BA838 LHR-DUB 11 JUL 15 (CE)

[mitchja]

After a vert pleasant time in VS Revivals I headed to T5 for my final leg of my ex-DUB flights. It's just as easy for me to use the final leg and then fly DUB>MAN on EI (it actually worked out cheaper doing this rather than short-checking my bags to LHR and then flying BA LHR>MAN)

No bags to check-in so I headed straight to the North security and the fast-track lane. Not much of a queue. Headed to the North BA lounge and as usual I struggled to find a seat, though after around 15mins the lounge did empty somewhat.

BA DUB flights depart from gates at the south end of the terminal. Still no idea if you can use the South BA lounge or not?

Grabbed a bowl of soup and some bread along with a coffee which was very nice.

No announcements made in the lounge but the BA app does push you updates (gate number and 'gate now open' messages etc).

Left the lounge and headed to the gate. Priority boarding was in operation and working well. I was in seat 2A this time (when check-ing in using the BA app, there was no option to select a seat). Standard Club Europe seat with the middle seat blocked again.

Service during the flight was good, if a little too 'forced' with the person looking after the CE cabin been super polite and super friendly to the point where it really did feel forced.

The food was horrible, some cold spicy chicken salad thing which wasn't good

A short 55min flight to DUB. The cabin was cleared for our final approach into T1. Immigration was empty and on showing my passport I was just waved though and so I headed down to baggage reclaim. I was slightly concerned about seeing my bag as the VS agent at SFO had only hand-written a transfer tag on my bag...but no need to be as my bag soon appeared.

Got a pulled by customs and had my bags searched. She seems to be looking for Viagra more than anything as she kept asking me if I'd purchased any in the US and I kept telling her no. She gently slapped my wrist for bringing in 400 cigs instead of 200 (VS only sell my brand in 400's and VS duty free prices are way way cheaper than the airport prices)

Anyway, she was OK with everything and let me go so I found the Holiday Inn Express shuttle bus stop (zone 14 in the coach park area) and before long I was heading to the hotel.

All in all an OK flight.

Thank you for the TR. Glad the flight was ok in spite of the food !

Were you allowed to keep your 400 cigarettes ? !

[mitchja]

Yes, she let me keep them

Thanks for the TR!

Shame you didn't like the food, have heard some good comments about that salad from other people.

You can use any Galleries Club in T5, so North or South, or even T5B if you fancy a walk back to T5A if you have an A gate departure. South can be quieter do to location and T5B can be dead at times! (One of the times I've flown out of T5, North and South were packed, but T5B had less than 10 people in it!)

[mitchja]

You can use any Galleries Club in T5, so North or South, or even T5B if you fancy a walk back to T5A if you have an A gate departure. South can be quieter do to location and T5B can be dead at times! (One of the times I've flown out of T5, North and South were packed, but T5B had less than 10 people in it!)

Thanks for that Hamster, I shall remember that for next time I've never been in T5B yet.

Since I got back, several people have already asked me if it's worth the hassle doing the DUB thing - yes it is and I'd not hesitate to do the same thing again