Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Time to fly home

Unfortunately Noel was feeling not to great this morning what with his Bowel problems and so Jennifer had breakfast alone in the Hotel. We were staying in the Home2 Suites by Hilton in Downtown Fort Lauderdale, the hotel is fine but the close area was looking a bit rundown but then again there were a lot of new local development’s everywhere so perhaps its an improving area and right next door to the Brightside Railway train which goes from Miami to Orlando.



We packed up the car and had to drive to Miami Airport , well actually nearby to drop off the car and the Avis documents said there was a shuttle. We had plenty of time as we left the Hotel around 11.30 and the flight was not until 17.00 with check-in open at 13.00 and so we dawdled until we got to the address for the car drop off which was clearly wrong as it was in the middle of an industrial estate? when talking to a guy walking down the street he said NO there is a big car rental Centre just off Airport where all cars go for return so we turned on Google on and off we went. We finally located the centre and boy is it large with about 10/15 car rental companies offices lining  the inside of this huge building and thousands of cars in the car park. So we dropped off the car and took the Train, yes Airport train from the centre to the terminals and checked in with no one waiting in the queue.



TSA Security was very quiet and took about five minutes and then we basically hung around , Jennifer getting some food whilst I was still off my food until it was time to leave.  We boarded about 1615 and would have left on time had not two other aircraft waiting for gates blocking the roadway but never mind with strong tail winds we would arrive early in London and in fact we were 35 minutes early. We waited for a short time for the Taxi driver to arrive and the journey home we had to leave the M25 due chaos and went thro all the side roads until finally back in West Byfleet. As a bi-note there were two guys sitting in front of us obviously involved with Norse Air and when I got home I checked them out and  it was the CEO and Chairman and also the COO. Had I been in a better shape I would have chatted them up. Norse air flight was fine, the only issue which affected Jennifer only was it became obvious that the ovens were not working property as the food was only warm and not hot.

Would certainly fly Norse Atlantic again, we paid just about £ 900 for the two of us back from Miami in their Super Economy seats with lots of leg room and good pitch compared to paying BA and VS more than double this amount. Well that’s it for the moment  and pending our next ventures but on the cruise we covered a total of 4618 Nautical miles or 5314 miles. See Yah