Florida Visit (April 2023): Day 2

Saturday saw us up bright and early and off to the car park to leave the car. Then it was their shuttle bus to the South Terminal where we could go straight to security, having checked in online and with no bags to be put into the hold.

All went swimmingly and we said our goodbyes to Sarah and Chris as they headed off to a lounge and we headed off to the gate. We were all on board and ready with almost 30 minutes to go, but we couldn't go because they were still refuelling and there was still baggage being loaded in to the hold.

The clock ticked round to 10.40am and our departure time and - guess what? They were still refuelling and apparently still loading bags into the hold!

And so it was that we moved off the stand 27 minutes after our scheduled departure and then spent the usual 25 minutes doing a tour of the airport taxiways until it was time to finally leave the ground.

Next year will see me with 60 years' of flying experience behind me and in all that time I think I have only left early once.

We were in the cheap seats at the back, but it was great there and we were pretty much surrounded by a large group of cheerleaders heading for a competition at the ESPN Wide World of Sport - any excuse for a week or so in the Sunshine State!

So it was all very civilised on board and the in-flight entertainment was excellent - far too much to be able to get through what I might have wanted to on a 9-hour flight.

We even had a go at their games section and managed to win $1 million on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' although as I write this I still can't see the money in out bank account.

Graeme even went mad for a while and even bought his first on board wifi package which wasn't nearly and expensive as I'd feared.

All was well until abut 3/4 through the flight and I noticed that my finger was turning purple. I was given a cold compress to wrap round it and then a hot one but none of the cabin crew seemed to know why that was and I had no other symptoms. I suspected low cabin pressure but was assured that it wasn't unduly so, but a quick look on the web suggested that it was a lack of oxygen in the blood there.

Further researching on Doctor Google then suggested that it might be Achenbach Syndrome - https://tinyurl.com/4tb4jhbn although I had no pain, so who knows? After we had landed it slowly started to recede and has now all but gone.

We had the lightest touch through US immigration yet - mug shot of Elizabeth but no fingerprints, nothing for me. Questions were: why were we here, how long were we staying, have we brought in more than $10k and have we brought in any food?

I think they have us pretty much logged as to why we come so often and of course we don't have any hold baggage.

Then it was a case of waiting for Sarah and Chris's flight to arrive.