Tuesday 30th April 2024
An early morning wake up in the dark to make sure I can get myself ready to head to the airport early. Since the folks are unable to take me, it means I need to get a Cab/Uber/DiDi to the airport. DiDi’s pricing wins so that is what I ordered. I needed to make sure I was at the airport as early as possible as I had to make sure that the passports were linked for my trip. I knew about this ahead of time so wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time for the process to happen so being there right when check in opened would be the best idea.
I got dropped off after an easy journey, and when I got up to the check in desk they were all closed but the kiosks were open, but I knew they would not work for me. So I just waited because I needed to see an agent. I was suggested to use the kiosk multiple times and I just said “sorry I need to see an agent, it rejected me”, Which was not fully a lie because the app rejected me from checking in multiple times.
When check in opened I let someone else go ahead and when I got my turn, I apologized for what was about to happen to the person on the counter and handed over both passports and her face was like…. Dammit. But she was nice about it and It got checked in eventually. My bags were tagged with priority and the food suitcase got a fragile sticker.
Once I had my boarding pass in hand, I headed straight for security and immigration. I wanted to get through so I could take my meds and get some breakfast and there was huge warnings everywhere stating that lines are often considerable. I used my express pass and was dumped in right behind a large family (which I managed to get around by changing lanes) and security was a non event really. Outboud immigration was all done via egates, even for non passport holders, so that was new. But it worked pretty well and once I got through it was time to go through the giant duty free shop maze.
I made my way up to the Air New Zealand lounge where I scanned my boarding pass and headed in. Food was pretty good yet there was some strange things (like parsley on the fruit salad as a garnish, or beetroot bircher museli) but the lounge was not too crowded right then (that would change) and it was comfortable. I sat down to eat some breakfast (toast, banana, coffee) in the same lounge, practically eating the exact same meal that I ate 12 years ago almost to the day when moving to the USA, in the same lounge (not the exact same lounge as it has moved and been rebuilt, the new one is much nicer).
After a while I found my way through the terminal to the gate where I snapped some pictures and sat down to wait. It was a long wait as they took their time getting everyone sorted. We had to line up in the boarding zones and the process was quite confusing. But then I haven’t flown United in a while.
United Airlines – UA97
Brisbane to San Francisco
1030-0630
Boeing 787-9 (N29968)
Business Class (Seat 9L)
Boarding: 0945 (Gate 76)
Push Back: 1027
Take Off Roll: 1044 (Runway 19L)
Top of Descent: 0525
Touch Down: 0555 (Runway 28R)
Shut Down: 0600 (Gate G1)
My zone was called for boarding and when it was my turn I scanned my phone and headed through down the jet bridge. There was only one door being used at 2L and I stepped onboard, showed my boarding pass again and then stepped over to the right side of the plane and took my seat at 9L (after a few photos of course). It was time to get myself sorted and get everything situated. I sent my last few messages on my aussie phone and then switched to airplane mode before departure. It took a while for everyone to board, just like any other flight on an american airline and they eventually sealed up. PDB had been handed out (in plastic cups) of either water, sparkling wine, or a mimosa and this was when my mind started comparing against business classes on this trip.
We pushed back and started taxiing towards the 19 holding points. I was on the wrong side to see the terminal but it meant I had a clear view of things landing and taking off. We got all the way to the end of 19L and we did not have to hold long at all before it was our turn. No holding on the runway either, just lining up and then off we go, up into the air. A big left turn away from the city towards the gold coast (fantastic views down below) and then it was point out towards the ocean and off we go.
Climbing up and up to cruise the crew came around to make sure of orders and then eventually service would begin. They started off drink service with a cart, after serving all of the front cabin (which means it takes a while to get to our cabin) and we had a small ramekin of warm nuts served with it. After a while the rest of the meal was delivered with the appetizer (crab) a green salad, roll and my chosen meal, BBQ braised beef. The food wasn’t bad and tasted ok. It was nice enough for what I was expecting.
They cleared away my tray, brought me another drink and then I had to wait quite some time for dessert for two reasons. 1. It was brought out on the cart, and the cart had to go to all of the front cabin first. 2. There was two rounds of seat belt signs in the mean time and one of them required even the crew to sit down. Dessert was a choice of the traditional ice cream sundae (skipped it), Mango Cheesecake (yummm) and a cheese plate (pass). After all of that was eaten and waiting for the seat belt sign to come off again they cleaned it all away while I was trying to fight to get into the bathroom (three attempts being beaten to the punch and it was right next to my seat!).
I was part way through my second movie at this point, so grabbed down the pillow and doona and settled in to relax. I finished off the second movie and started working on the trip report after a while. I was just going to sit back and watch movies and relax before the next service. I honestly doubt I would be able to get any sleep as my body was still in Australian time and I figured arriving first thing in the morning it would be easier to just stay up on the other end. I could do an all nighter, haven’t done that in a short while!
As the flight went on I just spent most of my time watching movies and even managed to claim a few cookies as snacks at a couple of different times. The strange thing was as we got closer and closer to San Francisco, things in the back were waking up, not so much in the front. It was as if there was not enough crew for the whole plane. They did announce multiple times there was only 8 crew and maybe that was why service was so slow? We were getting awfully close to SFO and still nothing. Inside 90 minutes of arrival I just got myself ready by putting on my shoes etc but the crew were nowhere to be seen. Around an hour before arrival the crew started coming into our area, but all they did was clean up some stuff. 10 minutes later I got a hot towell and then 5 minutes after that I was asked what breakfast I would like. We were now well under an hour before arrival and probably 10-15 minutes from top of descent. Knowing that they will try and clear things away closer to arrival, I guess they wanted us to eat fast.
Low and behold 10 or so minutes after getting breakfast the captain came on and told us all that they were about to start descent and that they would turn on the seatbelt sign for the rest of the flight. Thankfully they held off for a few minutes before switching it on as the restrooms had a giant line the moment he made that announcement. Thankfully I had already gone!
We began our descent down into the airport. It was pretty dark so I couldn’t really tell much, but what I did eventually see was lots of lights of cars and buildings and roads. We were finally back over land, the first real chunk of land in 12 hours! I was back in North America, not yet home though.
We came in over the southern bay suburbs and came down on the right side of the dual runways. Being on the right side, I couldn’t see if it was a dual arrival. Once on the ground, we taxiied pretty fast over to the G gates and pulled straight into an open G1 where within around 60 seconds the door was open. No screwing around apparantly.
Once off the plane it was straight into a waiting immigration hall and we looked to be the first arrival of the day!! We were a good 30 minutes early and that meant things were easy on arrival. Global entry had me waiting nothing at all and when I presented myself to the waiting customs agent, he just asked if I had anything to declare, when I told him what he just said “welcome” and sent me on my way. Time from shut down at the gate to walking out of immigration… 6 minutes. I waited longer for my bags than I did for the rest of the process. Hell my walk from the G terminal through to the Delta check in took longer than I waited for bags or for immigration (not both combined though). By this time I was like a walking zombie, I have been awake for quite some time and still more time to come.
I got myself checked in at the Delta counters and then made my way over to Pre Check where I was told I should sign up for clear… no thanks. Welcome back to America, where security lines are giant, but if you know what you are doing and don’t have anything dangerous, you are not hassled and I was not with my bags. First time in a while! Through security and grabbing my bags and then off on a walk to the C gates which seem to be part of the older terminal and to wait for my flight. No lounge on this flight, even if I was flying a paid first class ticket (it was cheaper to buy a first class ticket and get the decent baggage then it would have been to pay for an economy ticket and pay for bags).
Once I got myself situated in the gate area, I found somewhere to type and just sat around and read for a while, trying to not fall asleep, that was the hard part of the morning. The inbound pulled in and I forgot to go over and ask the Delta pilots if they had any trading cards, would have to wait until I get onboard then.
Delta Air Lines – DL2321
San Francisco to Seattle-Tacoma
1000-1156
Airbus A220-300 (N316DU)
First Class (Seat 2A)
Boarding: 0920 (Gate C5)
Push Back: 1023
Take Off Roll: 1033 (Runway 1R)
Top of Descent: 1146
Touch Down: 1211 (Runway 16R)
Shut Down: 1225 (Gate B5)
Boarding was eventually called pretty calmly and after preboards and active duty military, first class was called. Everyone seemed to be sitting in the wrong seats onboard and that had to be sorted out. I took a moment to ask the pilots for a trading card, which they had. So the first of maybe not many to my collection (thanks to all the instagram reels and tiktoks everyone has been sending me about it).
Once I got situated in my seat, my correct seat mate joined me and then it was just a matter of getting situated with my stuff and waiting…. A LOT. Not sure why the flight was taking its time, but we ended up delaying our push back by a while. Some of it may have been traffic in the alley, but something else was up. The flight attendant came around to ask if anyone wanted PDB and we already had water at the seat and not a single person took him up on his offer, not even me.
He came around to confirm meal options that had been prebooked and also to get beverage orders. After this was done we eventually began to push back and it was a relatively fast taxi over to the 1s ready for departure. We did not even have to line up, we were first in line and off we went, they didn’t even need to stop to warm up the engines, they just gave it a quick spurt to make sure all good and then Take Off Power!
We climbed out over Oakland with a good view of San Francisco on my side of the plane. I could see two cruise ships in San Fran and I could also see Southwest flights departing out of Oakland below us. We continued our flight north over the California mountains north of San Francisco. The food arrived and I not only had a full glass of diet coke but also a full can as well…. Unopened. Strange.
I ate what was on the plate, not really needing food but I ate it anyway to keep my body functioning and fully confused. It had no idea what was really going on. I also managed to take the time to watch Expendables 4 while I was on the flight. This was available before the flight left, so I was almost 45 minutes into it before we even left the gate.
As we passed over Portland, we began our descent towards Seattle. I did not use the bathroom, which was the biggest mistake. There was a big line and people from economy kept coming forward to use the lav and making more of a line. We descended high over Tacoma and came into SeaTac from over the city. But this is where my mistake became evident, I was dying to use the bathroom. So much so that I was in pain trying to hold it.
The rest of the flight really became a blur while I spent most of it trying to figure out how not to pee my pants and to get to a bathroom asap. We had to hold on the taxiways to cross both 19C and 19L and when we pulled into the gate, I had to be a dick and ask to get up to the restroom. It was needed, I felt awful, but otherwise it would be bad for everyone! Once off the aircraft I headed for baggage claim and my bags came out fairly close to the start. This was good as my ride was moments away. I made it home pretty soon after getting my bags. About 24 hours from door to door….. I am now officially tired.