Lax Angeles

The fight to LAX is long and uncomfortable. It didn’t help that the IFE didn’t work. I recognised the telltale boot script on the screen, with the little penguin in the top corner. Another Panasonic crash.

I had a cunning plan. Yes, I know. Another one.

While we were doing the family group shuffle at boarding time, Sarah was at the window, and I had moved to the middle seat. Sarah wanted to swap, but we wanted to wait until the seatplan nazi had finished. When she left, we swapped, without disturbing the woman in the D seat. That’s when I had my cunning plan. Anybody see where I’m going? Let’s see.

All airline seats are fixed, with the ability to recline, if you’re lucky. Our people got a bit clever with what is now known as cuddle class. I haven’t seen them in the flesh, but it looks like the footrest folds up to fill the gap between seats, creating a bed space. I have to say, I really liked the ad we used (maybe a mock-up, not sure) for these. They use symbology, like no smoking, no pets, that kind of thing. They had a spoon symbol, with a tick. Then a fork symbol, with a cross. Brilliant.

Anyway, getting to any seat in economy is a shuffle. Virtually impossible to get past anyone. All you’ve got is the room allocated for your knees, to do any manoeuvring at all.

So, my idea is to take what has been done in theatres for years. Have the seat fold up, as soon as you stand up. How easy would it be to get around on board if each row became an aisle when we stood up? Boarding and disembarking would be so much quicker. Cleaning would be faster. Now THAT would help OTP! There you go Doug, ruminate on that.

There is only one potential obstacle that I can see to this. The seats need to remain securely anchored to the floor, but I doubt that the designers would find this unsurmountable. Given the design of seat mountings now, it may not even be an issue at all.

Despite the bad stuff, the Delta flight was actually OK.

We landed only a few minutes late, and then waited 20 minutes for the bags to start. The 757 is a hand-loaded aircraft, like the 737, so I guess it took a while to unload.

So, bags at the ready, we go outside to wait for the shuttle. I had already called the hotel to warn them we would be late. They said they don’t cancel if we get there before 0200. No problem there. It’s 0130 when we are still waiting for the belt to start.

The shuttle arrives within 3-4 minutes, and we are now at the hotel. Sleeeeep.

We have a 1400 checkout (Priority Privilege card has some benefit here. Cool), and the flight to SYD doesn’t leave till 2230.

After a very good sleep in a very good bed, we check out at 1330, and put the bags into storage.

We have stayed at LAX airport before, always purchased through Hotwire.com. This is a great website for cheap hotels, based on location. The unusual thing about Hotwire, is that you don’t know which hotel you are staying at until you pay for it. We used it last year for LAX, and got the Hilton Airport. Nice Hotel. We also used if for Las Vegas, and got the Trump. Another score. Refer to last year’s blog for details.

This time we got Crowne Plaza. It’s about 300m closer to the airport than the Hilton, and at least as nice. Both are listed on Hotwire as 3.5 stars, but are both better.

Anyway, that’s the up side. The down side is that this part of LA is crap. Nothing around. Like where we stayed in DC, nowhere within walking distance. Walking distance in most of LA is a hell of a lot shorter than walking distance in DC, by the way.

To be honest, we are not fans of LA at all. It’s just a nasty means to an end, a way of getting somewhere better. Check out last year’s entry for our attempt to find somewhere nice at Santa Monica.

Last year we checked out after lunch, did a quick last  tour of the pier, and went to the airport horribly early. Luckily we could check-in, and spent a few hours in the Koru Lounge.

This year we are not travelling on NZ. We took QF, so that we could do the JFKLAX sector on them. They don’t have rights to pick up domestic pax who are not booked internationally on QF. And that turned out SO well for us, didn’t it?

So, what to do to fill in a few hours, in a crappy industrial part of a crappy superficial town?

As luck would have it, when we checked in last night, we saw a flyer for a hop-on-hop-off trolley that goes right past. If you’ve been paying attention, you know how much we love those things. And no, that is not sarcasm.

We check out the trolley. It goes to 3 stops. Manhattan Beach village, Manhattan Mall, and El Segundo Mall. And it costs $5 each. We are off to fill in a few hours.

The trolley goes past every 30 minutes, and it is due in 5. Let’s go.

The first stop is Manhattan Beach. Actually, this is very, very nice. Very pretty place. We could live in this kind of area. I Know! LA. Go figure.

Next was the mall. We stopped here to do Olive Garden. Hadn’t done one before. It’s an Italian restaurant chain over here. Not bad at all. 

As Sarah says, cute little mall. Single story, well laid out. Nice.