April 30, 2012

April 30, 2012

Today we leave for South Africa. We left for the airport around 6pm. We use a limo service that Evelyn found on Deal of the Day, so it was less costly then normal. We are flying Virgin Atlantic Airlines. We are booked in Upper Class and are now seating in the New Zealand lounge waiting to board. We have a four hour layover in London until our flight to Johansburg. We are then flying to George which is on the Garden Route north west of Cape Town, where we are going to a safari camp for three days. We will then drive to Cape Town for one night and then board the Ocean Princess for our 28-day cruise to London.

The lounge is very nice. They have a wide selection of beverages: soft drinks, coffees, beer, wine and hard liquer, all free. There is a buffet with sandwich meats and a number of salads. Generally speaking the lounges of foreign carriers are much nicer than American flag carriers. The decor, food and drink and the general atmosphere are mor upscale.

We boarded our flight about 8:30pm. The each seat in Upper Class is separate and enclosed. It is very comfortable, better than the business class on United or the premium economy on Air New Zealand. I had eaten in the lounge so I skipped dinner and just had a drink and cheese plate. I watched a movie and the about 11:30pm I had them made up the bed. The seat kind of flips over and with the "foot stool" is flat and about 7 feet long. They put a pad on and you have a great quilt and a pillow. I slept until about 5am LA time. During the night I woke a couple of time and drink from my water bottle. You get dehydrated flying at 30 thousand feet. Evelyn was across the aisle and after a small sleeping pill generally slept well and long enough to try to make up for the time change. The flight time was about 10 1/2 hours but we also lost another 8. And landed after "breakfast" at about 3:30 in the afternoon.


We are transiting thought so we did not need to clear immigrations and were given a "fast pass" to get thought security. Last year when we were in London they inspected my carry on and they did it again this time. They empty everything and checked for explosives. I hope this doesn't happen when we leave from here on the way home.

We are waiting in the Virgin Atlantic Lounge until our flight to Joburg. The forgin airlines have much better lounges then domestic airlines. Very comfortable and the service is outstanding. This one is no different. We have about a three hour wait.


Sent from my iPad

Hal