Friday, January 25, 2019

Wednesday - Back at it, baby!


After a year hiatus, we are back at it baby!  And this time I will be traveling with not one, but TWO Mrs. Wilson's!  What a lucky girl I am!  Erin (Scott's wife) said she was in for this trip and we booked this summer before she could change her mind!  We have been really happy with the Cathay Pacific flight that goes from Boston to Hong Kong and then on to Ho Chi Minh, so we did that flight again.

Erin planned to fly from Tampa (where she lives) to Boston to meet us for the long flight.  She booked a Jetblue flight that left around 6pm and landed in Boston around 9pm and then our flight for Hong Kong left at 130am, plenty of time for her to get her bags from terminal C and make her way to terminal E.  However, late Tuesday morning found out that her flight was delayed, given the ice in Boston.  It had her flight taking off around 8pm, but no exact landing time.  After a call to JetBlue, they said they didn’t have the delay definite, so they couldn’t predict a landing time.  Let panic ensue!  Well, not exactly, but after many calls to both JetBlue and Cathay Pacific, she decided her best bet was to try and get standby for an earlier Jetblue flight that had already been delayed a few hours and was sold out.  Her pretty face, some tears, and lots of praying got her the last seat on that flight, and she landed at Logan around 7pm. 

When we did our online check in for our flight, it appeared we got lounge access in Boston.  One of the reasons we like the Cathay Pacific flight is we purchase premium economy, which gives us a little extra leg room, a smaller cabin (about 30 people) and, most importantly, the status of not being with the “peasants” aka, people sitting in economy.  (This is coming from people who could never afford business class, mind you).  We had a very nice check in lady who loved Dan, who came in the airport to help carry my bags (what a guy!!)  One of Erin’s friends works for a company who was getting rid of “expired” medical things – soaps, shampoos, toothbrushes, etc and was so kind to drop everything off so we could bring it to the kids.  In the past we have had some trouble with packing things for the kids (games, etc) as after arriving they have mysteriously disappeared from our bags!  I won’t say any more since I am posting this from Communist Vietnam, but we decided this year we would pack a box of all the items and I would cover it with contact paper and check it that way (this is very common to do on Asian flights).  However, the box was VERY heavy and a bit awkward to carry, so luckily Dan was able to carry it in for me!  As I was checking in, the women goes “are you related to a Mrs. Wilson?” and kind of looked over to her left, where I saw Mom reorganizing her bags for weight purposes, ha!  They are very particular about the weight of your carry on, so she was repacking her bags to pass inspection!  After getting that all taken care of, we made our way to the lounge where Erin was waiting for us.

We pulled out our phones as this was the only place it said lounge access, but the women at the front didn’t seem to know what to do, and didn’t seem to speak much English, so she came back with what appeared to be manager Juan.  Juan wanted to know where our paper passes where (that looked like a boarding pass) and said we had lounge access (we didn’t have this).  Now normally I think lounge access is only for business and first class, or if you have a status with the airline (we have none of these) but it really did say on our mobile boarding pass that we had access.  Juan didn’t seem too happy with us, and wasn’t really saying that we couldn’t enter, but really wanted a paper pass.  He was kind of fumbling around awkwardly, I think trying to come up with a nice way to say he wasn’t letting us in without a paper pass.  The Grady girls were having none of it, and weren’t leaving until our flight was boarding.  I think Mom said something like oh there is always new technology and how someone from our party (Erin) was already inside with her mobile pass, so poor Juan conceded, wrote our name on some paper, and in we went! 

It was so nice to see Erin (and know she wasn’t still waiting for her flight in Tampa) so we caught up with her for a bit, before she was next in line for a shower (oh lounge perks).  Otherwise, the lounge was nice to wait and relax, but I wouldn’t say it was anything super fancy.  They did have some snacks and drinks, so we helped ourselves to some of those before making our way to the gate.

Another perk of premium economy is you get to wait in a different line to board the plane (and not the huge long economy line) so that was very nice (and less stressful).  Erin and I both had window seats (which we like) and Mom an aisle (which she likes) in the middle section, so I asked the woman next to me if she would be willing to switch with mom (she would still have an aisle).  She seemed a little bit confused and not sure she wanted to switch, but thankfully she did so Mom and I could sit next to each other!  After Erin’s long day, she was PUMPED to find out that the seat next to her was empty!




Next stop, Hong Kong! 



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