First Of Two Travel Days

Today is the first of two travel days to get to Vancouver for our pre-cruise stay.  We decided on this approach to avoid changing flights and given the flight schedules.  

We are staying over in Dallas at the hotel that is connected to the Dallas Fort Worth International Terminal.  We have done this various time mainly on pre-cruise travel.  

Ironically, on our first Crystal Cruise this hotel had not been built and we stayed at a sister hotel located at the airport but not connected to any terminal.  We did this because we had a very early flight to San Francisco so it made everything very easy since there were five of us flying.  

We were picked up about fifteen minutes early for our  drive to the airport.  As we entered the airport, at 5:15 AM the amount of traffic was significantly higher than we have ever experienced at this airport any time of the day.  Yes, many people on summer vacations. There were large lines at the airport counter but with first class tickets we had no line.  

Normally, at this hour there are very few people in line for TSA Pre Check.  This was not the case today.  The line was incredibly long. The good news is it is TSA Pre Check so it did move.  We each had a 22" roller board plus back packs for our personal item. Coincidentally, each of our backpacks had to go through an additional security check.  In each case, they checked our computers.  Maybe the recent update that Apple released was the culprit. LOL.  

The airport club room was typical for this time of day so that was good.  Around the time we got settled in the lounge Keith got a text that our flight was delayed about forty minute.  This is one of the reasons we decided not to do all the flying in one day. 

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The flight was delayed about 50 minutes. The inbound flight was coming from Charlotte, North Carolina and was supposed to  arrive shortly after midnight.  It didn't take off until early this morning.  We weren't at the gate when it arrived but it must have had a light load because when we arrived to the gate the crew for our flight was just boarding.  The flight is less than one hour and we got in early.  The good news is they changed the terminal to the International Terminal. This meant that we didn't have to take an airport bus after claiming our luggage.  Instead we could take the elevator up one floor and walk to the Hotel.

Speaking of baggage claim, when we used to live in North Texas we found that many people transited through DFW and baggage claim was not very busy on several flights.  Today was a first.  There was only one other person claiming luggage from our flight even though our flight was sold out.

Keith had texted with the hotel earlier in the morning after receiving a welcome e-mail from them. He asked if it was possible to have our room available early and they wrote right back to say they would do their best.  They did just that and when we checked in the room was ready and the person who checked us in was the one who made this happen.

After getting settled we had lunch.  Yes for those of you who know us we each had a salad. LOL.

Tomorrow we fly to Vancouver and look forward to four nights in this wonderful city.

​Anne Marie & Keith