This trip is so unlike city girl Mrs. SFO777. Some 8 months ago after a few drinks, Mrs. SFO777 decided that she wanted to go fishing in Alaska. Say what??
Forget that in our 22 years together, we have never gone fishing and she has never even hinted about wanting to go fishing. Add in the fact that her idea of camping is a hotel without room service and this is a most bizarre and uncharacteristic trip.
The funniest part of our planning was when she read the fine print earlier in the week and found out that we may need to be ready at 3am to meet our fishing guide. OMG. This is the woman that says no flights before noon. She couldn't understand why we have to go so early and not 10am, until SFO777Jr explained that the fishies go to sleep when the temps warm up. OK, this is going to be a hoot.
When we were living in Denver, we had booked a United nonstop to Anchorage. Now in Orange County, we are off to John Wayne for our Alaska flights to Seattle and Anchorage. Our new OC driver picked us up at 1:45p and we were at the SNA Alaska counter at 2:10p.
With only a couple of folks in front of us in the PreCheck line, we were thru in no time and at the Admirals Club a few minutes later. Small but pleasant lounge with a very friendly staff.
At around T-45 we headed down to Gate 6 where boarding was just about to start.
Santa Ana-Seattle
Alaska 509
737-800
3:55p-6:15p
July 12, 2016
Lunch
One step on this plane and I remember why I don't fly Alaska a lot. Yikes, what a crappy old plane this sucker is.
Tight pitch at only 36" which is the worst F cabin in North America.
And the bulkhead, the only row with a pair of seats when I booked. Wow, can they get the seats any closer to the wall?
No PDB but there was a bottle of water at each seat.
Hedge Trimmer??
Pleasant cabin crew provided excellent service given what they have to work with. Good luck with that VX acquisition because those VX customers will run for the hills when they get a load of this cabin and Alaska food. Today's meal was a choice of tortellini with eggplant, or not. Eggplant? Really? A couple of bites and that was it for me. Yuck. And I thought AA meals were bad.
And the only edible part of the meal, the Dancing Deer Lemon Square.
Passing by Lake Tahoe, another place we once called home.
Gogo worked, off and on. Please, take me back to United or even American.
At least there was power.
Yep, that's pretty tight.
Approaching Seattle.
And to the N terminal. In an amazing stroke of luck, we arrived at N14 and our flight to Anchorage is departing from adjacent N16. A quick visit to the small-ish N Terminal Board Room.
Nice plane and baggage cart spotting.
Rather weak food offerings.
Not wanting to chance another AS meal, we headed for what appeared to be the lesser of the food evils, the Seahawks 12 Club.
Pepperoni flatbread was pretty weak.
As were their "signature" pulled pork sliders.
Seattle-Anchorage
Alaska 99
737-800
7:50p-10:15p
July 12, 2016
Dinner
Same old plane, same old cabin. Except this one featured the filthiest windows I have ever seen on any plane. Yeah, let's clean the inside windows with a dirty rag.
In contrast to the great SNA-SEA crew, this crew was pretty useless.
And then there was the meal service. No description at all from our grouchy FA. I'm guessing chicken. Strange presentation though.
I rearrange the tray. Unfortunately, it didn't help. Other than round 2 of the Dancing Deer Sweet Lemon Square, this meal was disgusting. Fortunately we had eaten in Seattle and I took the meal for the photo op.
Nice pics on descent to Anchorage.
10:30pm in Anchorage looks like 7:30p in the lower 48.
We picked up our Avis SUV and headed for the airport Courtyard, a short 5 minute drive.
Pretty basic room with mandatory for summer in Alaska black-out curtains. Oops, sorry for the mess.
