The car was dropped off at Dollar and with the help of a waiting skycap we made our way up to the bag drop (having been automatically checked in the week before by CO's system). There were a few people in the queue in front of us but the skycap just walked up to an empty terminal and said in a deep southern accent 'here you go sir this ones free'. Well, we weren't going to argue with him and none of the people in the queue looked as though they were going to either so we carried on.
Now if you read the previous report of our inbound trip you may recall the weight issue with our bags. Having checked the small print, it would seem that as we booked our tickets before April this year we were entitled to take 2 bags each free of charge up to 50lbs (after April it is $15 for the 1st bag and $25 for the second). So we bought a sports bag and filled it with dirty laundry etc. which meant we were able to check in all our subsequent purchases without penalty.
Bags dropped off we went up to security and while this was a little more organised that EWR on the way out the shoe thing seemed to apply to some people and not others which was a bit disconcerting but not as much as when my wife announced afterwards that she still had a bottle of water in her bag which she forgot she had and this had gone through an x-ray machine[:0].
Anyway we made our way onto the train and then down to the gate, picking up coffee, a Danish and McDonalds cheese, egg and ham croissants on the way as we weren't in the mood for breakfast earlier that morning and were starting to get peckish. Once loaded up we continued to the gate and sat down at some spare seats near by. It seemed quite busy as there were 3 flights all scheduled to leave within 20 minutes of each other and as we had about an hour to wait and were going to be the last of the 3 to leave we tried to make ourselves comfortable.
After eating I had a look around the terminal which it seems was in the process of being refurbished and there were lots of exposed wires, pipes and things but my attention was then drawn to the arriving 757 at our gate so decided to stand and watch it pull up and all the activity around it unfold. I have to say the operation was quite slick and I can see now how they get these things turned around within an hour or so.
The only mistake I spotted was the hard sided case that skidded across the tarmac from the baggage trolly as it sped away and just missed 2 other guys working on loading the plane before crashing to a stop against an empty trailer. They didn't seem happy but my thoughts were with the bag's owner. If he/she got it back they must have wondered how all those marks got on it.
Shortly after that there was a call for boarding to start so I went back to get my stuff together and within a few minutes our seats were called so we joined the queue. We were in 9a, b & c which was one seat back from the exit row and they seemed to have a little more space than the seats we had coming down. As we were close to the last people on board it wasn't long before the doors were closed and we pushed back a little early. A short taxi and no queue meant that we were in the air and on our way back to the Big Apple with an estimated arrival ahead of schedule.
As per the trip down the drinks round was underway about 20 minutes after take off followed shortly afterwards. This was the same as the food on the way down except the Hershey's chocolate was replaced buy a Kit Kat. Unfortunately the entertainment was the same as that on the way down too so I hooked my PSP out of my back and played some GTA.
While doing this I noticed that the seat belt sign had come on so asked my wife what was happening and she said there had been an announcement that we were going to hit bad weather as we made our decent. I have to say it was a little bumpy but I've been on plenty of flights that have been a lot worse. I guess the crew were just being cautious. The decent to EWR took a very similar route to VS17 the week before but obviously was in daylight so we took a few pictures of the Manhattan Skyline (there's a song there somewhere) as we came in to land which was a lot smoother than the week before as well.
A short taxi got us to the gate slightly ahead of schedule and as we were second back from the door we were off fairly quickly despite the short impatient woman sitting 2 rows back who was barging her way past others without apologies before the doors had even opened. Needless to say she didn't get passed us until well inside the terminal. A fairly lengthy walk to the baggage hall followed where we were met by our driver and then a 20 minute wait for bags to start appearing. Ours came up around 5 minutes after that so that I suppose wasn't too bad relatively speaking
Outside it was a bit overcast and quite cool so we were all glad we had brought jackets with us. We walked over to the car park, made ourselves comfortable in the back of the blacked out Suburban and enjoyed the trip into town via the Holland Tunnel and 4 days in New York to look forward to.
Miopyk[8D]
