Monday Musings - I Think I'm Going To Buy The Business Class Seats!

 

Monday Musings - I Think I'm Going To Buy The Business Class Seats!

After much encouragement from our older daughter, some of the comments left here, and most importantly, my husband(!), I am thiiiis close to pulling the trigger on Business Class tickets for our September long haul flight to London Heathrow, a first time event. Not on the return, though, which I'll explain more below, but yes, pretty sure I'm going to book the outgoing flights at Business Club level.

In doing my research, the difference was initially shocking - First Class one way at $13,000 a ticket!!! - but when I scrolled down to Business Class, it was significantly less, about 3x the cost of Economy, but just a fraction of the First Class price displayed.

Our outgoing trip will be a red eye, as the majority of flights to Europe from the USA are. We depart at approximately 4PM our time, making for a nice, leisurely morning at home before heading out. Arrival into London after the ten hour flight is in the late morning, perfect as well for a nice partial day spent on the move before heading to bed, to eventually sleep. Flights that go West to East result in it being hard for us to get to sleep, then hard to wake up, so I plan our time for the first few days accordingly - late evening events work fine, early morning events do not!

We'd also get expedited security line check thru, access to airline's lounge, early boarding, onboard luggage, seat assignments, elevated food, and premium liquor. Oh, and most important of all - larger, more cushioned seats, and seats that, oh my, lay flat. I can't imagine what it will be like to sleep on a plane laying flat, but I am excited to try!

On the return flight home out of Scotland, there are no direct flights into Los Angeles, so we'll fly to New York first, then New York to Los Angeles, each leg about five hours flying. In that any attempt at sleep will be broken up by the NYC transfer, I'm fine with economy for the trip home.

Now back home, I spent the bulk of my morning yesterday clearing out emails, plus booking event after event. I deferred all event emails until back in the correct time zone - trying to figure out how to place an event onto my Google calendar when in a different time zone is beyond my skill level! 

Otherwise, the rest of the weekend was spent unpacking, doing laundry, menu planning, and grocery shopping. We also walked a good number of miles, and met up with friends and family. Today, I have a dental appointment first thing, which while not looking forward to, am also not dreading - it's 'just' a re-filling of an old cavity, a piece of cake compared to some of the other dental procedures I've endured over pretty much my entire adult-teeth life. So, the rest of Monday will be great by default once that's done.

In looking ahead to 2027, because I always do future trip planning when on or newly returned from a trip, I have my eye on a tour of Australia that includes the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef, followed by a quick flight over to New Zealand to continue the tour. We traveled to Sydney some years back, enjoying a few days there before getting on a cruise ship headed to New Zealand. It will be interesting to return to both countries and see them by land this time, rather than by sea. The tour I'm eyeing in particular ends in Auckland, New Zealand, where we'll spend time on our own post-tour before heading for home.

The week ahead is filled with my usual activities of volunteering, walks and lunch with girlfriends, ukulele practice, a long hike & lunch with my spouse, our annual termite inspection (fingers crossed!), beers out with my spouse for St. Patrick's Day, and a stop by my favorite shoe store to use a $15 reward on a pair of black wedge sandals for summer.

Oh, and a trip report regarding how my weight held on our recent cruise. It held! While I did not lose those last three pounds as hoped (I blame the delicious breakfast granola, and the outdoor pizza station where I ate lunch on each sea day), I also did not gain any, and returned home considerably stronger after consistently walking four or five miles each sea day around the deck, and climbing hundreds of flights of stairs over the course of our journey - other than the day we disembarked the ship with our luggage in tow, we did not use the elevators one single time, yeah us!

So, great news overall, in that I read the average cruiser gains six pounds. Oof!