Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: USA Road Trip 2011
Stormy beginnings
| Just like the first day of my Canada-Mexico trip some three months previously, I had parked my car in the nearest public car park to the office, so that I would have a trouble-free transfer to my preferred long-term airport car park. I was then lucky enough to have my own personal shuttle to the terminal building, which looked very busy on arrival. Having noticed a few days previously that my Edinburgh-Frankfurt flight was sold out and probably oversold, I had both my bmi Diamond Club gold card and my Lufthansa Senator card to hand as I approached the bag drop desk, in case the subject of an upgrade might come up. I was going to drop a hint in the form of an innocent-sounding "Is it busy today?", but a sixth sense told me to keep quiet and leave it in the lap of the gods. In the event, nothing at all was said at this point, so I went upstairs, passed (slowly!) through Security and made my way to the thoroughly familiar territory of the bmi Diamond Club Lounge |
 ABOVE: The lounge wasn't exactly busy |
And then it happened. As I presented my boarding pass at the desk, the agent said: "Oh, it's you - how funny! I've just this minute upgraded you to Business Class. You're now in 3F." This would have been an excellent turn of events at any time, but was particularly satisfying on this occasion. When booking my transatlantic crossing, I'd debated the relative merits of starting the ticket in Edinburgh versus Frankfurt. Starting in Edinburgh meant giving the government GBP120 for its iniquitous Air Passenger Duty, but at least my EDI-FRA sector would book into Business Class. Starting in Frankfurt would mean saving around GBP60, but that meant travelling the first sector in Economy. I opted for the latter course, but then stupidly delayed booking that independent first sector so that I ended up paying around GBP120 for it anyway. I had made no saving at all, but had effectively downgraded myself - curses! But now I'd been saved from my own slip-up and everything was back to a satisfactory state of affairs. I drank a glass of wine and nibbled on some snacks while I waited for the boarding call.
It was a bit of a surprise when it came: for the
first time that I could recall, the Frankfurt flight was boarding at
a gate on the eastern side of the terminal. As it turned out, this
was simply to board a bus which would swiftly bring passengers back
to the western side. I'm sure it made sense to somebody.
(Link to flight log in side panel)
So we had eventually made it into Frankfurt, well over an hour late thanks to the thunderstorms and torrential rain. It was strangely reminiscent of a trip that I had made this same weekend in 2010, to the German city of Stuttgart. Thankfully, the aircraft was allocated a proper gate with an airbridge, so that we didn't get soaked just in the act of disembarking. I passed through Immigration, collected my case and made my way to the Steigenberger shuttle bus pick-up point outside. As I passed the entrance to the bridge over to the Sheraton, I wished for a second that I'd booked it instead.
While checking me in at the Steigenberger, the agent commented about my room: "It's almost a junior suite!" When I got to my room, I was in no doubt at all that as far as I was concerned, it was a junior suite, with clearly defined sitting and sleeping areas. Unfortunately, the air conditioning had been left switched off and was now struggling badly to cool the room down after a day of 29C temperatures. Despite this, I fell asleep fairly quickly and woke up briefly around 3am, realising that I needed to pull the duvet fully over myself.