Fly from Seattle to London:

The trip started in a pretty normal fashion. We arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) about three hours before our flight.  We never like to rush or hurry, so we spent some time relaxing in the British Airways (BA) lounge, which was not very impressive. 

The flight was very typical for BA business class with the ying-yang seating, which we both do not like.  The person in the window seat faces backwards and must “climb” over the person on the aisle to get out if he/she is sleeping.  This could be very dangerous in the dark on in a rough flight. 

I was looking forward to flying on a Boeing 787 for the first time.  We both thought that it was quieter and the fit and finish was great.  Although the landing felt like we dropped 6-8 feet out of the sky.  It was the roughest landing I have ever had since my time in Viet Nam (1971-1972).  I can’t really blame the rough landing on the 787 plane, I think it was a miscalculation of the pilot.

Layover at Heathrow:

We had a 5-1/2 hour layover in Heathrow, so we were in no hurry to get through the maze of Heathrow.  It was a long walk, and we went through two security check-point, while still staying within the same Terminal 5.  The trip from the plane to the British Airways lounge still took about two hours.  This time becomes critical on our return trip.

Fly from London to Dublin: (Wednesday August 24, 2022)

We landed in Dublin only to hear that there was no place to disembark from the plane, so we sat on the tarmac for 20-30 minutes.  We finally were able to disembark using a portable stairway and a 50 yard walk on the tarmac to get to the terminal.  The great thing about using Tauck is that they pick you up at the airport, and the driver was patiently waiting for us and drove us directly to the Westin Dublin Hotel, arriving at about 9:30 PM, hungry and tired.