Wednesday 2nd October 2019
Another early start
We were packing up the car at 6am. Four cases, two new ones, were accompanying us, together with handbag and rucksack.
Trip down to Gatwick was OK, if a little congested on the southern part of the M25. We arrived about on schedule despite Waze suggesting we'd be 30 minutes later at one point.
BA all the way
This was our first trip over the Atlantic with British Airways. We'd decided to go this way based on a desire to be nearer our final destination when we land. Previously, we would land at Orlando with Virgin and then drive west on the I4 before then turning south for the drive to Anna Maria. All told a 2.5 to 3 hour trip, after making a 9 hour flight!
So this time we'd booked a flight from Gatwick (South) to Tampa, the hope being it would cut a hour or so from the overall travelling time and cut down on the needed driving following a long trip.
This is our Boeing 777-200 plane.
Everything's new and shiny
We'd booked a lounge at Gatwick, so after parking up, we went over to the bag-drop. Again this is something we've not done before. We would usually just go to the usual check-in and they would sort the bags for us. But this time, we did the weigh in and put the labels onto the cases. Then after pressing a button on screen, the cases were swallowed up by the system.
We headed to the lounge (Aspire, quite nice) then down to Gate 34 for departure.
Once on board (we'd booked World Traveller Class (equivalent to Premium Economy I think) we were seated in new looking seats with high definition screens in the back of the seat in front. It was our first time in a 777, I think, and the changes were noticeable.
The flight itself had its good and bad points. In the plus column, the seats were as comfortable as the prem economy ones in Virgin and I think they were slightly wider. Leg room was also improved. The entertainment system was OK, I watched just "The Italian Job" (the original) and "Toy Story 4". Service was good, they were quick to clear away the stuff after our meals and they didn't go too heavy handed with the alcohol. Linda was pleased with her meal. Normally, very picky about the food she eats, this met her level and best of all, they actually had some on the trolly which has not been the case with Virgin in the past - some popular dishes have run out no more than halfway down the cabin. We both had steak, gravy, veg and potatoes.
On the negative side, however, was the fact that this was a bumpy flight. Most of the time it was just like going over potholes in the road, but on the odd occasion it moved into roller coaster areas with the ups and downs. The worst part of that situation was that we were confined to our seats for multiple hours at a time. One session was over three hours long I estimate. There's only so long you can sit there without getting up!
Finally, we reached the US coast. Here we can see the two main launch areas at Cape Canaveral, together with the Shuttle building top left of the image. One of the largest single buildings in the US.
As we continued on, we passed over Orlando. Here you can make out Universal Studios at the bottom of the image. Car parks are in the centre and the City walk down to the lagoon at the edge of the park entrance.
We flew on overhead, eating into the driving I'd have to do :)
Long short drive
We landed at Tampa on schedule. We were through customs pretty quickly (once Linda's fingerprints were read by the machine) and went to collect our cases. Three arrived quite quickly. However, they were all three wet from something - I'm thinking it was condensation from the hold, but I'm not sure. It certainly wasn't raining at either end of the trip.
The fourth case took maybe 15 minutes to appear. This one wasn't wet like the others, but by then we were just glad to see it.
Off to the little train to take us to the car rental area, we've ended up with a Mitsubishi Outlander. However at that particular point in time, I couldn't work out how to drop the back seats down (it's a 7 seater car) so I had to squeeze them all into the back seats as they were.
The drive from Tampa actually took us back onto the I4 for a short time, I suspect it was trying to avoid toll roads in the Tampa area. Actual travel time was about 90 minutes due to a number of roadworks and one accident being dealt with on the side of the road.
As we got into the apartment car park. It was just after sunset, the photo was taken from inside the car park.
It was a quick trip back to Publix to grab the necessaries for breakfast tomorrow, then it was off to bed. It was gone 9pm by then (2am UK time) and we'd been up for 21 hours by then.