Sunday, December 18, 2011

Queen Mary 2- Grand Caribbean Celebration Cruise - Sunday, December 18, 2011 – Chicago, IL – Cold – 23F

Travel Day

It’s a nippy morning in Chicago but our cab is 25 minutes early and we are nearly ready to go.  We are flying Delta today (got some good fares) so we are headed for Terminal 2 to catch DL5942 at 11:05 AM to La Guardia.  Security is relatively light but our plane is not waiting for us at Gate E6.  It arrives about 10 minutes after our scheduled boarding time.

 Our Embraer 170 arriving (Small)

Our plane arrives a bit late

The ground crew really turns the plane around and we start to board about 10 minutes later.

ERJ 170 ready to go (Small)

DL5942 (an ERJ 170) is ready to go

We take off a bit late but the pilot says a strong tail wind will get us into LGA pretty much on time.  The climb out from Chicago was scenic (you can see the fog layer).

Climbout Chicago (Small)

The flight is very smooth and the plane is pretty comfortable considering its small size (like a shrunken 737).  You can tell it’s a new plane because it doesn’t have a “no smoking” light but rather a “turn off electronic devices” light and a “seat belt” light.  Finally, somebody got rid of the “no smoking” lights.

We did circle for about 10 minutes before getting clearance to land.  We were on the “non-Manhattan” side of the plane so I didn’t get those great pictures of the City on approach.

Final Approach La Guardia (Small)

Final Approach to LGA

Even though the plane is small, we were able to cram our carry-on bags into the overhead compartment.  We went straight to the cab pickup area because our plan today is to visit Ellen’s uncle in Teaneck, NJ.

It turns out the cab ride was almost as expensive as the flight - $87.00.  The cabbie did not even help with the bags and to top it off, couldn’t find the destination in Teaneck.  I helped him with my phone GPS.  Mini-tip service.

We had a great time visiting with family (all the grandkids and cousins) and a great dinner as well.

We are now in our hotel (Hampton Inn) resting up for another cab ride tomorrow to the Brooklyn Seaport.

The hotel is new and quiet…looking forward to fresh waffles in the morning.