Air Travel can be fairly mundane - and ours was no exception... well almost!
A short word on AirPortr. I have never used this before but considering we have over packed, it was a godsend. £57 got our hold luggage collected from the hotel entrance and the next time we saw it was at Chicago O'Hare airport - we were first onto the carousel too. We were able to track it from the moment it left the hotel until we received a text to say it had been loaded onto the plane. Security was a doddle - although Ella did fall foul of a more ardent search when some hair oil was found in her hand luggage!
#1 Lounge was ok - reasonably quiet first thing in the morning - with a full array of breakfast food that should satisfy even the most difficult of people. WiFi was good too. £18 for the three of us with out Priority Pass card courtesy of Lloyds Bank Credit Card. A close eye on the monitors with just under an hour to go told us we should head to Gate 23. When we got there, the queue had almost finished, we walked through and noted our group was boarding... so on we went to our seats - 9D, 9E and 9H - Premium Economy! Comfy enough and shared the loos with those in Business!
Eight and a half hour flight whizzed by - the first meal was a bit plain - chicken in a sauce that had been cooked in the blander - but a glass or two of red solved the problem. Lynn & Ella smashed a couple of movies in, I managed to get a good couple of hours sleep. Nearer landing we were served a rather sketchy lunch - chickpea and humous something. Not my thing!
Landing seemed to be going ok - until a last minute overshoot because the plane taking off before us landing had a snag and aborted - huge surge of power and we lifted very quickly - now Lynn does not like taking off and landing at the best of times, but this got to her. Big shout out to the stewardess who saw her distress, and was immediately by her side, comforting. Was good to see - she made Lynn laugh and all as right with the world.
During the planning stages I was concerned about reports of it taking ages to get through security and passport control when entering the USA. I had taken some advice and downloaded the MPC App and completed the form while waiting to disembark. However, had real snags submitting it so finally gave up, with a view to try again once in the MPC App queue. However when we filed though and saw that the MPC queue was snaking around the barriers, and the ESTA queue was minimal, we went for the shorter queue. From standing to get my hand luggage out of the overhead bin, I was standing outside the concourse waiting for my taxi to the hotel within 35 minutes, and didn't even have to show my ID Card!
Overall:
Lounge: 9/10
Heathrow Security and Boarding: 10/10
Flight: 7/10
Chicago Security & Passport Control: 10/10
Airportr: 10/10
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