This was the last day of my little trip home and I had chance to pop into the airport lounge at Dublin. This is a different one to where I was before going to the United States, I was off in Terminal 2 at the Aer Lingus lounge then. I’ve written about this Dublin lounge before, so won’t repeat that. I was fortunate to get a seat though, it was at near capacity when I got there and didn’t really let up. It’s an odd shaped lounge and they really need a bigger facility, but it was an entirely satisfactory place to spend three hours.
It had just turned midday, so having a farewell to Ireland Guinness seemed sensible.
Mine was the 15:20 flight and one of the gate staff made an incorrect announcement of the gate number which caused some people to get up and move. I hovered between the two gates thinking that this was far from ideal. I didn’t intend to miss a flight at this stage of the trip.
I had worked out that the flight could be three hours late and I would still be able to get my train home to Norwich. Above that I’d miss it, but I’d either get EU261 compensation or at least a duty of care if it was weather related. I think it transpired that the flight was about eight minutes late so I hadn’t needed to pre-worry.
Ready to battle the rain for one final time in Ireland.
No airbridge in Dublin. This was the tenth and final flight of this trip, along with the twelve or so rail trips I took in the United States. It’s aircraft Airbus A320 G-TTNS and for my own interest only, I hadn’t been on this aircraft before but that’s not surprising as they only took delivery of it on 1 October 2022 and this flight was on 19 October 2022. It’s one of the newest aircraft that I’ve been on I think.
It’s a short flight and it was entirely unremarkable, with the crew being the usual friendly and helpful sort. I was given water and crisps, but I saved them until I was sitting at London Liverpool Street waiting for my train.
Boarding the underground to cross London on the Piccadilly Line, which is always much less exciting when coming back from a trip rather than getting there.
We’re in the final few posts of this US trip, woooo!!! This is St. Sylvester’s Catholic Church in Malahide, but a bus came just as I was taking the photo. As it was so wet, I thought I’d have a photo of a church and a bus….. My 24 hour Leap ticket allowed me to use buses and trains, so I realised it was just as quick to get off the train at Malahide and then get the 102 bus to the airport directly rather than going into central Dublin. I was going to explore in Dublin for a short while, but the rain was so heavy that I decided against that plan.
I would say that I timed it well, but Google Maps has to take most of the credit for that. This means I spent under ten minutes in Malahide, so there’s not much that I can write about that. However, Wikipedia tells me that “it is situated about 10 miles north of Dublin city centre and is known for its scenic beauty, historic castle, and marina, as well as Malahide Castle, which dates back to the 12th century”. Maybe I’ll get to go there at some point in the future…
Finally in the warm and dry, going directly to Dublin Airport. I was impressed at the Leap Visitor card, it was affordable and so all of my travel for the 24 hours, including to and from the airport, was covered by the one ticket.
I’m moderately annoyed about this photo as I took it to show just how heavy the rain was. I had a fifteen minute walk between the B&B and the railway station and got completely drenched, although fortunately had my coat and bag cover to minimise the water devastation. The photo doesn’t show the torrential conditions that I was facing and it took me around a minute to take it as the rain kept hitting the screen and confusing it.
And that puddle at the railway station is deeper than it looks. I went inside to dry out, although I’m not sure that I did much more than drip everywhere.
My plans to get photos of the railway station didn’t go to plan, that’s the limit of it. There was an interesting poster inside the railway station about the history of the settlement and it appears to have an active history group. Skerries is a coastal town in Ireland with and is believed to have been founded by Vikings in the 9th century, and it has since been inhabited by a number of different groups, including the Anglo-Normans, who built the first castle in Skerries in the 12th century. The town grew as a fishing and agricultural community and became known for its distinctive sandstone buildings and well-preserved architecture. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Skerries remained small, but there were with several windmills and watermills being built to support the town’s economy. The 19th century saw the arrival of the railway in Skerries, which helped to spur further growth and development in the area, as well as allowing it to become something of a tourist destination in the late nineteenth century. That number continued to grow in the 1950s and 1960s, holiday camps opened up in this beautiful location by the sea and it was easily accessible by those who lived in Dublin, but it had a large number of visitors from the north of England.
Then, unfortunately, the Troubles in Northern Ireland came along and tourism to the area collapsed in the early 1970s. Hotel after hotel closed and the tourist numbers haven’t returned to the previous highs, but it’s still a pretty little place. But apologies for the lack of railway station photos, or at least, a lack of photos not of puddles at the railway station.
This post is mostly just photos from around Skerries where I went for an evening walk after checking into the hotel. I thought that this was a suitable place to reflect on the previous month in what was a beautiful area which was peaceful and not too cold. Specifically I thought about the people from Ireland who went to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century, whether through necessity by the famine or whether because they wanted to start a new life. I had spent a week in New York earlier on during this trip and it felt a long way away from this rural part of Ireland. But yet it isn’t really far away today, it can now be reached in a few hours on an aircraft. Back then it must have been almost beyond comprehension for someone to travel from a quiet home in Ireland to a packed and bustling city, trying to find new opportunities.
My plan for the day was to get to my hotel in Skerries, the cheapest option that I could find in the Dublin area given how expensive city centre accommodation was. That meant a tram journey to Connolly Station, previously known simply as Dublin Station, then Amiens Street Station before being given its current name in 1966 in honour of James Connolly. I liked having this seat as I felt as near to driving a tram as I was going to get, a job that is more stressful than it might seem given the number of car drivers who frequently got in its way.
Mine was the train to Drogheda and was included in my 24 hour leap card.
The interior isn’t much different from many British railway stations from the period, although it was constructed in 1844 so that isn’t entirely surprising. The train journey transpired to be mostly empty for the first section, before becoming much busier as school children boarded it to get to their destinations. They weren’t disruptive though, something I know as I fell asleep for a small portion of the journey, so I couldn’t have thought them to be too threatening.
Views over the Malahide Estuary.
It didn’t take long to go from a city centre urban environment to feeling really quite rural. More about this train service on my return journey the following day though….. (oh, the anticipation).
When I took this photo I was quite impressed that JD Wetherspoon offered this lunch deal in the Republic of Ireland and thought it would be a positive thing to launch in the UK. But they now have, so that’s that helpful suggestion rendered a little irrelevant. I won’t linger on writing about this pub as I’d already been there a month before at the start of this trip. It’s an expensive and really quite brilliant conversion of an historic building into a pub, something which JD Wetherspoon do achieve on a regular basis.
I accept that returning to the same venue isn’t very creative, but my friend Liam and I had visited every craft beer bar we could find in Dublin earlier on in the year. I was getting a little tired after a month away, so this was a cheap and cheerful option. A pint of Beamish, which I think is better than Guinness and there’s not much choice on that matter anyway at Wetherspoons in Dublin as they don’t sell Guinness, along with a basic burger. On the Guinness, I suspect that’s more because Diageo doesn’t want to annoy other pubs in the city by having one chain selling it much cheaper than everyone else.
This meal was more of a faff than I felt ideal. My food arrived after five minutes, but no drink. I went to the bar as it’s often already been poured there and I can just collect it, but the slightly unhelpful member of bar staff said that there was no order made for Beamish and she confidently stated no order for a burger had been received either and she suggested it hadn’t gone through. I mentioned my food was already at the table so I knew the order had gone through and asked politely if she could pour the Beamish, but she confirmed that my food hadn’t arrived which seemed an odd thing to say.
I went back to my table and then decided this was just slightly ridiculous, so I went back to the bar looking as polite as possible. I got another team member who just poured the Beamish without checking anything, she was really quite helpful. I left the bar happy, partly because it was sorted and partly because I had a delicious pint of Beamish. I heard the original team member say to her colleague “did you find that Beamish?” but I’m unsure of what the dialogue was after that as I was too occupied with my drink, food and ensuring that my devices were charging.
Despite the little issue with the drink, I do like this venue, it’s spacious, modern and feels comfortable. It’s also one of the few places that has unlimited coffees available in Dublin, which seemed to be attracting a number of extra customers in. For anyone wanting a peaceful environment during weekdays, which I’d say is ideal after being away for a month, they could do worse than here.
I had just landed into Heathrow T5 from Newark and my two hour connection was shrunk down to 45 minutes due to some delays in disembarking. That meant I was down to only around 20 minutes in the lounge, although a slightly late departing flight to Dublin meant that I eventually had over 30 minutes. That gave me time for some charging of devices, a couple of drinks and a little snack. The lounge was busy, but I was able to perch at the end overlooking the runway, my favourite location in Galleries North as I like the higher seats.
I understand the importance of security and the UK require passengers to go through full security screening regardless of where they have flown in from. It is though much easier from a passenger point of view with the US set-up of domestic flights where you only go through one security process. I was fortunate that there wasn’t much of a delay before getting to the lounge, I think it was all done in fifteen minutes.
Waiting for the 08:25 service to Dublin, there were a few seats available here, but the airport felt busy in general.
Boarding was efficient and I got to take a photo of the aircraft before walking down the airbridge. I forgot to get the aircraft’s registration number just to check if I had been on it before, a slightly odd check that I do when I remember.
It’s only a short flight, but there’s a snack and water provided. This is perfectly sufficient, it’s useful for passengers to feel hydrated if nothing else. There’s a limited amount that I feel it’s useful to add about short haul flights, as there’s little chance of much engagement from crew on such a brief trip. However, they were welcoming and polite, with the flight being quite light in terms of passengers, so it all felt comfortable and efficient. I like the reliability of British Airways in this regard, a lack of anything to write about is often just because everything went as it should have done.
Safely into Dublin Airport, where I had just over 24 hours before returning back to the UK on the following day.
After an entertaining couple of hours in the British Airways Galleries lounge in Newark, I then walked the short distance to the gate, an earlier flight than I had been anticipating. I was very impressed with how BA handled this, they made it easy not just to change flights but also to ensure that my seat reservations were carried over.
I don’t like the seats on this Boeing 777-300 aircraft, they’re too narrow for me. However, I was in an exit row on the aisle, which is my favourite, meaning that I did have plenty of space. The three seats were all taken, but I was fortunate that the person sitting next to me didn’t veer into my space once.
The crew members on this flight were exceptional, making an effort to build rapport with customers where they felt appropriate and being ever present. I’m rarely disappointed with the friendliness and engagement of BA crew, with the pilot making chirpy and positive announcements.
It’s fair to say that I had enough leg room.
The first drinks round took place around one hour after take-off and the crew member seemed pleased that I asked for Brewdog Jet Stream by name, so she gave me both cans on her trolley.
The crew member didn’t let me down with the Brewdog beer, she remembered me from before and pro-actively asked “would you like another Brewdog beer?”, which of course I did. So she went off on a mission and came back with another four cans, two raided from a different cabin, the other two from the trolley on the other side of the aisle. Apologies if anyone else wanted Brewdog Jet Stream, but the crew member was wonderfully hoarding them up for me. Incidentally, that’s the film Belfast on the IFE, a story about the violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.
Onto the food, these meals are catered in the United States and it all entirely met my expectations. I can’t quite remember what sort of chicken dish this was (and I probably wasn’t entirely sure at the time), but it tasted better than it perhaps looks. It comes with a couscous starter, a chocolate dessert and then some cheese and crackers. For an economy flight, which cost me just £220 or so return, I felt I had received excellent value for money with this whole arrangement.
I then thought I’d have a nap after enjoying the heap of Brewdog Jet Stream cans that they had given me.
I admit this wasn’t to my taste, the breakfast option was a cheese bagel or a cheese bagel with turkey. Very innovative. I don’t like the smell of certain melted cheeses and unfortunately this went into the bin, as seemingly did many of those given to other passengers. I rarely eat the breakfast options on aircraft as they’re not often appealing to me, but BA seem to want to provide some sort of hot option. It’s a shame they didn’t have a cold option of just a cereal bar or something, it’d likely be cheaper for them and lead to less waste.
I had a two hour connection before my flight to Dublin, but there was a long delay disembarking and then it was a bus to the gate which all took up time. I was moderately disappointed that this was all eating into, well, my eating time in the BA lounge, and I was partly wondering whether I might be able to miss my flight to Dublin and get a later one since I was in no hurry.
Still my favourite airline, although American Airlines aren’t far behind. Who needs Emirates and Qatar?
And off we go to Heathrow T5, where I’ll pick up my flight to Dublin in my next post.
As anyone who knows me and my travel habits knows, I don’t like arriving late for anything. I don’t even like arriving slightly early, I’m always far too early. But then again, I don’t miss anything so there’s a win there I think. Unlike my friend Liam who seems to consider arriving at an airport two hours before the flight acceptable, I’m very risk averse. The reason I’m mentioning this is that I actually arrived at the BA lounge two hours before the flight. However, by this, I mean the flight before mine, I was about six hours early for my flight.
The lady at the desk was personable and engaging, saying I was of course welcome to enter the lounge early (after she checked I wasn’t one of those Priority Pass customers who can use the lounge earlier on during the day) and she said that I hoped I enjoyed my time in it. Then she looked at my boarding pass and said she was concerned, I would miss my connecting flight to Dublin the next day because of the late outgoing flight that I was booked on. I explained that I wasn’t too concerned as I wasn’t in a rush and that I had an emergency exit row seat on the aircraft with plenty of space so wasn’t keen on moving to a central seat.
The staff member was endlessly helpful, she had a look at the options and said that she would be able to move me to the exact same seat on the flight before mine. She said that way I’d get time to visit the lounge at Heathrow and also get a couple of hours in the lounge in Newark, arriving in Dublin actually earlier than I was ticketed. Given this, I was sold and my new boarding passes were issued for the earlier flight and she was also able to replicate by seat on the London Heathrow to Dublin flight. I’m not sure if anyone else got booted out of the seats I was given but I was surprised that the seats were available that close to departure.
I really liked the friendliness of all the staff members here, but the agent at the desk was everything I associate with the United States (well, not the guns) in terms of her willingness to help and offer excellent customer service. The above photo is of the snacks area which I first thought was the entirety of the food options so I wasn’t initially delighted.
I really should wear glasses and I’ll get that sorted at some point, but until then I use my phone to zoom in on the beer options in the fridges. They weren’t breathtaking, but they would suffice me as I only had a couple of hours.
There were some extensive views over the tarmac from the lounge and it was suitably bright and colourful.
I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s something very comforting about seeing Speedbird as I’m one of the fanboys of British Airways and it to me offers the reassuring nature that I’m going home. I remember particularly feeling this when I went to Chengdu and spent a week struggling to find anyone who could speak English, so it was beautiful to see Speedbird in all of its glory at the airport, although British Airways have long since given up flying there. Over the last few years the airline has become even more US centric, something I can’t much complain about.
The taqueria station and this was my favourite of the food sections. It was all self-service, although there were additional food items that could be ordered using the app. There’s a separate dining area for those who want to use it although the staff were ridiculously efficient. I had a slight problem that I got myself a drink and put it on the table to go and get food, then it was cleared away as they thought it was abandoned. I returned and put my food on the table to get another drink and then had to rescue that plate from being collected when I returned with my replacement drink, even though it was full of food.
The cheese station.
The charcuterie and New York deli station, which is all combining to be my favourite foods. I started to regret changing my flight to an earlier one and indeed I wondered if I could just move into this lounge permanently. To be honest, I’d have given thought to have spending the entire trip just in this lounge, I can be quite easily won over by food.
Big pretzels. What a time to be alive.
My second beer, the Brooklyn Lager, I had already had the Nut Brown Ale from Sam Smiths. The staff member at the bar remembered me from my first drink and was about to get me the same beer again, I think she thought I must have been disappointed with my Sam Smiths but it was more that I like variety. And I don’t want to support Sam Smiths too much as they’re a ridiculous brewery led by one of the people I consider who has most trashed the atmosphere in pubs with his joke of a company which seems to take pride in shaming their own staff. Anyway, I’ve rapidly digressed, but I’m quite appalled at the actions of Humphrey Smith and it’s no surprise he’s become a figure of fun.
It looks simple, but it was absolutely delightful……
At that moment, I was done in the lounge as the flight was called. I was content with the amount of food and drink that I worked through, really handy just before getting a meal on board the flight. This was one of my favourite lounges, it wasn’t too busy, there was an excellent range of food and drink which felt tailored to my own personal tastes (I accept that it wasn’t designed that way, it was just chance) and the staff were friendly and keen to help. It was a positive last note on which to leave the United States.
The bus trip from Newark city centre to Newark Airport usually only takes around twenty minutes, although it was one of the busiest services that I’ve been on for some time. I managed to get a seat, although had to ask someone to move their bag, which was fortunate given that the bus seemed to pick up what seemed to be about ten people at every stop. I was fortunate that my destination was at the airport where plenty of people were getting off, as it took significant ingenuity and just a little brute force to get off any earlier than that.
The fare was very reasonable, as bus trips so often are in the United States, costing $1.60. There are no contactless payments available and you can overpay the fare but there’s no facility to get any change. Fortunately, I had planned ahead and had my $1.60 ready in change. Although by change, I mean six quarters and a dime which I carefully placed in the coin slot whilst trying not to annoy the driver by dithering.
It’s not entirely obvious, but there’s New York in the background and where I had stayed for just under a week earlier on in my trip.
And thanks to NJ Transit, safely at Newark Airport, hours early as usual.
