And so on board this Embraer E195 and the joyous 2-2 seating. No surprise that there is plenty of leg room up in row 1.

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A Quick Look at the safety card

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Boarding is complete at 17:35 and the crew have just offered out water to the four of us in business class this evening.

I have a suspicion that because of the light load in business we will not see much of the crew on this flight, we’ll see.

Next Stop: Amsterdam in, maybe, 2 1/2 hours time

Edit: couldn’t help but notice the flight deck are well provisioned for snacking :D

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Off the ground at almost 6pm and the first cabin announcement was that they would be keeping the lights dimmed. In complete contrast to the flight from AMS to OTP where the lights were up the whole time. Am I being overly suspicious or are the crew hoping for an easy ride?

The food arrived exactly three minutes after take off! The menu this evening was the best (to my diet) so far and very little went back to the galley
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The standard trio of drinks as the opening salvo.

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As the crew member was clearing the boxes I asked if he would turn the seat power on. “Is it off?” was the reply… DUH!

Thirty minutes in and the galley curtain is closed. I’ll lay odds it stays that way until 20 minutes to landing.

A little later, whilst I was in the galley chatting to another member of the crew about all things KLM they were telling me that KLM are switching to just hot drink and a stroopwaffle in Economy, that is a shame.

I thought I’d have a play and see what you could achieve with the free WiFi and I was pleasantly surprised that I could access bookings and even upgrade my next leg if I so wished (€179 AMS-NCL, no thanks)

I’d have won my earlier bet, the curtain was closed the whole way and most of the time all of the crew were gossiping in the galley, only appearing a couple of times to check if anyone wanted a drink.

Captains announcement that we 18 minutes to landing didn’t stop the chattering, it took the seatbelt light and ‘prepare for landing’ to finally get them moving.

Let’s face it, the odds were that I had to run into a lazy crew sooner rather than later, clearly today was that day.

19:43 and we are on the ground after a pretty poor landing with a massive bounce after first contact and then some seriously ‘throw you forward’ braking once he got the wheels on the ground.

We are now trundling around the airport to the gate, let’s see how long this hot mess takes this evening.

Great “bonus” trip report for all of us and a great read but obviously not so good for you. I hope your dental issue is sorted quickly. Did you look at going with BA via LHR?

out of curiosity, are the prices of dentists in OTP similar to that in the UK.? The practice you mentioned has a good write up.

I’d describe it as Harley St service at NE England prices. It’s certainly not cheap, but comparing apples to apples, it is far cheaper.

BA was over £1000 economy!

We eventually parked up at a bus gate and after the traditional trundle around the airport we were deposited at bus arrivals at 20:00

Getting to the E gates took close to 25 minutes including clearing border control and first stop was the Crown lounge which offered some of the worst food I’ve seen in a while!

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Deciding I’d rather not partake in any of those offerings, I headed back a few hundred yards and have been enjoying an incredibly expensive but oh so good McDonalds!

I’ve just arrived at the gate with, supposedly, 10 minutes to boarding, let’s see how that plays out. Frankly, I’m done now, just want to get home and to bed.

A little bit of boarding not boarding at the gate where they called zones 1&2 and then there we waited for a good five minutes.

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Eventually we were allowed to trickle on board and I am now comfortably ensconced in 15C and the crew member lurking in the middle of the plane tells me that 15B is empty so we have both leg room and shoulder room once again. I don’t know if I am simply getting lucky or if there is some sort of seat blocking going on.

Flighty is predicting a 10 minute departure delay and a 17 minute arrival delay so hopefully we will be on our way shortly.

Next Stop: Newcastle in an hour and a half time.

Push back started at around 22:10 and once the safety briefing was done they came to do the safety check and for the first time in forever I was asked to put my iPad away. I’m assuming this is crew on this flight not knowing the rules as opposed to all of the other crews ignoring them. That’s a second thing I need to find out about.

It was a very short taxi today, less than five minutes, and we were on our way to Newcastle.

The drinks run was the same biscuits as outbound and just a coffee to accompany them this evening.

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And that’s about it for this final leg, a very uneventful flight mostly spent reading a book in my iPad.

The seatbelt lights were on at 22:00 and we were on approach to NCL. Wheels on the ground at 22:11 with a very solid landing with a bit of a right hand swerve!

Next up comes Newcastle international border check. I’ve not had much luck with this so here’s hoping tonight is quick and easy!

Absolutely whistled through the border check and this little distraction ends as they all do with me writing this final update in an uber heading for home.

I have around 32 hours at home and then it will be back to the airport for a weekend in Lisbon! I get back from Lisbon Sunday evening and Monday afternoon it is off to the airport once more for the return to Bucharest. Dentist Tuesday and then Wednesday I fly from Bucharest to Birmingham for business meetings Thursday and Friday, then finally back home late Friday night! A crazy week ahead.

Looks like I didn't miss much at the Crown Lounge then - truly unappetising!

Used to be quite good, too, when they first opened :(

Great snap of the bird. I do like this livery.

May I ask what you enjoy reading on your iPad? ( Retired librarian here). I too always read on flights…
I so enjoy your trip reports I read them to my husband who is blind…

Glad you are enjoying the reports, feedback like this makes it all worthwhile.

I have to admit that I read the most low brow science fiction space opera series to while away the hours. Things like Honorverse or, at present, the ridiculously large Kurtherian Universe series.

Glad to hear you got everything fixed :tu:

I have almost settled on going all in on TG *G and abandoning OW going forward. They have treated me brilliantly since I went back, but only downside is no differentiated lounges like on OW.

I was really surprised. Everything had clearly been out for a long time and not replenished. The beef had no beef, the pasta was dry, and lets not mention Kale Mash!!