Hello and welcome to episode 197 of Travel Stories from the Back Again And Gone podcast.
Being recorded in the beautiful home office of, Chateau’ Relaxo, FL. and it’s time for some April updates.. Thanks for listening.
If you’re a new listener, welcome. If you're a returning listener welcome back.
This was recorded at the end of April, and April is alcohol awareness month so no beer this month as I am participating and you are now aware of it.
One trip of note since our last episode. It was O-Town to Raleigh NC then Wilmington, NC, and then back out of Raleigh.
I believe that my last trip to Raleigh was in 2018 and it had been longer than that since I had been in Wilmington.
The Raleigh airport has not changed much in the last few years and one constant was the art piece, located high above the baggage claim lobby is the Highwire Travelers.. The Highwire Travelers features a handful of airport travelers. One traveler is resting against a column, his suitcase beside him, while one reads a book, and another balances his luggage as he makes his way across a tightrope.
From Raleigh, it was an uneventful 2-hour drive west on I40. The base camp was the Downtown Marriott Wilmington Historic District.
I know that Charlotte NC is NASCAR home but once all the I-40 construction is done this stretch of road will give Charlotte Motor Speedway a run for the money.
The Marriott was right in the heart of the historical district. The weather was perfect so I went for a walk exploring the area. Lots of outdoor eating and no shortage of friendly dogs.
My dinner was at Rum Cow where I dined on a Rum Cow Burger Which consisted of Crispy prosciutto, bacon aioli, peach rum chutney, and arugula on a brioche bun. And of course, served with fries.
After dinner, I waddled across Grant Street and back into the Marriott.
The next afternoon I drove back to Raleigh and dropped my rental car off the night before my flight which is my current strategy as it saves me valuable time before an early morning flight.
That evening it was Hilton Garden Inn Raleigh airport. I was sitting in their smoking area enjoying a cigar when a couple of other road warriors showed up and we began exchanging small talk. Finally, the conversation turned to road food and they asked where I was going to get dinner, and since it was a HGI property my answer was wings from the HGI kitchen. These guys told me to check out the RDU Gallaria
across the street. I looked across the street and saw a 4 or 5-story building, actually, it looked like a typical office building except for the fact that there was a huge island filled with gas pumps.
I had nothing to lose so I headed across the street. I opened the RDU Galleria doors and was amazed at what I saw. In addition to the typical convenience store, there was a Pizza Hut Express, a Which Wich Sandwiches, a Wayback Burgers, a Gloria Jeans coffee, and a Mex Cafe. Oh yeah, there was also a full bar and lounge. I went with a Mex Cafe chicken burrito which I would put on par with anything Chipolte’s sells.
My 6:00 AM flight back to O-Town was on time and a direct flight. Who knows maybe I’ll make it back into Southwest’s A+ club by the end of the year.
For April there wasn’t a lot of crazy travel news but let’s give it a shot. In case you didn’t know there was an eclipse on April 8th. And most of the Blogosphere travel sites weighed in on it, but the winner had to be The Points Guy with reporters at 9 locations to see the eclipse.
In the last episode, we talked about Delta hosting several flights so passengers could view the eclipse from the air. You have to know that you’ll have a few stand-out passengers with a spectacle like this.
For example, one traveled from Amsterdam for the occasion. Another waited until this flight to propose to his longtime girlfriend. (She said yes.) One Diamond Medallion removed herself from the 52-person upgrade list for fear of being upgraded to an aisle seat.
Southwest branded the event as a “Solarbration”. Southwest also handed out goodie bags filled with a pin, a specially designed cookie, a Moon Pie, Sun Chips, and special Southwest eclipse glasses.
My favorite takeaway was from triple-A, as they posted Do NOT wear eclipse glasses while driving,”. This means at some point some mallet head did just that, they drove while wearing eclipse glasses.
Ben Schlappig from One Mile At A Time posted Hotel Club Lounges: Why I Value Them So Much. If you’re not familiar with the term Hotel Lounges, Hotel club lounges also often referred to as executive lounges are lounges within a hotel that offer drinks and snacks throughout the day. Typically free to members of their loyalty program.
You don’t typically find these lounges at your Hampton or Fairfield Inn unless you are in downtown New York or Chicago. However, many of these properties do offer manager receptions a couple of nights during the week which include soda, beer, wine, and snacks. Those snacks are typically chips and pretzels.
Some hotels charge for lounge access while other hotel’s elite loyalty members get free access.
Ben detailed the huge variance in hotel club lounge quality. And it came down to these three points.
* The further from the United States (and the closer to Asia) you are, the better the quality of the club lounges
* The fewer elite members that receive complimentary access to club lounges, the better the quality
* The more luxurious the hotel brand is, the better the quality of the club lounges
All of those points make sense.
Many of these lounges offer a hot breakfast in the morning and hot Hors D’oderves in the evening accompanied by mixed drinks and craft beer. Remember to take some singles to tip the waitstaff.
The other advantage of a hotel lounge is that it offers a quiet workspace in case you and a coworker need to collaborate.
The other advantage of a hotel lounge is that it’s great for showing off to the kids. Probably 13 or 14 years ago we were staying at a full-service Hilton somewhere in the vicinity of I-Drive. In addition to the lazy river pool, it also offered an amazing hotel lounge where the kids got all the soda and snacks that they could handle.
Probably my favorite hotel lounge was the one inside the Mobile, Alabam Marriott Airport Drive. The breakfast was amazing as well as the evening's reception. I believe much of the waitstaff had been there for 15+ years. It’s probably been 6 years since my last visit and looking at Trip Advisor the lounge might be out of operation.
Now if you know that the property you will be staying at is longe-less you can improvise with a bit of planning. Before COVID I was making a bunch of Florida road trips often meeting the same coworker at the hotel. One of our favorite hotels was the Hampton Inn Sarasota, Florida. If I was leaving out on a Monday I would grill out an extra chicken or bake two plates of Mac-n-cheese and my coworker would do the same with plans of having a homemade meal in the Hampton’s lobby while we saved our per diem. What we forgot were plates so one of us explained our situation to the desk clerk and he immediately opened up the breakfast area giving us full access to microwaves, plates, napkins, and seasonings. We made the desk clerk his plate as thanks. Within 15 minutes a group of construction workers rolled in with some beer and we offered up a trade, food for beer. They decided to join us for an impromptu feast. We repeated this a few more times over the next month. Not sure if the general manager would approve, but the desk didn’t seem to care.
We’ve also had the opposite happen. Again before COVID, everyone in our region would meet up in Atlanta for month-end closing. We had a corporate at the local Hampton Inn, so at the end of every month 11 or 12 of us would roll in for a two or three-night stay. After several months of this, the hotel staff would bring in a crockpot full of soup, chicken, or chili as well as all the fixings. This was great for several months until the health inspector pulled the plug on it. The reason was that Hampton had a license to reheat frozen food, but not one that allowed the serving of fresh or freshly cooked foods.
I’ve stayed away from the recent challenges that Boeing has been facing, Mainly the challenge of “door plugs”, falling out or off of the 737 series. When I first heard the term door plug I figured it was something the size of a wine cork,.Well, I was wrong because door plugs are panels installed on certain planes to permanently seal off optional exit door openings in the fuselage. They are large, and apparently, if they fall off mid-flight the plane quickly decompresses in the case of a recent Alaskan Airlines flight the oxygen masks deployed, and several seats were damaged, The cause of this was discovered to be faulty rivets on the door plug.
Now picture yourself on a Southwest flight aboard a 737 leaving Denver and heading to Houston. You paid for early board and are sitting in a window seat right above the wing. Take-off goes as planned and when you look out the window you see the engine cowling, the engine cover peeling off exposing the engine. The pilot, as most pilots would do as their airplane was falling apart, asked the tower to immediately return to Denver. The request was acknowledged and the plane returned to homebase. As the plane landed the cowling came apart in two pieces, one piece hitting the wing before it cartwheeled down the runway behind the plane. Thankfully no one was injured and the passengers were put on another plane and ended up arriving in Houston only three hours late. There are a couple of videos, there’s always a video and I’ll post a like to them in the show notes.
So what caused this mishap, glad you asked. Human error as someone forgot to latch the cowling after its last inspection. This reminds me of the old Ron White bit where Sears forgot to reinstall all the lug nuts on one of his wheels. And the punchline of the bit is that while Sears sent him to a three-day tire school Ron says he must have been absent on lug nut day. So it seems like this mechanic skipped latch day during his three-day airplane mechanics course.
Reading up on this incident it appears that American Airlines paints these cowling latches a bright orange color so that they are easily spotted making a visible inspection immediate. A very low-tech inexpensive fix to a very expensive problem.
It’s been a minute since we’ve talked drinking on an airplane, or as I call it “Planedranken”.
Matthew Klint at Live And Let’s Fly posted about this recent debacle on a recent American Airlines passenger heading into DFW.
A 23-year-old woman was flying in first class on American Airlines and it seems the woman was intoxicated after being served one drink onboard and became quite combative with flight attendants, there’s no detail as to what set her off but, she became so combative that she threw her bag at two flight attendants (that is assault) and also threatened to hurt them with expletives.
DFW police were summoned and were waiting on the jetbridge when the aircraft arrived. Police officers asked one of the flight attendants to escort the woman off, but the flight attendant said she was too scared.
Matthew summed it up with this.
There are so many lessons here, but
1.) Drinking and flying can be a very dangerous combination,
2.) You cannot throw things at flight attendants even if you are a first-class passenger, and
3.) If the cops tell you to remain calm, you should certainly listen.
This hits close to home since it involves Southwest Airlines and it came from Reddit.
Woman saves seats for 13 then lies -
This throwaway Reddit account flew a 4-hour domestic flight and they boarded with the family group. Throwaway stepped into an empty row and noticed 2 hats were on them. The woman in the row behind says she's saving those as they are a group of 13). This woman is the only one of 13 currently on the plane.
Throwaway explained how embarrassing, cheap, and rude her behavior is, she has nothing to say but sorry. Flight attendant 2 rows up stay out of it as expected. Throwaway sits in the row across From her.
Somehow her seat saving works for the full flight, no one else tried to take any of her 3x4 seating arrangement as far as Throwaway can tell. The women's group were all in the C group. Remember C stands for center as in center seat.
The last few boarders arrive and one of them asks the ringleader if the open window next to her is available. She said yes, that person is in the bathroom currently. This isn't true, because the person behind her (the very last person to need a seat) asks and she lets him in.
Throwaway sums it up with this, the whole group was polite and the flight was smooth, but WOW was that woman brazen.
Throwaway never mentioned what airport or state this all went down in, but I doubt it happened in Florida.
Not long after that Reddit thread was posted Southwest Airlines announced they are considering doing away with open, single-class seating on its aircraft.
CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC that Southwest is weighing options for cabin reconfiguration to address its recent revenue shortfall. Depending on their plans this might be a better solution than simply raising ticket prices. Jordan went on to add, “We’re looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,” Jordan told the network.
Southwest and its cattle call boarding has been a differentiator in the market because there is no extra legroom seats nor first class on its 737 fleet.
I don’t mind this style of boarding. First, there aren’t any gate lice waiting for their boarding group to be called. Second, I’m typically one of the first 60 passengers boarding, thank you boarding group A. This means I always get the seat that I want but more importantly, I have overhead space for my luggage.
Well, there you have it Episode 197 the April update.
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As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
