On Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to the Frankton Pharmacy for our pre-departure covid tests. We’d been isolating for two weeks prior to this, so were confident we’d be fine. There was still that sliver of anticipation though, especially since I’d gotten a cold during our isolation.
The pre-departure test is a RAT test and it costs $49 each. They took us into a back room and watched while we performed the test on ourselves. Then we had to wait 15 minutes for a negative result, then another 15 minutes for the paper work. Thankfully all was good, and headed back home to get ready for departure.
Sister Jenny picked us up at 12.30, and we were at the airport by 2pm, six hours before our flight was due to depart. But, we’d rather be sitting around at the airport than at home twiddling our thumbs in a constant state of apprehension.
We arrived at the check-in counter and there were no other customers there, just us and one lady waiting to check us in. We’d been unable to check-in online due to the complex list of things we had to do before flying.
The lady said there was a problem with my British passport, there was no ESTA on it. An ESTA is an online visa for the USA. Mike definitely did this about a month ago, so we were worried why it wasn’t showing up. We showed her my NZ passport, and this did have an ESTA on it, although we thought the two passports were linked. No problem though, I’d just have to fly into the US with my kiwi passport and into the UK on my British one. We’ll see if it causes problems later on. I hope not.
We arrived at the lounge and settled into our seats with a view of the planes and the runway. It’s my first time flying without drinking alcohol so I was apprehensive as to how I would go. I went to the drinks bar in the lounge and there were loads of alcoholic beverages. Beer, wine, champagne, spirits, a few soft drinks. But I just wanted water. I hunted high and low, but no bottled water. Then I saw a queue of people and wondered what was so exciting to be queuing up for.
I followed the long line to the source of their interest and can you guess what it was? Coffee? No, the coffee counter was in a different place. Cocktails? No, those were served at the coffee place. You’ll probably never guess so I’m just going to tell you. They were lining up for the… wait for it … haha, I can feel your anticipation… It was…. You are not going to believe this… the water fountain! Unbelievable, hundreds of bottles of alcohol and one poxy water fountain to fill up from!
Anyway, I grabbed some egg sandwiches and a glass of water, grateful I wasn’t paying for the lounge experience (we got a free lounge pass due to having silver status).
While we waited for our flight, we watched a series we’ve been following on Prime, took a time lapse of the planes landing and taking off, had some venison stew and a yummy coffee. But nobody really wants to hear about that stuff.
We headed off to the gate, way to early, but the lounge had emptied out so we thought we better. As well as that, we’re travelling with carry-on luggage only, so the plane would have no problem leaving without us. I doubt they’d even bother to call our names. Anyway, we arrived at the gate and there were hundreds of people all crammed into one spot, waiting to board. Feeling claustropobic, I headed straight past them and waited at an adjacent gate that was empty. We were both a bit apprehensive about flying post pandemic.
Eventually we got on board, and all was good. We managed to get some sleep, and I had no urge to drink, so that was good. We landed at LA airport, and the immigration queue was the best I’d seen it in ages. We only had two hours to catch our connecting flight, and in the past we’ve spent two hours just getting through immigration. But Air New Zealand surely wouldn’t schedule a flight with an impossible connection time.
The man on immigration looked serious and without humour. I asked him to check my British passport for an esta, but he took my NZ passport and allowed me entry on that one. I said I needed to fly to the UK on my British passport and with a stern look on his face he said that I should get rid of one of my passports. He must’ve seen the look of horror on my face and he smiled and told me he was just joking. And with that, he went from scary man in immigration, to kind funny man you might like to take home to your mother.
We cleared immigration and floundered about trying to find out where to go. We were so glad we’d travelled with carry-on baggage only, otherwise we’d have had to go to baggage claim to collect our bags, then check them through again.
There was a reasonable queue through security before we got a chance to pile all our stuff onto the conveyer belt. All was good until Mike couldn’t find his bum bag. My immediate thought was someone had taken it by mistake. It took a while to track down a security staff member. I remembered bum-bags are called fanny packs in the US but I couldn’t bring myself to use that word, knowing it has a different meaning in NZ. He looked at me blankly when I said bum-bag, so I said it, the F word and he knew exactly what I was talking about.
He went off to look for our fanny pack and after a while he brought us two fanny packs, neither of which belonged to us. After a bit of waiting around, Mike finally got it back. All good.
LA airport was buzzing. Shops were open, people eating in restaurants, nobody wearing masks. It was a stark contrast to Auckland airport where all the shops were closed and the only people we saw were crowded at their gates.
Our next task was to find our gate number. Most airports have screens dotted around the place with the departure times and gates, but could we find them? No. And we looked everywhere! We flagged down an official who pointed up. We both looked in the direction he was pointing and there it was, a giant screen about 50 feet wide. Who would’ve thought to look up there!
We found our gate and sat in a quiet spot away from all the people. I checked our boarding passes to see if we had a window seat. Upon closer inspection, we had no seat numbers, just the letters GTE. I assumed this meant our seat would be allocated at the gate, but they hadn’t mentioned this at Auckland airport where our boarding passes were issued.
I went up to the gate and waited in line. While I was waiting, a sign glared at me. It basically said that they overbook flights and were saying you would get compensation if you gave up your seat. This was an ominous sign.
I handed over my boarding passes to the lady at the gate. She said, “You got through early, most people from your flight get held up through immigration and don’t make this flight.”
I was thanking the fact we had carry on luggage for our speedy check through process while she checked her computer. Then she said, “Premium economy is full. They overbook the flights as normally your flight doesn’t make it through.” Thanks Air New Zealand for telling us this.
“Ok, so what happens now.”
“I’ll check and see if anyone is volunteering their seats.”
I tapped my fingers on the counter as she made a phone call. She hung up. “No one is answering, I’ll try again in a minute.”
She continued to tap on her screen. “I can see there are some seats which have not yet been allocated. I’ll just see if it’s anyone from your flight. At this stage it’s a matter of first-in-first-served.”
Again, I thanked our foresight of bringing carry-on only. She picked up the phone again and this time someone answered and I listened to the one-sided conversation. I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath when she hung up and took two boarding passes off the printer. Are those for us? I asked myself.
They were. As she handed us the boarding passes, she said we got the last two seats. Phew.
The Virgin atlantic flight was ok, but nowhere near as good as AirNZ. Thankfully it was a shorter flight, but neither of us managed to sleep very well.
We landed at Heathrow airport at 9:40am half an hour early, had a speedy trip through the smart gates at Heathrow, and made our way through the underground maze to the central bus station. Our bus was booked for 12:45pm, but we were at the bus stop by 10.30am and were thankfully able to get the 11am bus. It took 3 hours to get to Bournemouth, but was a stress free way to travel and we’ll probably do this again in future.
Then it was just a 20 minute walk to Nick and Ems place. They were all our at Brownsea island for the day, so we let ourselves in, had a shower, then promptly fell asleep exhausted.
That’s it, time for bed, see you tomorrow!
