LHR-TLV
20/08/09
The day started at the ungodly hour of 4am for our transit to T5 for our flight to Tel Aviv. Wed originally booked on the afternoon flight a week later but BA contacted us to say that our flight had been cancelled (it seems that the afternoon flight had been cancelled on most days) and that we were rebooked onto the earlier flight, departing 08:55am. The early flight didnt work for us during the Bank Holiday weekend as we had other commitments so we decided to move the flight to the week before. This was done very simply and quickly, much to my surprise.
So there we were, rushing around the house in the dark, packing the last of our things and heading off to Heathrow by moonlight.
We arrived about an hour later and parked the car in the Q Park facility just across from T5. Fortunately the T5 bus was there waiting when we arrived, and the driver said that hed wait for us while we sorted out the car. Perfect. The last thing you want at 5.30am is to be stood around in the cold waiting for the shuttle.
We arrived at check-in just before 6am. I headed over to the Club World counters to check in, wed already checked in online and just needed to drop our bags and collect boarding passes. A BA staffer stopped us as we were mid stride and motioned us over to the self check-in machines. I thanked her and said that as Club passengers we were checking in at the desk (as we were allowed to). She retorted that we needed to check in at the machines and that it was so easy, and she would show us how. I said that I knew how easy it was, Id used the machines before but frankly, I prefer to check in with a human being. Again she stopped us and insisted we had to check in at the machine and that we could get all we needed here. I asked her if the machine would give me a proper card boarding pass, or one of those flimsy bits of receipt paper that they actually spit out. Sensing we were going to be difficult she resigned and said why dont you check in over at the desk. We thanked her and headed over to our original destination. Geez, I know they want to reduce the number of check-in desks but this really annoyed me. I want to be seen by a human and at 6:00am there really isnt an issue, T5 was dead. The lady who stopped us was accompanied by another, both trying to sway passengers to the self check in terminals. If only theyd get behind a desk ...
We sidled up to a check-in desk and an efficient but sans-personality agent printed off our boarding passes and relieved us of our luggage. Richard noticed that Keith Flint from the Prodigy was stood at the desk next to us. He looks quite different in the flesh to what I had imagined, much smaller stature wise.
We headed over to security to notice that Fast Track wasnt yet open so we were ushered into the main line that seemed to take forever. BA do insist on only two at a time going up and after repeatedly being barked at to remove belts and shoes I pondered whether they actually chose individuals who were devoid of manners and courtesy to staff the area. It really can be an unpleasant experience to go through security, and while I agree that it ought to be about safety first, it really wouldnt hurt to treat people humanely. Typically, as we got to the belts Fast Track opened.
I passed through and grabbed my things and noticed Richards laptop bag get pulled off for secondary screening. We assumed he was being picked for the spot check as they emptied his quite full bag of its contents. Then an offending Swiss army knife was pulled out from the depths of the bag and held aloft. Richard had forgotten it was in his bag, it was one of the more expensive versions and definitely something he didnt want destroyed. The agent processing us wasnt too sympathetic, explaining that wed need to either lose it (i.e; have it put in the garbage) or check a bag and then be escorted by staff as the knife was a weapon. Both Richard and I are carrying corporate laptops so checking a bag wasnt an option so she called over the supervisor to discuss options, who was even less sympathetic and simply stated that wed brought a disallowed item in and that we ought to know the rules. This presented an interesting situation as this was a genuine mistake, and BAA really couldnt give a damn about assisting in any way at all. Richard asked if there was a box he could have to put the knife in to have it checked and the gentleman dealing with pretty much said no. After a few minutes of discussion we agreed that wed ask BA to assist and the knife was carried off to the security office.
At this stage I headed off to the North lounge which Richard paid a visit to BA, acquired a bag and stuffed it full of BA lounge magazines so that the bag would meet the minimum weight (finally, finding a use for all of those Polo and Golf magazines!) and returned to the security office to retrieve the knife and be escorted to check the bag. This must have taken at least half an hour but at least it was possible to do something.
Richard joined me in the lounge as I was finishing off a cup of tea and a few croissants with some cheese. The breakfast buffet was out, lots of sausage and bacon rolls, tomato and mushroom rolls, toast, cheese, sliced meats, porridge and the salad bar. I checked some email and we decided to pop down to Elemis to enquire about a treatment. We both opted for the spot on massage (the one seated in a proper folding masseuse chair) and managed to get treatments within the hour. A little more breakfast and it was time to head down.
Elemis had a small number of guests departing and arriving. I filled in the obligatory spa form and waited for my treatment. Treatments are only 15 minutes long and mine consisted of some serious pummelling of the knots in my back, scalp massage and some hot stone treatment. I would say that in total the treatment lasted about 12 minutes. On seeing Richard afterwards he thinks his only lasted around 8 minutes. Virgin do win here with regards to the length of some of the treatments you can have, although it does seem easier to get treatments on the day at Elemis.
After our treatments we headed on the train over to the satellite terminal as our flight was departing from there. A quick 5 minute transit and we then noticed that they had called the flight so we decided to board early.
Priority boarding was clearly set up, though we did have to squeeze past the crowd that naturally seems to block the entrance. A quick check of our documents and we were walking up the airbridge and onto our waiting B777.
We had selected 13J&K onboard, one of the pairs of seats along the window of the 777. The NGCW seat is on this route, which is very welcoming. I believe TLV, CAI and SSH are all classed as long haul destinations and have Club World onboard as opposed to Club Europe. Admittedly Im not a fan on the 777 with its 2x4x2 configuration in Club, but for a 4 hour-something flight I wasnt too riled. We got comfy, broke out the papers and waited for the masses to board. The flight did seem quite full, I guess because the afternoon flight had been cancelled most days they were combining passengers onto one flight.
Eventually the doors were locked and we were ready to push back. We were slightly behind schedule, and sat on the runway for a bit of time but soon we were on our way. The Captain announced our flight time as 4 hours 35 minutes.
Once we were airborne the crew came round with hot towels, amenity kits and menus. Todays offerings were as follows:
Brunch
Starters
Chilled fruit juice
Energising fruit smoothie of bananas and berries
Fresh fruit
Smoked salon with cream cheese
Yoghurt with pecan, strawberry granola and fruit compote
Bakery
A selection of warm breads and pastries
Main
Scrambled eggs, lamb noisette, lamb cutlet, mushrooms, tomato and bubble and squeak
Duck confit with thyme jus, green beans and cocotte potatoes
Scottish sea trout and prawns with a lemon, thyme and white bean cassoulet
Cass Titcombes squash, chard, board bean and sage pie
Chilled main course of Caesar salad with chicken and anchovy fillets
Wines
White
Zevenwacht Sauvignon Blanc 2008
Pikes Traditional Riesling 2007
Sin Palabras Albarino 2007, Rias Baixas.
Rully 1er Cru Les Gresigny 2007
Red
Dragon Tree Cape Red 2006
Glaetzer Wallace Shiraz Grenache 2006, Barossa Valley
Thelema Shiraz 2006, Stellenbosch
Chateuu Beaumont 2004, Haut-Medoc
I didnt really like many of the choices on the menu, but, I have to say that for a flight little over 4 hours I thought the range of options was very good.
The crew came to take our orders. After much deliberation I went for the pie. Richard didnt fancy any of the options so chose to wait until the Club Kitchen had opened to get something from there.
The starter trays came round and i was asked what I wanted. I really didnt feel too hungry so said that Id just have a smoothie. The granola yoghurt came with the tray and that was really good so I polished that off. I was offered breads and pastries but really couldnt manage any.
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My tray was quickly tidied away and my pie arrived, accompanied by a glass of the Albarino, which was a little too sweet for me. The pie was very nice, quite peppery, and really filled me up. There were no puddings to choose from, but there were some chocolates on the tray.
[img]http://www.v-flyer.com/photos/3942.jpg[/img]
That little lot was more than enough to sate me for the flight, so I reclined my seat and had a look through the IFE. This was one of the non-AVOD aircraft (half of the 777 fleet have AVOD the rest do not). I was just at the end of the film cycle so watched the end of Star Trek while waiting for them to cycle around again.
Richard had been keeping busy reading the FT and drinking several cups of tea and by this stage the Club Kitchen was open. There is a reduced selection on the shorter flights which disappointed him. I can understand it, but then I do think that this must provide a cheaper source of catering? Richard came back with a wrap and some bags of crisps and got back into reading the FT.
I started to feel tired, after all it had been a long day so decided to recline even more and try to get some rest. I then became aware of how noisy the flight actually was. I am not sure if its the difference between the upstairs on the 744 and the main cabin, or if it was the high number of children, but I found it hard to doze off. At one point I wanted to throttle a small child and its parents as the little darling had been given a rattle, and of course it was rattling it. This was so irritating and I cant help but wonder how the parents didnt see this as the wrong toy to give the child in such an enclosed space. The child soon tired of the rattle and started calling its sibling, Olivia. I know this as for the next hour all I could hear was a continuous mumbling of livi-a, livi-a for what seemed like eternity.
As I lay there trying to doze the Captain came on and announced 40 minutes to landing. The flight had gone extremely quick. I could see the dusty mountains coming into view below and 20 minutes later the seat belt sign went on. Seats were returned to upright and the mass of newspapers and other rubbish stowed away as we came in to land at Ben Gurion airport. We were down on the ground nice and quickly, taxi past a number of American carriers (mixed in with what I assume are military jets) and waited for an aircraft to vacate our gate. The Captain asked us to stay seated and belted for another 5 minutes, but clearly the message wasnt for all passengers as even in my line of sight I could see passengers getting up and retrieving bags from the overhead, anticipating that rush to disembark. The crew had to get up a couple of times and practically force people to sit down. Why do so many people think that the rule doesnt apply to them?
Just as the Captain said, 5 minutes later we were at the gate and disembarking. We felt the rush of warm air as we left the plane, reminding me that wed foolishly decided to come in August of all months, but hey ho. Various security personnel were stood in the terminal entrance and we were stopped for a quick chat. The lady asked to see our passports and asked the reason for our visit. We said holiday and she asked if we had family here (to which we said no) and she asked of our plans. We said that we had no solid plans, just a beach break in Tel Aviv. She commented that it was a long way to come for a beach trip and Richard interjected that we didnt have particularly good weather or beaches in the UK. She gave us back our documents and wished us a nice stay.
We headed off to immigration and received the coveted Israeli visa stamp. No going to Saudi, Syria, Libya, etc, for us till we renew our passports as these countries do not recognise Israel as a country and will not allow you to enter the country with an Israeli visa stamp in your passport (Dubai do not follow this rule and will allow you into the UAE). I believe you can ask for your stamp to be on a separate piece of paper if you wish, as per Cuba, but Im happy to have the stamp.
We waited for the bags to arrive, which were off quite quickly. The first 2 bags belonged to a BA EXEC Gold so hopefully that was an indication of priority boarding. The knife in its bag was out shortly after our case, so huge success there!
We headed out of the airport and into a cab, headed for the Sheraton hotel.
Overall, the flight was fine. There wasnt anything stand out about it, but for a four hour flight it was perfectly good, especially as we had the new Club seat so lying down for a bit of a rest was a welcome option, as was the extensive menu. Richard has disappointed with the food choices and the reduced Club Kitchen though. In summary, given that this flight cost 506 return in the Club sale, earning full miles and long haul tier points, Id say this was a bargain. Tel Aviv and Cairo regularly feature in the sales and at cheap prices like these make them an attractive option for a getaway.
Tel Aviv itself has been a real eye opener. Personally, I would say that I do feel completely safe here. There is increased security with guards (often armed) at the entrances to large malls and important buildings who ask to see photo ID before allowing you admittance, so if you do come here you should carry photo ID such as your passport at all times. There is also a great presence of Israels young forces here. Israel has mandatory service for all young people (men and women) after finishing school. They do two years active service and you see many of them in their fatigues getting the bus back home. It was interesting seeing a young woman, younger than myself stood waiting for the bus with an AK-47 alike slung across her shoulder. You cant forget or escape how real the situation is in Israel, the country has had a war going since its birth in 1948 but I would not let these issues put you off visiting what is a very vibrant city. The beaches are lovely and stretch for miles and there are endless coffee shops and restaurants and bars to enjoy. Tel Aviv port is full of restaurants, bars and shops, open till late by the sea. Id probably compare it with a less polished Dubai in terms of a beach break. Just remember that Shabbat occurs from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Shabbat (Saturday) is the Jewish day of rest and most of the shops are closed from early Friday and the trains are not running. Its a great day to relax on the beach as most tourist foced restaurants are open but it can be a hindrance to the visitor if you are not prepared for it. The more traditional places like Jaffa look like a ghost town late Friday.
Ill definitely be coming back, probably to Jerusalem as we have not had the opportunity to visit the old city on this visit, but for sun, sea, sand and fresh Olives, tahini, hoummous and pitta at every meal, Tel Aviv is a tempting retreat.
