Just met HPN-HRL at the bar, heading off to the US. Spent a lovely time chatting, mostly about bourbon.

Cabana 2 today





I don’t remember seeing these before, gifts for the ladies, or gifts for your lady?



Now all freshened up , time to start thinking about lunch

That bacon chop and scrambled egg look delicious, the hash brown (too pale) and sausage (Aspire lounge seems to do it better) not so much!

In the end lunch was subverted by WiSK I’ve just spent a very pleasant half hour and more chatting in the first lounge before I had to head to my gate and he to his.

The lounge has an Easter egg decorating stand at the entrance



And young lady WiSKs creation



One surprise to me is that the lounge champagne has changed. Not a huge fan, but it’s drinkable enough. Spoiled by the Pommery I think.



Arriving at gate A3 I wandered to the side and made myself known and was let through with the preboards.. It was no more than two minutes wait and boarding commenced.

G-TTNP this afternoon which I was last on board for the return from Larnaca almost exactly a year ago.




Boarding is well underway and the cabaret is on board, two old dears in 2D and F

Next Stop: Newcastle in around an hour and a little bits time.

They were a little pale for my taste too but were perfectly cooked. The maple chop was the star of the show as it always is.

An incredibly long taxi at Heathrow this afternoon, over thirty minutes in total, meant that we were not off the ground until 14:55, full forty minutes after our scheduled push back.

Menus have been distributed and I’m surprised to see the Castelnau back on the drinks list. The menu is 04/25 so not a recycling of old menus, let’s see what is served.




The afternoon tea has changed slightly since the last time I had it. The stupid finger sandwich with the spread on the outside has gone but overall the sandwiches were disappointingly dry. At least the menu was correct and the Castelnau is back





The crew were not having the greatest of days. My first cup was cracked and spread coffee on Mr 1D and then his cup was also cracked and he had a second dousing!

Ten minutes to landing announcement came at 15:25 which will put us on the ground only ten minutes late which just goes to show how much slack there is in the NCL schedule.

And here I am landside at 15:50 waiting for an uber.

A fun little diversion, even if I did have to sacrifice lunch

Back to the regular scheduled programming tomorrow night with the start of the Kentucky trip, see you then.

I am regularly tempted to do a trip to nowhere (well, lounges), but I would be paying more for the uber return trip to the airport than for the airfare. Maybe I am just too cheap...

I discount the taxi costs, firstly because the airport or the city are roughly the same price therefore if I want to go out it is going to cost me, no matter what, and secondly, I have a taxi budget equal to what I used to pay for a car before I gave up driving, so that cost is already accounted for in my head. Self-deception is the way forward

Whilst I am glad you enjoyed the trip, am I the only one who thinks why?

Airport lounges are glorified waiting rooms� give me a nice meal in a restaurant with family and friends anytime instead.

Why? See post 1

For a few quid and a handful of avios I got to faff around on planes, drink champagne, have a great breakfast, and meet a couple of excellent fellow FTers. Superb way to exorcise the boredom demons.

Perhaps having flashbacks to one of those backwards numbered ATR's?

If I may suggest, for your next visit, "Travellers Exclusive" would rearrange nicely to "Revival Result Excels"

And one wonders if the somewhat grainy Callsign picture after the Lounge visit was deliberate, perhaps to suggests one's own condition from those cocktails.

Normally I�ll take the plate photo after boarding is complete. Because I was in 1F I decided to take the photo from the door as we were boarding so as not to need to disturb 1D before we�d even left the ground.

Thats my excuse and I�m sticking to it!

Sorry ​​​​​​comper there is such a thing as reading the room, we support JapesUK because these crazy runs entertain us, you perfectly entitled to not enjoy the process but, with respect move on!

It was lovely meeting you yesterday! Fun chat and young lady said you were cool ​​​​​​

We did end up walking to T5B underground, thanks for the tip! Met a Danish fellow walking down there. He grew up in Aarhus and I just happened to have a photo of Aarhus from my flight AMS-HEL.

Nope, you are not the only one.

Based on this, seems to me BA understands its audience very well when it revamped its loyalty program.