Well, following what can best be described as a bristling crescendo of calamaties and drama over the last few days (best discussed over several beers and not here!), today is going remarkably well!
We were all washed, packed and weighed well in advance of our pickup and enjoyed a relatively painless ride up to Heathrow.
Our first time with Etihad which meant departing from Terminal 4. The last time I departed from T4, I ended up meeting Jo for the first time in Las Vegas!
The terminal is really quiet and after being fleeced at Cafe Nero, we make our way to the checkin, still no queue!
That was a lot of fun, apparently now All our baggage is classed as oversize as it does not look like a suitcase so we check in and drop our over sized bags at the nearby area that is dedicated to the handling of such monsters.
Security was a breeze, still no queues, I pass through un hindered. Unlike my carry on bag, apparently not everyone carries 20 AA batteries.
All sorted, we find ourselves in ‘Spoons’ and despite publishing details of our table number, we were not besiged with drinks bought for us by well wishers, so that’s an urban myth then.
😊😊
Exciting update, our gate has just been announced and despite T4 being the length of 10 football pitches, our gate is immediately opposite Spoons, what a result!
Another 20 mins and we can all pile on to the thing. It seems that a consequence of the booking debacle (not being touched on here, only happy news!), we now have extra legroom seats and nobody sat next to us. Let’s see how that pans out then…
London to Abu Dabi flight was great, oodles of leg room and the row to ourselves, in fact, the plane seemed about half full.
The service was good though not quite the standard of Emirates/Singapore. The food was really good but they were not as forthcoming with the drinks as I was hoping. Chardonnay in a paper Cup, that’s class!
Anyhow, great flight, easy transfer in AD and then on to the Manilla flight.
This time it’s a 777 and out feels fully loaded (we still have our row to ourselves and lots of leg room).
Just taxi-ing for takeoff whilst I dial back in to the next movie, 2001, I kid you not. Just spotted Leonard Rossiter in it, ooh Miss Jones!
A few movies later and after an all too brief sleep they’ve put the lights on and are serving breakfast. Jo has taken the vegan option as a means of delivering option is consistently pasta as this is the third meal and it’s pasta again! Our last meal at home was pasta too. Did we take the wrong flight? If the next stop Rome?
It’s not all bad news as I see that breakfast is being served from a fully laden drinks trolly, perhaps a G&T with my full English?
The second flight completed, landed on time, off quickly and bags in hand shortly after that.
What looked like some saudi vips boarded the flight before us and there was lots of brass and papperazi at Manila when we arrived. More on that of we find anything out.
We were met by our transfer driver and before long we were back at Buceo Anilao, Red Horse in hand and dinner on the table.
We had the usual short boat trip around the corner and we’re welcomed ashore by the friendly staff.
Back to the room, everything unpscked and currently in the process of passing out in readiness for our first door dive day in Anilao.
ZZZzzz…