This is a report of my end-of-exams holiday to the United Kingdom and Ireland in May, 2006. It’s the very first trip report that I’ve done, so any comments or criticisms would be welcome. I had been in Cincinnati on exchange for my final semester at law school, so I figured that it was easier and cheaper for me to cross the Atlantic from the USA than it would be to go home to New Zealand and come again some other time. The trip also fulfilled the requirement that I leave the country within 30 days of my visa expiring, which happened on May 5th.

I found a reasonable return fare on Continental.com - $700 return, all up. Given that my Uncle lives in Somerset, Bristol was convenient for him to pick me up, and as I have a cousin in Limerick, I decided to return to the States from Shannon. Thus my itinerary would take me from Cincinnati via Newark to Bristol, over land to Scotland, Glasgow Prestwick to Shannon on Ryanair, and home again to Cincinnati from Shannon, again via Newark.

May 17th came around, and after finishing and handing in my last take-home exam, and finishing off an essay that was also due, I took the bus downtown and then transferred to the TANK service to the airport. It’s not the greatest method of transportation, but when I can get to the airport for $2.25, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than taking a taxi! It was my first time to CVG (when I arrived in January I flew into Dayton), and Terminal 3 is really quite impressive! I went up the escalator to the Continental check-in desks; I had tried to check in online, but they needed to check my passport at the airport. Having picked up my boarding cards and checking my bag, I went down to security, which was quick and efficient, with lots of lines operating and people giving helpful instructions (e.g. keep hold of your boarding pass and identification, put everything else through the scanning machine – easy to get it wrong when you’re not used to it). After checking out concourse B and marveling at all the Delta aircraft, I went back to Concourse A and found Gate 105.

CVG-EWR
Flight: CO3037 (operated by Express Jet Airlines for Continental Express)
ERJ 145, didn’t get the registration
Seat: 6C
STD: 5.45pm
ATD: 6.25pm
STA: 7.52pm
ATA: 8.35pm

This flight was delayed due to a late inbound aircraft. It was 100% full. We left the gate at 6.25pm, but then went to a remote part of the airfield and sat and waited for half and hour! The captain told us that we had been given a “release into airspace” time of 7.07pm, and that we’d probably be arriving at about 9pm. This was slightly worrying for me, as I only had a connection time of 63 minutes – my flight to Bristol was due to leave at 8.55pm. But I decided not to worry too much, as the flight out of Newark was likely to be delayed as well – at least, that’s what I told myself.


Our plane at the gate at CVG.

We took off on runway 27, and then made a series of turns to the right to get us on a heading for Newark. I think the cruising altitude was about 36,000 feet – I remember thinking it was quite high. I was most impressed with the service on the flight – we got two drink services plus a snack basket which had salami, cheese spread with crackers, a twix bar and a trail mix. For only a 90 minute domestic flight, I thought that was quite good. But then I haven’t done many domestic flights in the States! We must have made good time, as we landed in Newark at 8.35pm, on what must have been runway 4, but not sure if it was left or right – it was getting dark, and I was unfamiliar with the airport. But we made it into gate 107A in the Continental terminal (terminal C). I rushed off the plane as quickly as I could, and hurried to find gate 96, which was at the very end of the next “finger” over. As I had hoped, the flight was delayed, and was scheduled to depart at 9.20pm. They hadn’t started boarding or anything, so I breathed a sigh of relief, and went to find a US-VISIT station to check out. I did the old left finger, right finger, look at the camera business, and then took some bad photos of the 752 that was waiting to take us to Bristol:




EWR-BRS
Flight: CO76
B757-200, didn’t get the registration (it didn’t have wingtips  
Seat: 26F
STD: 8.55pm
ATD: 9.32pm
STA: 8.55am
ATA: 8.38am

The flight to Newark had been my second ever flight on an ERJ, and this flight was going to be my second ever flight on a 757. Upon boarding, the plane felt so much more spacious than the little regional jet! I found my way to seat 26F, which was a window seat, just behind the wing. The flight was probably about 90% full, but I was lucky and had an empty middle seat beside me. This was just as well, as the girl in the aisle had a LOT of hand luggage, including a large make-up bag and enough reading material to last several flights! Then again, she was going away for a several month tour of Europe, so I guess it was justifiable! The cabin crew were very friendly, and made us laugh by announcing that “this is flight 76 with service to Bristol. If Bristol is not in your travel plans, now would be a very good time to come forward, and make yourself known to the cabin crew!” We taxied out to runway 4 (I think), and watched a BA 772 depart, followed by a CO regional jet, and then we lined up and accelerated down the runway, lifting off into the night sky. We flew over parts of New York – I don’t really know the geography, so I’m not sure which parts exactly. But I did recognize Yankee Stadium, where the Yankees were playing the Rangers. I tried to take some photos, but I don’t think my little camera was up to such a task!


Would you beleive New York?

Our altitude was about 34,000 feet I think. The crew did a really good job, and seemed relaxed and efficient. I had the chicken with rice and a tomato sauce, which wasn’t too bad. (I must say that it was the breakfast croissant later on in the flight that I really appreciated – after a long flight with little sleep, a warm croissant with jam, fresh fruit, and a coffee was just perfect.) The movie was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I decided to watch, as I hadn’t seen it before. It was quite a good movie, but the problem with being in row 26 is that there’s a screen almost directly above your head, which you can’t watch as the colors are all distorted from that angle, so you have to watch the next screen along, which appears very small! But I think I got the gist of what was going on. I attempted to sleep for a bit, which wasn’t very successful – I just couldn’t get comfortable, no matter how many pillows or blankets I tried using – the empty middle seat was handy for finding extras! But it was only a 6 hour flight, so it wasn’t too bad. The sun gradually came up, but it was fairly cloudy. So when we were approaching the UK, I really don’t know the route we took. I caught snatches of land here and there, but I don’t really know where we were – they weren’t playing the air show map at that point. Our downwind leg towards Bristol was to the South of the city, and so we banked left in order to line up with runway 27.


The green fields of England!




We arrived early, thanks to our strong tail wind across the Atlantic. We pulled in next to an Easyjet 737-700, G-EZJN:



Bristol airport is small and simple – no airbridges, there were stairs down to customs, signs pointing “all other passports” to go where another sign said “EU passports only”, which confused quite a few of us, who ended up in the wrong queue. There were only two desks at the passport control, so it took quite a while for everyone to be processed, especially as the majority of the flight did not have EU passports. But we made it through eventually, and then had to wait for the bags to come through. Customs consisted of two men in uniform waiving us through – no questions or even declaration cards. Quite different from what you get in NZ, let me tell you! My Uncle was there to meet me, and by 9.30 we were on the road to Wells, where I would stay the next four days.


Me being goofy at Stonehenge (it had just closed for the day, hence the over the fence shot!)



Me at the Roman Baths in Bath



The main street of Wells - a lovely little "city"


Then it was off to London for a couple of days (which wasn’t really enough – guess I’ll have to start saving again!)


View from the London Eye



The sky above Buckingham Palace - it was fun watching all the heavies fly over on their way to Heathrow!

And then the train to York for a night, and then another train (Virgin Trains – had no idea they were in the train business) to Edinburgh for another night.

On Friday the 26th, I caught an 8am train from Edinburgh Waverly to Glasgow Queen Street, from where I took the free shuttle to Glasgow Central in order to catch a train to Prestwick station and airport. And it was there that I encountered the experience that is Ryanair. And what an experience! Firstly, the check in counters were busy with three flights being checked in at the same time – our flight to Shannon, along with one to Oslo, and another to Brussels. There were only two counters for each flight, so the queues extended right back to the end wall of the terminal. But gradually I made it to the front, and checked in my bag (having paid my 2.50 extra online for the privilege), and got my boarding pass. Noticed everything was done by hand – no computers or seat assignments here! Then I went through security, which was another slow, winding queue, as there was only one security checkpoint operating. I bought a sausage roll at the café (I’d been longing for one of those for months – you Americans don’t know what you’re missing!), and then sat back amidst the football lads who were chugging back the pints at the bar at 11am, the school kids who were off to Brussels as part of some sort of team, and the screaming infants with mothers who were trying not to look embarrassed.

The Brussels flight was called first, and I watched how people all gathered around the departure area as soon as someone even thought about making an announcement over the PA. They boarded by boarding pass sequence number, but it didn’t look like anyone was checking to make sure only the low numbers went through first. Indeed, there was only about 30 seconds between calling numbers 1-89 and 90-189, so I think they realized that everyone would just be lining up anyway, and that no-one really cared what sequence number they were. About 5 minutes after they had all boarded, our flight went through the same process. I made sure I wasn’t too far back in the queue, even though my number was 132. Boarding was by steps from the tarmac, from both the rear and forward doors of the plane, which was a first for me. I decided to board from the rear door for the novelty! Gave me a good view of the registration too – EI-DHH. With wingtips! Yay!

PIK-SNN
Flight: FR732
B737-800, EI-DHH
Seat: 23F
STD: 11.55am
ATD: 12.02pm
STA: 1.05pm
ATA: 12.53pm

I managed to get a window seat, in the lovely Ryanair seats that have no seat pocket (which would just require cleaning, after all), and so has the safety info printed on the seat back in front of you. Delightful shade of yellow too – very perky!



This flight was probably the noisiest I have ever been on, and I don’t mean the engines. There were at least three screaming babies, and the football lads were trying to outdo them! People were shouting at their mates from a few rows away, given the lack of assigned seating. People would get up and have long conversations standing in the aisle. It was a real “festival atmosphere” – ie bloody noisy! Don’t try quietly reading a newspaper on this flight! Luckily, it was only about 30 minutes of flying time, so I didn’t mind too much. I have no idea which runway we took off from – sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention. Might have been 31. And again, not sure of the runway we landed on at Shannon – I must pay closer attention to these things! The terminal was on our left as we landed. We pulled into the gate, and I again used the rear stairs to disembark, taking this photo:



Passport control was again fairly relaxed – I was just asked how long I was staying and whether I was on holiday, and the stamps were applied. The bags took an absolute age to arrive – one lady got bored and started taking rides around the conveyor belt, much to the amusement of her friends. Finally the bags came out, and I embarked on the 3 hour long process of getting a bus into Limerick and then another bus to my cousin’s house – remembering all the while that I had better order a taxi on Tuesday morning if I wanted to make my flight! Things do happen in Ireland, eventually, and as long as you wouldn’t be in a hurry, then it really isn’t a problem, at all, at all.

Limerick was in a good mood, given Munster had won the European Cup the previous weekend (that’s rugby, if you didn’t know), and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I certainly enjoyed a good few pints of Guinness during my stay, as well as trips to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren in County Clare.


Me at burial tomb on the Burren - over 5000 years old!

On May 30th, I was up early in order to get a 6am taxi to the airport (40 Euros), and I checked in at about 6.45 for my 9am flight. The security presence for US flights is apparent even at check in, where they accost you before you can get near a check-in counter. They paid particular attention to me, given my student visa had just expired, and they were worried that I might be going back to continue studying. I assured them that I wasn’t, and showed them my ticket to NZ for August, and they seemed happy enough. I went upstairs to get some breakfast, and then proceeded through security. There were quite a few people around, as a Delta 767-400 was also departing about the same time as us for Atlanta, and an American 752 arrived as we were waiting, so there would have been people arriving at the airport for this return flight too. You clear immigration at Shannon when flying to the States, rather than on arrival. So I had to do the whole process of convincing the immigration officer that I wasn’t going to be studying, and that I was leaving the country in August, and that I was nice and legit. And then we went through to the boarding area, and were barraged with another set of questions – “where has your hand luggage been since you checked in”, “have you purchased anything other than in the duty free shops” etc. It’s tempting to respond “I did my best to control my hand luggage, but it has a tendency to just go wandering off…”, but of course you don’t. And then just prior to boarding, I was asked to step aside to undergo a random hand luggage check and pat down, just in case some sort of weapon magically appeared in my bag between security and the gate. But FINALLY, we made it onto the plane!


SNN-EWR
Flight: CO25
B757-200, N14102 (again, no wingtips)
Seat: 28A
STD: 9.00am
ATD: 9.00am
STA: 11.05am
ATA: 10.47am


Our 752 at the gate in Shannon


Leaving Ireland

This was largely an uneventful crossing of the Atlantic. Flight time was approximately six and a half hours, and again I had an empty middle seat! But this one was probably only about 75% full – there were lots of empty seats in the last 10 rows. Most interesting thing about this flight was the attitudes of the crew, or more particularly, the head member of the crew (purser?) who was the only male – the other three in the economy cabin were female. For a start, he kept getting the flight number wrong when welcoming us aboard, but that wasn’t a problem – just something to laugh about after he got it wrong four times in a row! But his attitude towards the other members of the cabin crew was not very good. One of the crew was obviously fairly new, but the she wasn’t really doing anything wrong. But the guy kept telling her to do things as if she didn’t know what she was doing, and then shaking his head at her in mock exasperation, as if to say “do I have to tell you to do everything!” He seemed to be very concerned with ordering the others around, being the alpha male, and was not very interested in the passengers! It was quite funny to watch – he must have been awful to work with, I imagine.

The first movie on this flight was Cheaper by the Dozen Two – which was bearable, but only just. You sometimes wonder if this type of film is made specifically for airlines – almost every trip report you read has either that film or Big Momma’s House 2 – which we thankfully avoided – or some other such drivel. To be fair, they did have a second film, which looked more like a drama, but I didn’t watch it, and I didn’t catch the title. I preferred to listen to the fantastic sounds of the Country Roads channel – Josh Turner, Jason Aldean, Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Blake Shelton etc etc. Good stuff!


Approaching Newark


We landed on what the captain announced was runway 4R, and that sounds right to me, but I’m not exactly sure as all the traffic that I watched for the rest of the day was using runway 22. We arrived at gate 134, and made it quickly through to baggage claim, seeing as we were pre-cleared in Shannon. However, that didn’t make the bags come out any quicker – we spent a good 20 minutes standing by the belt waiting for the bags, which us connecting passengers had to claim and recheck after clearing customs. When they eventually turned up, we “cleared customs” (ie handed the card to the officer, and strolled on through – honestly, come to NZ to see what customs is really about!), and then I left my bag at the baggage drop for connecting flights, thinking what a waste of time that was! I then went back through security, having wandered outside to confirm that yes, it was 90 degrees in New York (a bit different to the 50s we’d been having in the UK and Ireland!), and spent the next three hours spotting around Terminal C. A great place to do so, with the large (albeit dirty) windows at each gate, with T7s and 764s parked right outside. Very cool.


N14102, our plane from Shannon, parked at gate 134

Then I made my way to the crowded gate area (112B) for my flight to Cincinnati. There was one particularly irate man there who was trying to catch a flight to Kansas City at Gate 112A, as they had oversold the flight. They asked for volunteers to get a $400 travel voucher and a later flight, but no-one was coming forward. Sounded like a good deal to me, but unfortunately, our flight was not full, so no freebies for me.

EWR-CVG
Flight: CO2260 (operated by Express Jet Airlines for Continental Express)
ERJ 145, didn’t get the registration
Seat: 18A
STD: 3.00pm
ATD: 3.32pm
STA: 5.15pm
ATA: 5.23pm

This was an interesting flight if only because of the weather. We left on runway 22R, having waited for a decent lineup of traffic in front of us:



There was a drink service on this flight, but the only snacks were peanuts. As we got closer to Cincinnati, we had to dodge some rather impressive thunder storms that seemed to be around – we were making some interesting turns to avoid the clouds as we descended:



We flew over Cincinnati to the South on the downwind leg, then made a turn to the left to line up with runway 18L. We crossed the Ohio River, then I-275, and soon touched down and taxied to gate 105 – the same gate used when we departed 13 days ago. Of course, Continental only has 2 gates at CVG that I could see, so there was a reasonably good chance of that happening! Cincinnati was very warm and humid, as we waited for about 30 minutes to get the bus home. $2.25 is such a good deal for us poor students who are feeling impecunious after a holiday – I’m all for it! Of course, I had to find some US currency instead of the random Euro cents and British 50p pieces I had accumulated!

Thus ends my trip report! I was impressed overall by Continental’s product, and would not hesitate to fly with them again, if the price was right. Thanks for reading!