On New Year's Day we drove to Tampa and arrived at 5pm in plenty of time for our 5:45 dinner reservations. Our hotel room was delightful with a large screen TV -- perfect for watching New Year's Day football games -- a huge couch in the sitting area, a desk area, small kitchen, and of course the standard bed and bathroom.
We arrived for dinner at Lee Roy Selmon's, and it's a good thing we had reservations -- if was packed, since it's a sports bar. There were loads of people watching games and waiting for tables, however the hostess took care of us and seated us in less than 5 minutes at a both for two. Denny enjoyed the evening special of pulled pork, and I had salmon and shrimp with steamed broccoli. After eating we headed back to the hotel for a relaxing evening -- basically trying to stay awake, since we were so tired! It was an early night for us both!
Denny's dinner
Marilynne's dinner
Friday our day of flights began after breakfast at the hotel. We took the 8:30am shuttle to the airport to check bags and get to the gate in plenty of time for our 11:45am flight to Atlanta. We certainly had plenty of time --no chance of us missing this flight! When we checked our bags and later went through security we were asked if we were headed anywhere great. What fun to be able to say we're heading to Tahiti! We had numerous offers to carry our bags there!
In Atlanta we had plenty of time to enjoy lunch after our 59 minute flight there. We located a P.F. Chang's on the A concourse and had a delightful lunch -- so much food that we packaged the leftovers up to take with us on our 5 hour flight to L.A. As the last hour of that second flight approached we broke out our leftovers and had a great snack.
Fortunately or bags were checked through to Papeete, so we didn't have to collect them in L.A. However we did have to walk outside security and the terminal building to the international terminal. It was chilly, windy, and dark, so that wasn't much fun. Once we arrived at the terminal we discovered we had to wait an hour to checking and get our boarding passes. Since we'd already been sitting for several hours we were ready to stand, so we got in the line that had started forming. That ended up being a happy thing to do, as we met Lobby and Joanne, two widowed and retired teachers who're traveling on our cruise. We had an interesting conversation with them then met up with them again, after passing through security, for a light snack and more informative conversation.
Afterwards we still had several hours to wait for boarding our third and final flight, so we walked around a bit then worked on charging or electronics. Finally we headed to our gate and wound up meeting a delightful couple from NC with whom we talked until we boarded. Hopefully we'll hook up with them several times on the cruise, as we got along famously!
Air Tahiti didn't start boarding our flight until 11:30 L.A.time which was 2:30a.m. our body time -- The boarding process for Air Tahiti appeared to be mass chaos initially, but things eventually got worked out. They loaded from the rear of the plane to the front by blocks of row numbers, and it worked perfectly. One wonders why other airlines don't board that way. The airline colors are a beautiful aqua and white, so the seats, pillows, blankets and dishes all matched. Each person had a small aqua bundle waiting on their seat -- it contained aqua socks, an aqua sleep mask, ear plus, and a head set -- very nice!
Meals served were dinner and breakfast -- actually a light dinner and heavier breakfast. The 8+ hour flight started getting very long, especially after the 5-hour flight to L.A. Fortunately we were able to sleep a bit --nothing heavy, but at least we rested somewhat. Everyone on the flight was very glad to be back on the ground this morning at about 6 and to be entertained on the way into the terminal by a couple of male island singers and a female dancer. We knew we'd arrived when we saw the welcome signs and heard their music!
We're finally here!
Entrance to customs
I'll take Denny's dinner - do you think he'd share? ; )
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