Back to Back Haven Epic July 3 thru July 17

[Harratine]

Air Travel through NCL and dealing with health agencies

 

we booked our Air Travel to Barcelona through NCL.  The initial plan was to fly through Toronto Canada to Barcelona with a 5 or so hour layover.  This didn’t feel like a great choice as Canada is fairly strict on transiting in the age of Covid.  We are all vaxxed and boosted, so that was not a concern flying further west and north to go east and south, not my preferred.  
 

June 3rd our flights post for our June 30th departure.  A direct from Dulles to Barcelona on my usual business travel United for the flight there.  Return trip was on an airline that I hadn’t seen an IATA for before TA965 and TA212 with an hour layover.  
 

As we paid for the trip years ago and this was a Covid revenge travel flight, I convinced my wife to upgrade the United leg to business class.  our plane on the Friday we upgraded was a 737-300 that they returned to service.  The cabin is basically a business class layout with a 2 2 2.  All the seats we found were next to the window, so we would have a neighbor to share our flight with.   
 

The following Monday, United swapped in a 787-300 instead.  The Boeing Dreamliner was the plane the Polaris was built for.  Kinda fell up and then swapped seats around until we were all together.
 

In United parlance this is called Polaris and is a a completely different level of service if you haven’t tried it.  IAD’s Polaris lounge opened late last year.  The lounge is separate from United club and is pretty crazy.  It has a sit down restaurant, buffet, full service bar, sleep rooms, shower rooms and telephone rooms for privacy.  A wonderful way to start our trip.  Knowing we were to have access to the restaurant, we arrived earlier than the 3 hour before.  This made checking in at thePolaris checkin gate quick.  The ticket agent came out from behind the desk to greet us and handle all of our bags.  After clearing security and a quick train ride to the infield concourse we made our way into the Polaris lounge and had a wonderful lunch.

 

we stayed at the lounge until about 45 minutes prior to our departure and boarded the flight once they started.  The Polaris seats are set up in a 1 2 1 configuration with every seat having aisle access.  I am 6’-2” tall and normally can not sleep on a plane.  The lie flight seats were just a little too short to lie down on my back, side sleeping however was perfectly fine.

 

Easiest flight to Europe I have ever had.

 

Spain has an online health form that you are required to fill ouT and have approval before arriving in Spain.  You bring the QR code with you.  Except for the timing of the application, it went incredibly well.  
 

So the mystery IATA airline? Royal Air Maroc through Casablanca.  Guess we are going back to Africa?  Airline was really good, the quick layover required us to change terminals, go through two passport checks, a ticket check, an escalator up, a bag check, a jetway and stair down to a bus parked in front of the plane we just got off of located 100’ away.  The half hour obstacle course finished at a 787 parked midfield and boarded on a portable jetway.  I felt like I was POTUS.  Airline was a bit chaotic, overall well done.  Food was pretty good and flight pretty reasonable even though we started in Barcelona at 8:30 AM getting onto the transfer bus and walked into our home in Ashburn at 9:00 PM that same day, six time zones later for a really long day.