Lizzybear
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2006
- Messages
- 2,955
Pre-trip
Day 1
18th September 2008
Up way too early (which is to become a recurring theme for at least a week from now on!) and full of nerves! No idea why, just happens to me every year though i'm sure many of you understand. We got ready and went downstairs to catch the terminal 2 shuttle and once at the airport we dropped off our baggage (forgot to mention in day 1 that I checked in online and managed to get emergency exit seats for our Newark-San Francisco leg, yay!) then proceeded quickly through security. It had all been redone since last time we were there and seemed much more efficient aswell, but then again it wasn't that busy! Once airside we had breakfast at Starbucks and bought some water for the flight.
Look what Steve found, old Monster Munch are back!
Our flight boarded on time and the plane had personal screens which was a nice perk we weren't expecting (i'd heard Continental mostly use the communal screens, which was the case for our other 3 flights with them) There was around 20 films and also TV shows, music and games. We were lucky and had an empty seat in our row of 3 so of course we spread out a bit!
I think the plane picture together has become an annual thing!
I passed the flight time (7 hours 50 minutes) by watching What Happens in Vegas (pretty terrible, and not even in a good way!) and reading Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban (i'm aware that i'm about 10 years late in reading the Harry Potter books!) For the meal there was a choice of chicken or beef so I chose the beef aka potroast and Steve had the vegetarian meal which was some kind of curry. We swapped desserts so I had Steve's fruit and he had my evil coconut brownie (why ruin a perfectly good brownie with coconut?! I don't get it!) Later in the flight we had a snack which was a turkey and cheese sandwich (Steve's was salad I think, why airlines think this is a satisfactory sandwich filling on its own I will never know!), crisps and a Lilly O'Brien chocolate (yum!) Both of us found the food OK and the whole flight was certainly comparable to our Virgin one last year.
The 'Skymall' magazine had some brilliant stuff for pets, I think Steve's mum should get some of these for her 7 rottweilers!
There are really no words..!
Considering a purchase perhaps..
Sleep deprived? You better believe it!
Land ahoy!
We arrived at Newark on time and cleared immigration which we found to be much less scary than Orlando (the guy at the desk was asking me about WDW) then picked up and dropped of our luggage, took the air train to the correct terminal and went through security. Although there wasn't much of a queue for anything it is quite a lengthy process and I don't think i'd be comfortable leaving less than 2 hours for a connecting flight from the UK to the US, and preferably longer (we had 3 hours 35 minutes but someone on our flight had 40 minutes, yikes!) Once we were airside we had a coffee from Seattle's Best (actually owned by Starbucks, but in our opinion better and a much larger selection too) then shared a vegetarian taco and a spinach stromboli (pizza roll type of thing) and bought some more water and some Twizzlers before boarding or flight to San Francisco. Turned out we were sharing our row with Mr Obnoxious who reminded me of Lumbergh from Office Space and decided to stretch his arms and legs into my space for almost the entire flight. By that point we were both feeling pretty drained and the flight ended up being delayed by nearly an hour (Steve reckons he overheard a crew member saying someone in first class was refusing to get off his phone and the plane missed it's place in the runway queue, judging by how little authority the crew seemed to have I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this was the case!) so I couldn't be bothered with the drama of complaining to 'Mr O' The flight was 5 hours 15 minutes (the pilot made up most of the lost time) and Steve managed to get loads of sleep.. I was going out of my mind tired but only managed to catch bits and pieces of sleep, better than nothing though. There were communal screens and the films were Speed Racer and something with Liv Tyler set in Scotland (or I could have been very confused and it was someone else entirely..!) Once in San Francisco airport we picked up our luggage and went in search of the shuttle pickup area. I had a list of possible companies to use so we just went for the first one off that list that we could find, can't even remember the name now. Total was $36 inc. tip which was about what I expected and we arrived at the hotel and checked in with no problems, settled in then went to bed. I was woken up at something like 2-3am by banging outside.. At first I was terrified that it was someone at our window but luckily Steve also woke up and we decided to ring reception as we knew it was supposed to be 24 hour. I think we actually woke up the woman up as the banging stopped soon after that! Steve worked nights for 4 years so he knows firsthand how dead the shift can be but if you're going to sleep then you need to be a light sleeper, must have been scary for those people being stuck outside in the dead of night in a possibly unfamiliar city! With that said, though, the hotel was good. The rooms were very big and ours looked to have been refurbished recently. It was our most expensive hotel room at $145 a night but worth it as the location in North Beach was great. Also, the free parking is a useful perk if you need it (many other hotels nearby were charging around $20 a day to park!)
ETA: We did get a snack of some kind on the Newark-San Francisco flight but I think I must have been asleep at that point and missed it. Steve got a veggie burger type of thing on a sandwich though which he was pleased with, beats salad anyway!
Day 1
18th September 2008
Up way too early (which is to become a recurring theme for at least a week from now on!) and full of nerves! No idea why, just happens to me every year though i'm sure many of you understand. We got ready and went downstairs to catch the terminal 2 shuttle and once at the airport we dropped off our baggage (forgot to mention in day 1 that I checked in online and managed to get emergency exit seats for our Newark-San Francisco leg, yay!) then proceeded quickly through security. It had all been redone since last time we were there and seemed much more efficient aswell, but then again it wasn't that busy! Once airside we had breakfast at Starbucks and bought some water for the flight.
Look what Steve found, old Monster Munch are back!
Our flight boarded on time and the plane had personal screens which was a nice perk we weren't expecting (i'd heard Continental mostly use the communal screens, which was the case for our other 3 flights with them) There was around 20 films and also TV shows, music and games. We were lucky and had an empty seat in our row of 3 so of course we spread out a bit!
I think the plane picture together has become an annual thing!
I passed the flight time (7 hours 50 minutes) by watching What Happens in Vegas (pretty terrible, and not even in a good way!) and reading Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban (i'm aware that i'm about 10 years late in reading the Harry Potter books!) For the meal there was a choice of chicken or beef so I chose the beef aka potroast and Steve had the vegetarian meal which was some kind of curry. We swapped desserts so I had Steve's fruit and he had my evil coconut brownie (why ruin a perfectly good brownie with coconut?! I don't get it!) Later in the flight we had a snack which was a turkey and cheese sandwich (Steve's was salad I think, why airlines think this is a satisfactory sandwich filling on its own I will never know!), crisps and a Lilly O'Brien chocolate (yum!) Both of us found the food OK and the whole flight was certainly comparable to our Virgin one last year.
The 'Skymall' magazine had some brilliant stuff for pets, I think Steve's mum should get some of these for her 7 rottweilers!
There are really no words..!
Considering a purchase perhaps..
Sleep deprived? You better believe it!
Land ahoy!
We arrived at Newark on time and cleared immigration which we found to be much less scary than Orlando (the guy at the desk was asking me about WDW) then picked up and dropped of our luggage, took the air train to the correct terminal and went through security. Although there wasn't much of a queue for anything it is quite a lengthy process and I don't think i'd be comfortable leaving less than 2 hours for a connecting flight from the UK to the US, and preferably longer (we had 3 hours 35 minutes but someone on our flight had 40 minutes, yikes!) Once we were airside we had a coffee from Seattle's Best (actually owned by Starbucks, but in our opinion better and a much larger selection too) then shared a vegetarian taco and a spinach stromboli (pizza roll type of thing) and bought some more water and some Twizzlers before boarding or flight to San Francisco. Turned out we were sharing our row with Mr Obnoxious who reminded me of Lumbergh from Office Space and decided to stretch his arms and legs into my space for almost the entire flight. By that point we were both feeling pretty drained and the flight ended up being delayed by nearly an hour (Steve reckons he overheard a crew member saying someone in first class was refusing to get off his phone and the plane missed it's place in the runway queue, judging by how little authority the crew seemed to have I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this was the case!) so I couldn't be bothered with the drama of complaining to 'Mr O' The flight was 5 hours 15 minutes (the pilot made up most of the lost time) and Steve managed to get loads of sleep.. I was going out of my mind tired but only managed to catch bits and pieces of sleep, better than nothing though. There were communal screens and the films were Speed Racer and something with Liv Tyler set in Scotland (or I could have been very confused and it was someone else entirely..!) Once in San Francisco airport we picked up our luggage and went in search of the shuttle pickup area. I had a list of possible companies to use so we just went for the first one off that list that we could find, can't even remember the name now. Total was $36 inc. tip which was about what I expected and we arrived at the hotel and checked in with no problems, settled in then went to bed. I was woken up at something like 2-3am by banging outside.. At first I was terrified that it was someone at our window but luckily Steve also woke up and we decided to ring reception as we knew it was supposed to be 24 hour. I think we actually woke up the woman up as the banging stopped soon after that! Steve worked nights for 4 years so he knows firsthand how dead the shift can be but if you're going to sleep then you need to be a light sleeper, must have been scary for those people being stuck outside in the dead of night in a possibly unfamiliar city! With that said, though, the hotel was good. The rooms were very big and ours looked to have been refurbished recently. It was our most expensive hotel room at $145 a night but worth it as the location in North Beach was great. Also, the free parking is a useful perk if you need it (many other hotels nearby were charging around $20 a day to park!)
ETA: We did get a snack of some kind on the Newark-San Francisco flight but I think I must have been asleep at that point and missed it. Steve got a veggie burger type of thing on a sandwich though which he was pleased with, beats salad anyway!
. what a long trip, lets hope its worth it 
