Day 1 - Christmas in the Air

Merry Christmas!!  (or Weihnacht auf Deutch!) 

Business Class DFW-LHR on a 777-300

We flew to London for our connection.  This should have been simple and easy, but fun fact…no.  Before we get too far, one of our employers has some strict rules about what we share on social media, and while it is pretty likely this isn’t what they have in mind…we won’t tempt fate.  So, let's just suffice to say that ticketing process did not go as it should have.  

In London, the tromp from T3 to T5 was the usual 30 minute trek, but we had time.  At the connections desk, we stopped to get our tickets sorted out as we’d need them to get through security (often 30-90 minutes in LHR).  That’s when we found out that Bill was never ticketed, and we had to call the original company as BA couldn’t do anything about it.  But the ladies there were very helpful letting Theresa use their phone, where she spent over 40 minutes trying to get Bill ticketed.  It was VERY frustrating!  But the BA staff was great, so taking that tone from here.

Christmas Lunch

Christmas drinks in LHR.

We go in security and to the North Lounge…which was closed, so hiked all the way back to the South Lounge.  It was a nice enough spot, and we settled in for about 45 minutes of a little food, drink, and rest.  

Finnair was operating our BA flights...so, once onboard Finnair, as it was mostly open, we moved up to the Exit Aisle and took up a triple to ourselves.  But things were getting long.  The cargo door didn’t close right, so wait for the bare bones maintenance team to come back and close it again.  But then the jet bridge would not pull away, so another wait.  Our 3:35 flight finally pushed back about 4:50—not horrible but it will make our arrival later.

LHR to ZRH

For service, they dropped a bag of corn nuts and a small water for everyone, tossing a bag of corn nuts behind the legs of the guy sleeping on the triple next to us...then came back for other drinks.  The flight attendant asked us if we wanted anything, and coffee sounded good.  She asked “One or two?”  Then Theresa noted “it’s not free, you have to pay!”  ☹

Apparently not everyone cares about some stamps.

A final (Swiss) Christmas lounge meal!

We arrived to an almost vacant airport in Zurich.  In fact when we made it to Immigration, we were the only two non-EU people so no line at all.  And magically, they didn’t seem to care about “damaging stamps”!!  We arrived at the shuttle bus for the hotel at 7:29, one minute before it was to depart.  This got us to the hotel in time to run upstairs, drop our bags, and get to the Exec Lounge while food and drinks were being served.  We enjoyed a Swiss beer and sort of a Christmas dinner, before heading back to the room to wrap up the night!