EI664 DUB-VIE 21 MAR 11 (ECONOMY)
Posted: 29 Mar 2011, 23:30The main difference with this flight was that it was out of Dublin instead of my beloved Cork and more importantly out of the new terminal 2 which only became fully operational at the end of January. My opinion of Dublin airport to date was that it was the pits so I was anxious to see what was on offer and to be honest this is the real reason for this trip report since my experience of Aer Lingus flights is that they are perfectly acceptable, predictable and consistent. Report on one and you report on them all - unless a passenger throws a spanner in the works or that weather diverts you to Luton in the middle of the night!
My dilemma was how to get to Dublin. In the past I had flown up but Aer Arann had withdrawn from that route and Ryanair now only had one flight a day and at times which did not suit either the departure or arrival time of my flights. Rail was an option but rail fares here are expensive and I would be travelling back on a Friday which generally means the trains are jointed. It would seem my only option was to drive to Dublin - something I hadn’t done in over two decades and quite frankly, scared the pants off me! The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to be the best option and as my inbound flight arrived at 22:45 it made sense to book a hotel and drive back the next day and so the Hilton Dublin Airport was booked with a special spring offer which included breakfast. A quick call to the hotel assured me that I could leave the car there while I was away at a much reduced cost than airport parking charges. Result!
My fears were unfounded. The drive to Dublin was uneventful thanks mainly to the fact that it is now motorway all the way from Cork city and even arriving in Dublin was less fraught than I had anticipated so I was soon at the Hilton and checking my car in for its stay there before taking the hotel shuttle over to the airport. Arriving in the airport grounds I was glad I had done that. I am very familiar with Dublin Airport since, when working I had regular meetings with colleagues from other parts of the country there, but with the completion of Terminal 2 the layout has changed completely and if I had driven there I probably would still be driving around in ever decreasing circles.
And so to Terminal 2. The best way I could describe it is that it could be the offspring of a union between Cork airport and T5 at LHR! It is obviously much more compact than T5 but had its airiness - and also its escalators and lifts! On the ground floor was the check-in area with one half for Aer Lingus as its main carrier in residence and the other side for all the other airlines using it which as far as I can gather are the US airlines and other long-haul such as Etihad. This area was deserted but was all tensa-ed up as was the EI area. I had done OLCI and so just collected my boarding pass from the kiosk and headed up to Departures. The next floor up was Arrivals which is unusual as in most airports this is on the ground floor. To one side was a food court with all the usual franchises such as Subway, Sbarro and God knows what as I only looked over towards them. There is also a newsagent’s shop and a Spar outlet which was doing a roaring trade in milk and bread from arriving passengers and which I needed to visit to pay my toll for the M50!
One floor further up was the departure area. Security was quiet and I was through in no time at all and into the main departure lounge which like all airports is more like a shopping mall with the usual offerings of the luggage store (who buys luggage airside?), a Jo Malone outlet, Dixons (with the iPad on sale at a special offer of €315 - well it was the first edition), various clothes shops, WH Smith, an Irish souvenir shop and the Duty Free shop which for some obscure reason in Dublin and Cork airports is called The Loop. There was an excellent bar called the Slaney Bar but why they called a bar in Dublin after a river in County Wexford is beyond me. However I was soon in possession of a T10&T and after that I didn’t care. The bar also had an excellent and reasonably priced bar menu which made me regret having lunch in the Hilton. I’ll know better next time.
Time for a further wander around during which I came across Flutes, a champagne bar no doubt commissioned when the Celtic Tiger was roaring instead of whimpering and also The Chocolate Lounge, purveyor of all kinds of chocolate both edible and drinkable. The centre Feature was a sushi bar style conveyor belt with half bottles of champagne, cupcakes, chocolates. It looked a fun place but I wondered how long this and the champagne lounge would last.
I was really rather impressed but then I looked up to the mezzanine floor and there lording over us all was....
...Burger King!
When the monitors showed we should go to the gate we followed the signs to the departure gates and found that we had to go downstairs again! Well I suppose we had to in order to make sure we were at the same level as the door of the plane. After all I had been gazing down at the aircraft from my lofty perch in T2.
After that, once we boarded the plane it became just another Aer Lingus flight. I had hoped to read on the flight but I was sat next to a “talker” - a lady slightly older than me who was going to Vienna for the opera and discoursed all the way over western Europe on the delights of Wagner and English literature. She was actually rather nice but still I was glad when we landed and we parted company
