Sometimes we had our doubts it would happen, but the day to start on our trip finally arrived.
It was nice that we did not have a really early morning departure and could sleep in just a little. It was especially nice for me because I had stayed up late last night watching Clemson paly North Carolina for the ACC Championship in football. Congratulation to my team, Clemson, for winning the championship.
We only had to do a couple of adjustments to the luggage, mainly adding our toiletries and a couple of other small items like sunscreen that we had totally forgotten to pack. In the end, both bags weighed in at about 47.5 pounds each, a little over our goal of 45 pounds each that we had set earlier in the week. We felt good about all we had packed, and just accepted the final weight.
Sophie Wants To Go Too!
After getting ready and taking the suitcases downstairs, it was close to the time to leave for the airport. Our neighbor, Elizabeth, had agreed to take us to the airport this morning along with two of her youngest children, Maggie and George. Mike, her husband, was volunteering to cook breakfast this morning for some of the troops at nearby Ft. Jackson, so it was up to Elizabeth to drive their large Mercedes Sprinter. It was almost like getting a ride in an airport Shuttle Bus!!
We had planned to leave our house around 9:45 AM, and we were on our way on schedule. Since it was a Sunday morning, there was not much traffic on the road and we made it to the airport a little quicker than anticipated.
Elizabeth dropped us off at the Delta departure area and we went inside to check in. There were only a few people ahead of us and within about 10 minutes, we were checked in and our bags were dropped off at the luggage security screening area.
We headed for the TSA Security screening line and again, there were only a few people ahead of us. We got through security screening without any extreme cavity checks (haha), and put all of our items back on, belts, shoes, watches, sunglasses, etc.
We headed out to the gate and then we waited for boarding. We had the second to lowest boarding priority, thank you Viking Air, so almost everyone was on the plane before our Main Group 3 was called to board. Luckily, we still had some storage space in the overhead bins for our backpacks. We settled into our seats for the just under 60 minute flight to Atlanta. The flight was smooth and we departed and arrived on time.
Almost To JFK Airport in New York
Once we deplaned in Atlanta, we had to go over one concourse to get to the gate for our next flight to New York (JFK Airport) We had over 90 minutes to wait before our next flight left, and it was no issue getting to the gate on time. Once again, we were in Main Group 3, and boarding almost cane to a standstill before we even got called. Apparently, the overhead baggage space was already full and the agents were having to gate check all the remaining carry on bags larger than would fit under the seat in front of the passenger. We did not want to wait on all of that commotion, so we went ahead and got in the line early and boarded with Group 2.
This flight was crowded and many people were wearing masks, so we opted to wear ours on this fight, even though it was not required by the airlines There were a few people coughing and sneezing, but not terribly so. We just opted to be cautious since we were just starting off on our vacation.
Shuttle Bus at JFK Airport
This flight also departed on time and was fairly smooth until we got closer to New York, where it was mostly cloudy and overcast. That caused a little bit of turbulence, but hardly worth mentioning. This flight was a few minutes early arriving.
We had to take a shuttle over to the gate for international flights since the people mover was being updated and was under construction. There was no issue with time, we had a little over 3 hours before the next flight to Barcelona departed.
Eating Dinner at JFK Airport Before Our Flight
Once in the international terminal, we looked for a place to get a small bite to eat. Dinner was included with the flight, but we just did not need to wait that long to eat. The flight was not scheduled to leave until 8:05 PM, and dinner on the plane would probably not get to us for at least an hour afterward.
We stopped by a Buffalo Wild Wings and split their double burger, and a large glass of draft beet. The food was good, but it was New York Airport Pricey and was slow to be served. Luckily we had the extra time.
Our Airplane For The Transatlantic Flight
We headed back to our gate after the dinner and waited for our group to board. This time we had upgraded our seats using our Delta miles to Comfort + and were given much better boarding priority. We settled in and waited for the flight to depart. We were about 20 minutes late leaving due to loading some freight onto the plane.
The Delta Comfort + section we were in for this flight was not completely full. It was nice that we were able to board earlier than what we had done for the first two legs of the flight, that comes with the upgrade. The seats were a little larger and we had more legroom, but not as nice as the Premium Class seats that were in the section right ahead of us and similar to the class we flew on United last year to Switzerland.
We had the two seats next to the window so we did not have to be disturbed or disturb anyone else during the flight if we needed to head to the restroom or stretch our legs. There are fewer and fewer planes with this seat layout remaining in service, and was one of the reasons we picked this particular flight.
Of course, we had seatback entertainment and it worked really well and there were lots of choices for movies to watch. I picked Top Gun Maverick as my first movie of choice and Stephanie picked Where The Crawdads Sing since she had just recently finished reading the book and had really liked it. Neither of us had seen the newer Top Gun movie yet either.
Our Airplane Dinner – Yummy!
About an hour into the flight, dinner was served. We both had the chicken choice (versus pasta) and it was good, but not great. There were collard greens included as a vegetable, which seemed odd for airplane food. Neither of us are “greens” fans. There was a seasoned rice side, as well as some type of Mediterranean Salad with chick peas, peppers and mozzarella cheese and also bocconcini. For dessert, there was a small lemon square. We both had red wine with dinner and asked about their supply of either Seagram’s VO or Canadian Club for after dinner drinks. They had a single mini bottle of Canadian Club that they gave us now and were going to look for another to bring another later after dinner with our glass of ice and mixer.
Nightcap Before Retiring
We had one more glass of red wine after dinner and they brought us the other mini bottle of Canadian Club, but since we were not ready to have that, we did not get those drinks mixed.
After our movies were over, we debated on weather to have the Canadian Club drinks since they were no longer serving anything. Since we had to use the restroom anyway, I went all the way to the back of the plane and used the restroom there and then got two classes of ice and a Ginger Ale for our drinks. We had those as we settled in to try and get some sleep. Although the flight from JFK to Barcelona was 7.5 hours long, we were already almost three hour into the flight and had not slept any.
We turned off the entertainment system since there was a lot of light from the screens and tried to get some sleep, which is always a challenge on these flights. It was a little bumpy at times and that made it harder, but sleep finally came for both of us.
I looked at my watch, which I had already set to Barcelona time and thought it said 6:45 AM and I was disappointed that I had maybe only slept for about an hour. However, I then saw it really said 8:45 AM and I knew they were waking us up at around 9:00 AM for breakfast service anyway, about an hour before we were scheduled to land in Barcelona at 10:00 AM. I knew this was the opportunity for us to use the restrooms before everyone else was awake, and the aisles were blocked with the breakfast service carts, so we got up and headed to the restrooms. We had actually gotten close to three hours of restless sleep, about normal for a flight of this duration.
By the time I was heading back to my seat, they were already serving the heated breakfast sandwiches and I had to move out of the aisle for the service cart to pass by. Luckily, I got to my seat before the drink cart got that far, which was larger and manned by two flight attendants, and harder to pass by.
Preparing to Land in Barcelona
Breakfast was hardly over before the Captain made his announcement that we needed to prepare for landing. We packed away our Bose Headsets and all the other items we had gotten out for the flight and about twenty minutes later, we landed in Barcelona, about 15 minutes early.
Overall, it had been a good flight, it was a little bumpy at times, but many times they did not even put the seat belt sign on since it was so minor.
We deplaned and walked a fairly long distance to Passport Control. Of course, there was a much larger line for passport screening fir USA passport holders, the passengers with European Union passports breezed right through there separate processing area. There was no automated facial recognition devices in our area, it was all manual passport processing, but was moving fairly quickly. It helped that we were closer to the front of the plane we we had gotten off, so we were ahead of most of the other passengers on our flight. Passport checking and stamping only took about 15 minutes and then we headed to baggage claim and waited about 15 more minutes for our luggage to appear. We collected our baggage, used the restrooms, and then headed out to find our shuttle bus into Barcelona called Aerobus.
This ends the post for today, we will continue in the next post titled Arrival In Barcelona