Today we travel to the USA for our 3 week adventure across the States. We will be taking in NYC, Boston, Maine, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. We are going to put up a daily blog of our journey, discussing the good/bad times, costs, and everything that comes with long-distance travelling.
Morning
Last night we were in Southampton watching Northern Ireland ladies play Norway in Euro 2022 and didn’t get back to our hotel in Gatwick until 1 am. Thankfully we didn’t have an early flight and were able to chill out in our room until check out time. On that, there are 2 Premier Inn hotels at Gatwick North terminal, there is a more modern one and an older one. They are a stone’s throw away from each other and the older one is always cheaper in some cases 50% cheaper and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Afternoon
We had seen the chaos on the TV in different airports and decided to not take any risk and went to the airport early. However, as we only had hand luggage we went straight through family security and in departures in about 15/20 minutes. I get the feeling that everyone is arriving at the airport early as the queues for just about everything was lengthly. We got ourselves a ‘Wagamama’ to go for Megan, got a pint, and sat back, people watched and waited until boarding.
Night
Boarding and the majority of the flight were pretty standard. (We flew BA I should add, service and IFE were as expected). Then as we came into land at JFK I looked out the window and the rain was chucking it down. At 271ft from the ground, the pilot decided no thanks and off we went around again. I have a massive fear of flying, and this didn’t help, but 10 minutes later we were on the ground.
Immigration, this is the 1st time in decades that I haven’t flown Dublin to the USA. This was a healthy reminder to only fly Dublin to the USA. We weren’t the worst I have heard of people waiting for 3hrs, but 2 hrs in a warm stuffy corridor is not my idea of fun after a 7 hr flight.
This might sound weird, but there was a method to our madness, we flew into JFK and stayed in Newark. The reason for this, is it was a lot cheaper! 2 adults and 1 child in the Hampton Inn was $180 for 2 nights which included breakfast and a free shuttle to the airport/train station. With every positive there are downsides… We had to pay $135 in an Uber to get there, and the next day when we wanted to go into NYC it was $62 on the train return.
Check-in was smooth at the hotel, with no drama. I grabbed a beer and went straight to sleep waking up pretty fresh the following morning.
Sorry about the lack of pictures. I forgot to charge my phone, but that problem is now solved!
Thanks for reading about us travelling across the USA.
The Lewis Family.