Our alarm at 4.30 am was a rude awakening for our flight to Fort Lauderdale for the start of this trip.
The cases were packed and downstairs, the carry-ons were ready and all that remained was an early morning cup of tea to wake us up.
Our cruise through the Panama Canal started in Fort Lauderdale and would take us to Aruba, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and finally San Francisco and then onto Monterey.
Day 1 Gatwick to Fort Lauderdale 9th October
To Gatwick and our plane
One of the many good things about flying to Fort Lauderdale on BA was the option to take a small bag (or camera bag) onto the plane as well as the usual carry-on bag. We’d checked in the day before when the flight initally opened and were in the middle of World Traveller with a window seat.
The taxi from Yateley’s Jets Travel came just before 5.30 am. Today we were in a 2 litre Jaguar XF. The boot easily took our two cases and the large carry-ons. The M3 and M25 were both clear and we were at Gatwick South in 45 minutes and headed straight to the bag drop. After our E-tickets and passports had been checked we went to the bag drop machines. This was our first experience of a machine for bag drop. After scanning our E-tickets we had bag labels printed and we placed the two cases on the belt – job done.
The next machine was at the security gates to get air side. Again we scanned our E-tickets and were then at the mercy of airport security. Despite emptying pockets I was selected for an extra full body scan. I was told repeatedly to read the notice as I was too busy taking my belt off to read the fine print of having to remove shoes! Finally I held everyone up even more and read the notice. Then I had a body search with a metal detector -twice. It would have been helpful if there had been a place to get dressed again and gather belongings in a civilised way.
My concerns are that as passengers are being hassled by security all your belongings are sitting behind you, unseen, on the belt and would be easy pickings for a thief.
After having to zig=-zag through duty-free to get into the main hall we settled on Pret a Manger for breakfast. Now we had to wait til 8.13 am for details of our gate to be posted.
The walk to Gate 25 took a while and we joined all the other passengers at the gate. Once the priority passengers had boarded we could join the queue to get onto the plane. As I wlaked down the jetway I grabbed an image of the Boeing 777 from the jetway window.
The downside of two bags per passenger was that the overhead lockers soon filled and one of our bags was moved five rows back. The pitch of the seats gave us lots of leg room and best of all space to put our second carry-on bags under the seats in front.
I was sitting looking out at the starboard wing and I was surprised to see clouds of smoke as the engine was fired up. After a few minutes the smoke cleared and the plane taxied out to join the queue for take off.
Flight to Fort Lauderdale
The first order of the day was to check which films were available. I settled on ‘Churchill’. Even though it was only just after 10 am we had G&Ts plus a glass of water.
Lunch was was a couple of pork sausages in onion sauce. The meal didn’t have cheese and biscuits – another cost cutting exercise by BA? The pasta salad and starter were accompanied by a small bottle of Chilean Red – all good.
My next film was ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 2’. I started watching ‘Wonder Woman’ but fell asleep – no reflection on the film as I was just catching up my missed sleep. I switched to ‘Their Finest Hour’ and did manage to stay awake all through this film.
We were served Coronation Chicken sandwiches and then it was just an hour to go.
The plane did get bouts of turbulence but the 60+ mph tailwind did knock 20 minutes off the flight time. Out of the window I watched as we passed over Freeport which could clearly be seen below.
Then we saw the Florida coast line and the plane turned South towards our Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport (FLL).
