Introduction
Seattle to Frankfurt
Frankfurt Fun Times
Lufthansa First Class Terminal
Frankfurt to Newark
Newark to Seattle
Conclusion
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I stepped off that plane in Newark with a sad face, knowing that the fun was over. I was about to possibly go through hell. At the end of the jet bridge was a Lufthansa staff member waiting for all F guests. She apologized that she couldn’t help us expedite US immigration (no one ever can) but said she would have our bags waiting for us when we get through . I let her know that I might be a while, as I knew my process through immigration would require immediate Secondary processing. She said that she would wait for me. Now that is service!

Immigration turned out to be a non event barely a question asked and barely an extra 5 minutes added, all of which was spent me sitting on a chair pre thinking of answers to questions that might happen. I even had a very happy quick joke with one of the CBP agents about baking on my way towards baggage claim. That experience turned out to be way better than expected. My flight was late arriving (only about 15 minutes, nothing horrible) and I had a 3 hour connection. Through all of it I expected immigration to take around an hour, thankfully with secondary and waiting originally, and waiting in line for customs (and declaring a bag full of candy) took around 45 minutes. I had a good 2 hours till departure, plenty of time to connect right? WRONG! This is Newark!

I wanted a United boarding pass on United cardstock (what… stop judging me already!) and so I made a quick pit stop at airline desks after dropping my bag off at Connections. They issued me one with no problem at all and then it was off to terminal C. The airline desk staff pointed me in the right direction and that is the way I went. Sadly I don’t think they were aware that it was all broken, and that is not a good thing. Although the terminals are quite close at Newark (although not SeaTac close) they run a train (on the landside) between them. Sadly this train was broken somewhere and there was a mass amount of people waiting. No announcements nothing at all. It was bedlam. What they didn’t tell you was that yes you could walk between terminals. I waited a good 25 minutes before I knew that was even possible. At that point, it was time to haul ass, and that is what I did. I moved as quickly and as efficiently as possible between the two terminals and I was sweating (it was almost 90 out).

I made it to the C terminal with expected waits at security of “less than 10 minutes”. I had to quickly trash my water bottle and grab out my boarding pass (as I had stashed while i waited for the Air Train) and while I was doing that I thought I had lost part of my stuff. By the time I cleared security I actually found it and about 15 minutes after entering the security line, I was on the other side. This gave me just over 25 minutes till the apparent boarding time of my flight to get to the far side of the terminal. A LONG way off. I hauled butt to the United Club hoping I could jump into a shower room and clean up a bit, sadly no chance as it was a 15-20 minute wait for a shower and I had less than that till boarding. I resounded to smell and look like crap.

I grabbed a banana (for sustenance) and hot footed it to the gate area to get there before boarding started. By the time I got up there, the gate had no seats at all (literally there was no seats at this gate and the gate area adjacent was full (either from the flight from that gate or mine). I tried to see if the boarding time was realistic (in the hopes that I could maybe find somewhere to sit close enough) but as usual, this is United and it comes with mandatory surliness. I found a table close by to drop my stuff and kind of get myself sorted so that I could quickly email Heidi to let her know all was ok (since I had not done that yet). When it got close to boarding time, I went and joined the gate lice who were already clamoring for positions in the wrong boarding areas. What is it with American’s doing that! The only thing is we just waited and waited and waited some more. I wasn’t surprised at this, like I said this is United.

United Airlines – UA1160
Newark to Seattle Tacoma (EWR-SEA)
1900-2222
Boeing 737-900ER (N64809)
First Class – Seat 2F

Boarding: 1835 (Gate 131)
Push Back: 1913
Take off Roll: 1928 (Runway 22R)
Top of Descent: 2147
Touch Down: 2208 (Runway 16R)
Shut Down: 2217 (Gate A11)

Boarding was called almost 20 minutes later than the time noted and it was blamed on “cleaning the aircraft” yet by that time, the plane had been on the ground for quite some time. Me thinks that someone was telling porky pies! They called every conceivable kind of person before allowing First Class to board. By now I was just wanting to sit down and relax, maybe put my feet up a little. When they got to Zone 1 for boarding, I was happy to jump onboard.

I got myself sorted in my seat and didn’t spend a whole lot of time taking too many photos. This is United remember so it is not all THAT special. The flight boarded and the seat next to me remained empty, right up until the point they paged someone for a “new seat assignment”. Yep F was going out full tonight… sadly. Having a spare seat next to me would have been nice as I could have spread out a little more.

The pushback was delayed due to “the printer in the cockpit not working” (or at least that is the reason given by the flight deck) so we missed our push window and had to wait, I enjoyed watching the ground crew working seeing the slight differences that happens between airlines. When wef did push, we taxied out fairly quickly all the way out to the runway adjacent to the one we landed on earlier.

After only having to wait for 1 or 2 other planes, we lept into the air and settled in for a fight to the west coast. I wanted to try and finish my book for the first part of the flight and I accomplished that quite a bit, until my new seatmate wanted to chat. It wasn’t all bad (found out he used to live in the same suburb of sydney that my grandparents did) and his talking kept me awake and entertained for a while.

I had not flown Transcon UA F ever before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect and when the starter salad came out I thought to myself “where is the salmon”. Woops! Didn’t expect a course by course meal. But the good thing with that was the fact that they had ICE CREAM!! I ate away while chatting and once the meal was complete (and ice cream bowl licked) I switched over to working on the trip report some more while trying not to fall asleep.

Thankfully the WiFi was working as I had to buy a couple of bucks worth to organise my ride home since we were getting in early apparently. Way to schedule pad united. When the internet ran out (I spent most of my WiFi time goofing off) I went back to the trip report and also tried hard to keep my eyes open. They were just so heavy and tired and once I had caught up on the trip report, well my eyes just kept on shutting.

I didn’t sleep, but I know I zoned out to relaxation mode and soon enough we were on descent to Seattle. I couldn’t see squat outside since it was dark and it looked like the weather had rolled in. Add in the fact that my eyes were so heavy and tired and I just didn’t care. I thought we were approaching from the South but when we touched down on the right runway I didn’t see anything out there on my side, turns out we had come in from the North. Soooo observant there Malcolm.

We touched down and taxied over to the A Gates where we would pull into A11 and end our trip for the night. I was hoping that the priority bag tags would have me out quickly (in the past it has been a hit or a miss) and I moved my way over to the baggage claim. Since we were meant to get in early (But apparently landed on time instead) I had reached out to a friend to pick me up since Heidi was working (and actually finished late) and as soon as I had my bag, he came down to grab me. Homeward bound to Heidi & my bed only after being awake 27 hours, way to end a trip!