DAY 11: Saturday 19 May 2012 - Atlanta, Georgia to United Kingdom
Our last day in Atlanta and we were up at 7am for an 8am breakfast - we were on the 9.30am Atlanta Shuttle to the airport.
The Shuttle arrived five minutes late but the other group doing the same tour had nine folks waiting so they got on with their luggage - well, nine people's luggage but only seven people! Eek! Another ten minutes later and a second Shuttle arrived. We got on that, with the luggageless couple. The ride to the airport was uneventful and we had plenty of time anyway. Our first flight was domestic to Newark, then connecting to Birmingham, UK.
Once at the airport, we checked the bags - the weight limit is usually 50lbs and Di had managed 50.5lbs! Heehee, as a Premier Gold person with United Airlines she gets 70lbs anyway! Phew. Through security we headed to the United Club. Cheese and biscuits, a hot chocolate and some carrot sticks and it was time to go to the gate.
We were flying to Newark on an Embraer, but it was full, so no seat for me! Boo! They allowed a standby guy on to the flight, but then the regular ticket-holder turned up so he had to get off again - what a shame!
Flight time was just 1 hour 51 minutes which was fine as we had a four hour connection. We actually arrived twenty minutes early, so dipped into Duty Free before heading the the Newark United Club. Boy it was busy! I spotted a seat but an American woman practically knocked me down to get to it first - you can tell we were in New Jersey. No Southern gentility here!
We had another four hours of cheese and biscuits, red wine, Coke, shortbread and even an apple - and free Wi-Fi! Woohoo! Dave was happy, because they had the Champions League Final on the TV - apparently Chelsea beat Bayern Munich on penalties. Yawn.
At 6pm we went down to the gate. Passports checked, we picked up our Duty Free and boarded early, which is great for overhead space, but bad for waiting. I started watching the George Clooney film The Descendants, but they suddenly turned off the entertainment system as it wasn't working for some (but clearly it was working for others!) They advised they couldn't turn it back on until we were in the air. Sigh. Terrific. Oh well, we'd started crawling towards the runway, but we were creeping slowly along the taxi-way (not unusual at Newark, to be fair). I couldn't read my Kindle as it's an electronic item and those aren't allowed until ten thousand feet and I'd read the United Hemisphere magazine, the Duty Free magazine and even the evacuation instructions. I'd only got the sick bag left to read! Eventually, we were in the air!
