Off to Bali

Off to Paris, Bali and Auckland

I’m off on another round the world adventure, including 10 hours in Paris, 24 hours in Bali and 12 hours in Auckland. First up is the usual mediocre United positioning flight to LAX, and the highlight of the trip Air France La Première from LAX to Paris. Then mostly Business Class including 16 hours on the world’s best Business Class, Qatar Q Suites. Then Garuda, LAN and Qantas. Then home via miserable worst in the world Qantas “First Class” on a wretched ancient A380 featuring worn out seats, terrible IFE and, naturally, no Wifi.

Pleasantly surprised this morning as DIA Clear+/PreCheck security had very few passengers.

Which gave lots of time to lounge hop.  First stop is the A concourse and the new Capital One Lounge.   Unfortunately, their soft opening meant the lounge didn't open until 9am.

Then to the C concourse for the Amex Centurion Lounge.

Nice breakfast offerings...

Not one but two of the three lav stalls were "out of order".  But we're really sorry for the inconvenience.  LOL.

Then to the new United Club the B concourse, near my gate.

Nice tarmac views.

Then down to nearby Gate 45.

The usual pathetic United boarding where First Class gets to board with the Group 1 which is seemingly 1/2 the plane and that's after an army of pre-boards.

Pleasant DEN-based crew with pre-departure beverages and meal orders.

But then it begins.  Captain announces a minor mechanical.  LOL.  I've heard before and we all know what that means.

No one has any idea, so let's tack on another 30 minutes.

And then the usual +15 minutes because we have no clue.

At this point, I started looking for a back up and grabbed the last unsold F seat on the 10:15am LAX flight.  At T-40 minutes, I decided to give up on this flight and walked off the plane to Gate 35 where boarding had just begun.

The only available seat was the bulkhead, which was not a problem today since we boarded from 2L and the 753 has plently of overhead bin space.

Keeping track of my old flight. Glad I made the switch.

I need a drink.

Well look at that, my old flight has departed the gate.

The nice thing about a scheduled 10:15am departure is that it is a lunch flight.  The chicken meatballs was very tasty.