Friday, August 24, 2018

A good overnight sleep and then off we go

We had planned the night before our flight at the Gatwick Hilton to enable to arrive at check-in at around 07.40 is, the flight was at 09.50 but we wanted to get breakfast in the Departure lounge and buy Noel some sandwiches for the flight just in case he could not eat the food. So feeling relaxed we headed over and was able to check in pretty quickly which is great and being on Norwegian Premium class means the ques are very short and so ten minutes after arriving at check-in and going through the list of questions, like did we pack our own bags or are we taking any presents etc we were through in the departure lounge.
We had a light breakfast and then bought the required baguettes  and the flight left a few minutes early even after waiting at the runway end for an extra ten minutes due to a bird strike on an incoming aircraft but the flight was uneventful , Noel did watch his food intake and so arrived at destination a bit hungry, but that was to be expected. As expected their were huge queues for immigration as many international; flights had arrived at a similar time, why they don't spread them out I don't know?? anyway we arrived at the back of the immigration queue in a corridor as the main hall was very full where we waited about 10/15 minutes. I forgot to mention that the aircraft was on a stand away from the terminal and they had a set of stairs controlled by a remote and they guy working it was either new or did not know how it worked and it took him about fifteen minutes to get in position so we could go downstairs and on to the buses.
At the back of a queue with Noel on his walking stick a security guy said, Look sir why don't you go this way for people walking and other difficulties and I thought great except when we got to the area where the officers were there quite a fewer people there including we think immigrants whilst they kept on giving privilege to flight crew etc . Finally on lady saw me struggling and we got ushered through and then to collect the bags. Finally we made it out of the terminal and found the shuttle bus to the Hotel and we checked in. The Hotel is under some refurbishment so we found to our dismay that many of the bedroom windows had been covered with a opaque plastic sheeting to stop the workers looking in the bedrooms. However outside our room was only a car park and a main road.
At Dukes Fish Restaurant

We had a nice of cup of tea and rest on the comfortable beds and then showered and took the shuttle bus over to the large (nee Huge)MOLL n USA)
Jennifer at Nail Salon
and walked around a while then had a fish dinner at a recommended restaurant by trip adviser which was very good and working hard to comply with Noels food requests. After dinner we went around the building a found a nail bar as Jennifer wanted hers done and so Noel Joined her for a 20 minute session.
Then back to the Hotel around 20.00 and by 20.30 we were in bed and slept not badly considering the eight hour time change..
Plenty of room on Norwegian Premium

So that was our first day and we both thought that the Norwegian Premier seats are well worth it, if you want free booze its there and the food was not to bad either with a choice of three main meals
Ah thank heavens for a large comfortable bed.