Friday, May 16, 2008

Luxembourg: Houston Intercontinental, Houston TX (IAH) to Amsterdam Schipol International, Amsterdam Netherlands (AMS)

CO46 16MAY08 Houston Intercontinental, Houston TX (IAH) to Amsterdam Schipol International, Amsterdam Netherlands (AMS) 7:10p 11:50a +1 Day N66057 764

Flight Time: 9:07
Seat Map

I made a joke with the flight attendant at the door that I wanted to sit in the toilet (making reference to a passenger that said he sat in the toilet on a JetBlue (B6) Los Angeles, CA (LAX) to New York JFK flight), she smiled and motioned me to the second aisle for my aisle seat. This aircraft is configured with 35 seats in the BusinessFirst cabin configured as 2-1-2 and 200 in Economy class in a 2-3-2 configuration. Each seat has individual seat back videos

It was 7:05p when the door closed and it was time to turn off the cell phones and prepare to get out of here. We pushed back at 7:08p at which time the safety video started first in English and then in Dutch.

At 7:23p, it was time for the flight attendants to take their seats, then we took off behind a Boeing 737-800 with winglets from Continental.

Oh, I have no camera for this trip as it is in the shop at the moment. I will try to take pictures using my borrowed mobile (yes, I am a mess...).

After takeoff, the lead flight attendant gave a welcome onboard and explained the service for the night. We would have a drink service, followed by dinner then an arrival breakfast service just about 1.5 hours before landing in Amsterdam.

We then had an introductory video about how the system works followed by the movies starting. I opted to watch “Step Up 2 the Streets.” My other choices were from:

  1. Continental Presents House
  2. The Bucket List/Lifestyle 365
  3. Continental Family Channel 1: The Any Bully/Dexter’s Laboratory, Xiaolin Showdown
  4. The Final Season/Dirty Jobs
  5. Step Up 2 to the Streets/What I like About You
  6. Continental Presents CSI
  7. Comedy Programming: The Game, Notes from the Underbelly, The Big Bang theory, Everybody Hates Chris, The New Adventures of Old Christine, The King of Queens
  8. The Entertainment Channel
  9. Airshow

On the music front, we had twenty channels:

  1. Opera
  2. Now & Then
  3. Ambient Groove
  4. Latin Fiesta
  5. Continental Lounge
  6. The Classics
  7. The Hit Factory
  8. Jazz Beat
  9. Continental Talk
  10. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  11. Country Roads
  12. Live Broadway
  13. Club Continental
  14. R&B Groove
  15. World Music
  16. B Tween
  17. Hindi Music
  18. Japanese Favorites
  19. Chinese Pop
  20. Shalom

Oh there were games too:

  1. Chess
  2. Poker
  3. Solitaire
  4. Invasion
  5. Elephant Memory
  6. Bzzz
  7. Blackjack
  8. Cave Crunch
  9. Caveman
  10. Hang Man

Offers for drinks came and I opted for some white wine and water. Wine, beer, mixed drinks were 5 USD, coupon or Continental currency. You could smell dinner throughout the cabin, it smelled like curry, but I am not sure it was.

It was 8:26p, when the Captain came on the PA, I could not hear a thing he was saying in my head set or over the PA although I strained, I did her him say the temp was 13C, but that was it. The meal service had started and I waited hungrily for mine to arrive.

Choice of chicken and noodles or beef and potatoes. I chose chicken ad I had tried the beef the last time ad it was a little difficult to eat. The chicken came with pasta and vegetables, a roll, a pack of Milano cookies and a salad with Pepper cream dressing. Offers for drinks came after. The meal was quite good and I ate heartily.

A flight attendant cleaned up our mess at 8:56p. I fell asleep with 6:37 to go, but did not get much sleep as there were two kids that made a rukus for most of the flight.

Breakfast came with about 1:20 to go. It was a croissant and jam with some fruits. I ate heartily and then tried to get some sleep but that did not work well.

We descended soon and landed on runway 06 at 11:23a. By 11:40a, we were at the gate 10 minutes early.

Luxembourg: At Houston Intercontinental, Houston TX (IAH)

Houston Intercontinental, Houston TX (IAH)

There were no security issues, so once I cleared u made my way to the ticket office in Terminal E as I needed to get tickets to Luxembourg in case I decided to go there on my arrival in Amsterdam.

After that I rejoined my colleague in the Presidents Club where he was already joined by a friend of his. I logged on for a bit, had a drink and then had some cheese and crackers. It was already 6:40p and time to make my way to gate E20 for the flight to Amsterdam.

I made my way down to the gate, meandering through slow passengers on the moving walkway. At the gate, I got my boarding pass after chatting with the gate agent who’s accent I recognized was from Jamaica. She verified my documents and then handed me my boarding pass. We chatted for a bit and then I boarded the flight.

Off to the airport

Still not sure where I'm heading, I was off to the airport on the Amsterdam bound flight at 7:10p.

My colleague and I left downtown at about 5:20p. Traffic was light so we made it to the remote parking facilities at the airport by 5:48p, and to terminal C at 6:10p.

I don't know where I'm going

But, here are two options so far:

London, England
Luxembourg, Luxembourg (LUX) via Amsterdam or Paris.