Loyalty has its rewards!

We arrived in Dublin today after a very long flight.  Our path to Dublin was not as straightforward as we had hoped it would be, but, in our case, the change in plans was neutral, trending towards good.  Our initial flight plan was from Detroit, Michigan to Atlanta, Georgia; then Atlanta directly to Dublin, Ireland.  However, our flight from Detroit was delayed in Detroit and Atlanta - which forced us to miss our connecting flight in Atlanta (despite our efforts to reach the terminal quickly by running through the airport).  We knew the airline would put us on the next flight, but imagined that our 7:30 pm direct flight was likely the last that day.  When we approached the information counter to re-book our flight, the ticketing agent informed us that we would be put on a flight that departed about one hour later and headed to Paris, France, then connecting through to Dublin.  While this tacked on a solid five hours to our travel time, the agent did promise to book us business class for our flight - in essence, bigger seats, free movies on board, and better food.

James's ticket had been upgraded to first class for the first leg of the trip, and while Erin's had not, he insisted that Erin get the chance to experience domestic travel at its Delta-finest.  However, Erin's appreciation for the business class travel we had for the Paris flight was far different than her 2+ hour flight to Atlanta.  In Erin's words:

"business class is the fanciest section on the plane.  I didn’t really understand the significance of this until we got on the plane.  Each person in business class has his or her own "pod."  At each pod, there was a chair that reclined flat like a bed (it even had massage functions!), there was an individual television with free movies and games, a full-size comforter, a full-size pillow, noise-cancelling headphones, and a toiletry kit.  As soon as we sat down, we were given glasses of champagne and menus.  We were able to eat a full five course meal on the flight.  I was so full after the second course, but felt obligated to eat the food because it was so good - and, it was free!"


It's tough to say whether we were treated so well by Delta because their flight options were limited, or because James has flown Delta a lot over the past year and his priority status is very high. When we spoke with the main gate agent, and again to the agent in the Delta lounge, we were careful to politely repeat exactly what we had heard from the gate agent regarding the flight and the upgrade, and then let the agents do what they needed to do to get us to Paris.  However, it was clear from our interaction that the status increase did not hurt.  Sometimes, loyalty really does pay off! We know that it is likely we won’t be this lucky on future flights, so we really tried to appreciate this experience.

Finally, we were able to celebrate our third wedding anniversary and the start of our fourth married year together tens of thousands of feet above the ground; James reached over as our Eastern time watches hit midnight and gave Erin a card, along with a (now) well-traveled bar of chocolate.

Here are some pictures from our flight to Dublin:

Our television sets along with some "heated nuts" we received;
each monitor tucked away in the center console when not in use.

These are the "pods" that were in business class. 
Much more comfortable than a standard airline seat.

Our flight experience finished up as we took the "CityJet" Air France commuter flight from Paris to Dublin, with both of us squeezing as much sleep as we could from the trip and eschewing the free breakfast.

Once we arrived in Dublin, we were very tired - in part due to the time change (Dublin is 5 hours ahead of our usual time) but mostly due to the limited sleep we had on the plane (James claimed less than two hours). We took the city bus system to our hostel in the city centre. We were able to find everything without a problem and checked into our hostel - which is actually quite nice. The hostel reminded Erin of her college dorm, which brings back many good memories.  There is a nice kitchen/dining area, a TV/game room, a laundry room, a locker room for backpacks, and free wi-fi in the lobby. It's a little noisy, and the lobby is smokier than we're used to, but the first hostel experience on our trip started out well.

Here are some pictures of our hostel room:

We got really lucky that no one else stayed in the room with us the first night, so essentially it was like having our own private room (with bunk beds, of course).

Once we got freshened up, we wandered around the city a bit. We were lucky that the weather was particularly nice - about 70 degrees and sunny.  There was a spot of rain, but we soldiered on in search of our first dinner in Ireland.

Tomorrow we will take a walking tour of Dublin sponsored by local hostels. There are lots of things to explore that are within walking distance of where we are staying. So, hopefully, we’ll have fun exploring the city.

As we said above, in addition to being a big travel day, yesterday was also our third wedding anniversary!  Here are a couple of pictures from our actual wedding in 2007.  Happy memories :)