Thursday, July 29, 2010

Sunburnt Ginga

So yesterday Derwood got sunburnt. That's great now the git is redder than ever.
Anyhow
What a day.
We got up reasonably early any jumped on a bus back to Santa Monica. After feed and a short look around we went back to the bus stop. The first bus was route 3. Being a total idiot I said "we don't need that rubbish, we'll get a rapid 3. That misses more stops. No sooner had the door shut that I remembered there was no mid day R3 service. So we sat for 30 mins waiting for the next slow route 3 bus. Idiot! Fortunately we had heaps of time.
Back to the hotel. Pick up bags then out for another route 3 bus. We had to run to that one but we just made it.
At the airport the que was about 6 days long. There was no way around it so we just had to wait. After that there was security then we could enjoy the pleasures of LAX. All in all one of the worlds most unpleasant airport experiences.
When you check in for a southwest flight you get a que number. This puts you in the starters gate. When the gun goes off you go find whatever seat you can from your position. Luckily I had decided earlier that morning to check in using my iPhone so we didn't have to sit with the bags. In actual fact we did quite well and I must say I was pleasantly surprised with Southwest. We came prepared with movies on our ipads and some food. Soutwest provided a very comfortable seat with excellent legroom. A lot more than our own domestic offering. A very comfortable flight in fact.
The flight had us go via Vegas with a 1 hour odd turn around.
On the break Derwood went up and spoke with the pilots. I was going to go myself but as I was about to I noticed some of the remaining Pax rifling through the other seat pockets so I decided to look after our gear instead so unfortunately never really got a chance to chat. Never mind. Derwood said they were great guys. The skipper even gave us 3 vouchers each for food or drink so that was very nice of him.
One thing we found most amusing was that for a long time on the turn the skipper stood at the door and chatted with his crew. Smiling and laughing. All their staff seemed to have a really great attitude to their work and it certainly appeared that they enjoyed it.
On arrival at Milwaukee we jumped in a shuttle to the hotel. In the shuttle we chatted with another captain who had paxed up from Texas to start work the next morning. A nice chap.
Back at the hotel, now 1am it was time for sleep.
Quite a big day really but everyone has been super nice and apart from LAX which is nothing more than nasty it was quite an enjoyable day I thought.

Note to self. Check in early at LAX for any domestic flight.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

2 comments:

  1. Just added a hit counter for ya. LAX sucks YEP, agree wholeheartedly. Are you flying back with SW too? amazing they had good leg room and no food or movies.... Funny. Xx

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