fries, pie, and Diet Coke. After two days in LA, I am not sure I can face a regular fast food hamburger again back in Chicago – I might have to go to Hackney’s in Glenview to get a great-burger fix.

2/25 AA 1042 LAX-ORD 1930-0116+
I called again about my flights – the 5pm was delayed until 6:40 but there was a waiting list including EXPs for both Y and F. My 7:30 was still delayed until 8, but the plane making up the flight wasn’t due in until 7:45…. So, I took my time driving to the airport. I made the mistake of following the signs to Avis and promptly got lost, ending up inside the airport.

Finally, I dropped off the car, paid $1.24 in taxes in cash (annoying the agent who had to walk and get a cash receipt) and caught a shuttle to the airport. Check in at T4 was fast, and the ticket agent was surprised that he couldn’t get me on the delayed 5pm flight. So, off to the Admrials’ Club with 2.5 hours to kill. I had upgraded this flight because it looked more than 2/3 full a few days earlier, and by the time I arrived at the airport the flight was almost sold out.

Simply put, the LA Admirals’ Club is ugly. But, the staff were friendly, they had nice cookies for a snack, and there was a kiosk free. I surfed the web for about half the time, then gave up the kiosk for another guest and worked on my laptop for a while. At 7:30, I checked on the inbound flight, and found that they had swapped planes – I was now waiting for a MD-80 from DFW arriving at 8:12, and the departure time was moved to 8:35pm. I hung out in the club until about 8:15 and then wandered over to gate 47A.

Now, does anybody at American actually think that they can turn around a plane in 23 minutes? I hope not. The gate agents were completely stressed out, and seem to genuinely appreciate it when I asked how they were holding up. They were getting an average of 1 person a minute asking them about when boarding would begin, when the inbound flight hadn’t even finished deplaning yet. Finally, we started boarding at 8:55pm. But it took FOREVER, and by the time we pushed back and made our way through the slowed-down LAX ATC, we didn’t actually leave the ground until exactly 10pm.

No entertainment this time because it was an MD-80 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif but the flight did still have a dinner service. In F the choices were beef, chicken w/BBQ sauce, or tortellini. Normally I would have taken the pasta, but I know it’s very heavy so I just picked at the beef instead. I fell asleep soon after dinner was cleared away, and woke up just before landing at 3:19am Chicago time. I stumbled out of the plane and called for a cab which never came. So I had to call for a second cab, and finally made it home by 4am.