From Cardiff to Heathrow

My brother, David, had offered to drive us to the airport, which makes the process of starting the holiday much more relaxing than a process of public transport or parking the car at the airport and traveling in from there.

So we left home at 6.20 and were at the Terminal by 8.20 - a really easy journey with no traffic problems along the way. Thanks David for the journey, I hope your trip home was equally good.

Having checked in online yesterday we just had to go to the desk to hand over our luggage, which took about 10 minutes. Then it was time to get to go through security, not the best part of any journey, but at least today neither I nor Drew made the machine beep. For many years Drew has managed to set them off, but not today.

One of the people in front of us had two cameras in her bag which caused the machine to stop and them having to get her to turn her bag out and check it manually, but for us it was no problem at all, apart from being behind her in the queue, so we were through security by 8.50.

Heathrow Terminal 3 has been upgraded since we were here last. Instead of walking through a section with shops on either side, now you have to walk through a large shopping area to get to the lounges or the gates. As someone who taught marketing I know why they have done this, getting people to walk past more and more material may get them to make impulse purchases. But for someone looking to get through the area it is a bit annoying as you have to avoid people who walk slowly to look or suddenly stop. But we managed to make our way through and by 9.00 a.m. we had arrived at the Service Air Lounge which we had booked through Lounge Pass. While booking a lounge seems like an unnecessary cost, for me it is the only way to start a holiday. Instead of the crowd and noise of the airport you get a quite relaxing environment - free wi-fi and food and drinks. In the days when we used to drink alcohol we would also make use of the free alcohol, but even the snacks, soft drink and coffee seems a great way to relax. Plus I get the chance to update the blog and Drew can use his iPad.

Drew at the airport lounge

We are leaving from gate on VS21 - we took an additional luxury by booking Premium Economy on the flights. Virgin's Premium Economy is a really nice experience, the once we tried BA's version we were less impressed, but I understand they are upgrading their service. 

So back to relaxing. Further updates from the other side of "the pond"