Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago
Booking the Flights
While I have preferred airlines and like to try ones I’ve never flown before, often I find that the best airline to fly is the one with award space for what I consider to be a reasonable price. To that end I booked an early morning flight from Venice to Chicago via Madrid on Iberia for just 49K British Airways Avios + $181.65 in taxes and fees. It’s possible I could have transferred the Avios from BA to Iberia and saved a little on the taxes and fees but I was lazy and didn’t even consider it.
Ordinarily it would have made sense to try to connect with an American Airlines flight to get me from Chicago to Memphis but often there’s no award space on that leg except for the first flight of the day. As United is generally my airline of choice I decided just to purchase a cash ticket for the final leg and I won’t be reviewing that here.
Iberia 3249 VCE-MAD A330-300
October 28, 2023
Boarded at 0540 for a flight at 0625
Registration: EC-NTO
Seat: 3A (Business Class)
Venice to Madrid
My return trip started very early in the morning with a 2 AM wake-up call as Viking wanted to deliver us to the airport by 4:30 AM for my 6:30 AM flight from Venice to Madrid and we were docked in Chioggia, which was about an hour by motorcoach from the airport. I was a little confused when we arrived at the airport as our luggage was unloaded from the bus but was then loaded on to a smaller van. From what I could piece together, the large buses are not allowed up close to the terminal. To make it easier for us, Viking arranged to have our luggage put in some vans and brought right up to the curb across from the terminal, where we picked it up after a 3-4 minute walk. I’m not sure it was entirely necessary but given the average age of Viking cruisers it was probably a good idea.
The day started very early…
I found the Iberia counter almost straight ahead from where I entered and there was no one in the Business Class line though there was a person at the counter ahead of me. But I had just a brief wait before being quickly and efficiently helped and my large bag was checked.
With my Business Class ticket I was able to go through the Fast Track security line and soon enough I was through to the air side of the terminal. I didn’t even look for a lounge as I was hoping to catch up with my friend, who was flying Lufthansa in economy, one last time before her flight left 5 minutes after mine.
While my boarding pass displayed my gate number, the signs in the terminal only reflect the gate assignments at the very last minute before boarding is due to start. So I couldn’t even tell where my friend’s gate was and it just so happened she walked by where I was sitting at my gate. (She had turned off her cell service for the trip so we couldn’t text each other.) But fortunately we got to say our goodbyes.
I won’t do a full review of this flight but here are the salient points:
- We began boarding just a little after the posted time.
- I was the first to board and as I walked down the fixed portion of the jet bridge I was stopped from reaching the moveable part by a ribbon across that portion. Eventually someone came and put that aside and then it happened again when I reached the “rounded” part of the jet bridge, near where the gate agent controls are to “drive” it. I’ve never had that happen before!
- We actually pushed back a little early but ended up sitting on the tarmac for quite awhile
- Breakfast was served about an hour into the 2h 21m flight and consisted of toast, a croissant, bacon, yogurt and a choice of beverages
This was a perfectly acceptable intra-European business class flight where the seat was in economy with the middle seat blocked. We landed a little late but I still had plenty of time to make my connection.
Madrid Terminal Experience
We landed in Terminal 4, on the J concourse so I began the trek to the Terminal 4 Satellite (4S). This is only my third time in this airport and as I passed the signs for the lounge something tickled my brain that there wasn’t much in the way of services in 4S but as I only had a 2h 30m layover, I wasn’t too worried about that. Sure enough, after taking the train over to 4S I realized there aren’t even any food options other than a self-serve Starbucks and some vending machines. Fortunately we’d been fed on the earlier flight so I knew I’d be fine until lunch on the plane.
My flight left from gate 50, the furthest one from the terminal entrance. As I walked towards it I noticed there was a secondary security check for flights to the US. As I had plenty of time, I stopped before I reached that point and recharged my phone. I’m glad I did because once I passed that secondary security there were no outlets available at all. That seemed not cool to me. I should note that the outlets I used were part of a charging station, not built into the terminal wall and there were none of these charging stations near the gates for the US flights.
Flight Experience
My boarding pass said that boarding would start at 10:55 AM for our 11:35 AM flight but the info board in the terminal said 10:40 AM. We ended up boarding at 10:43 AM and entered via door 1L, which meant everyone had to file past us on the way back to economy. I crossed over to the starboard aisle and found my window seat mid-cabin, 4L, a single seat closer to the window. The odd-numbered rows have the single seats closer to the aisle. With the 1-2-1 layout, the 2 seats in the middle section alternate between “honeymoon seats” that are closer together and are great when you’re traveling with a companion and two seats with the armrests in between them and the seats right on the aisle. The business class cabin was almost completely full though the seat across the aisle from me was empty.
Business Class Cabin
Waiting for me at my seat was an amenity kit and a pretty significant bedding kit. In addition to the pillow and duvet, there was also another blanket or utility item that could be rolled into a bolster, spread out and used as a mattress pad or anything in between. I really liked it as I left it rolled up and used it as lumbar support when I was sitting up and when I was lounging I put it under my knees.
My footwell was against the side of the plane and it is quite open with the only limitation being the bottom of the IFE screen. This only bothered me when I was turning over or getting settled in while I had the seat in bed mode. Otherwise there was plenty of space.
TV Monitor and Foot rest
A cubby for shoes was tucked underneath the footwell.
Cubby under the foot rest
Under the armrest was the electric outlets and a slot made to hold the water bottle.
Charging Outlets and Water Bottle holder
Along the side of the seat were the seat controls which were reasonably intuitive, though it was only at breakfast that I realized I could move the seat closer to the fold-down tray. The controller for the IFE system was stored here too. I liked that you could control the volume directly from the controller without having to use it to find the proper spot on the screen to click. You could also select items directly from the remote instead of having to click through on the screen.
IFE Controller and Seat Controls
Speaking of the tray, it was a single piece that was stored upright against the back of the seat in front. After unclipping it could be swung into position and then lowered flat. Once it’s in use there’s no way to get out of the seat so be sure to take care of bathroom needs before the meal service.
Tray Table as it’s stored
Tray Table ready for use
Above my left shoulder was a reading light and on the armrest was the amenity kit and the headphones. The headphones use a 3-prong triangular port located near the A/C outlet.
Amenity Kit and Headphones on the armrest
The amenity kit had a fairly usual selection of items: eye shades, ear plugs, a combo comb/brush, a toothbrush & toothpaste, lip balm, lotion and a refreshing facial spray.
Amenity Kit Contents
After getting settled in we were offered a pre-departure beverage. Our choices were orange juice, water or Villa Conchi Cava sparkling wine. I went with the orange juice.
Pre-departure Orange Juice
Iberia 6275 MAD-ORD
Aircraft: A330-300
Registration: EC-LUK
Depart: 11:35 AM, actual 12:11 PM
Arrive: 2:15 PM, actual 2:48 PM
Seat: 4L Business Class
About 20 minutes after takeoff we were served with cold cleansing towels, followed by the meal service. It proceeded at an appropriate pace. The menu was as follows:
First we had our choice of an starter. I skipped the olives but accepted the cheese slice and almonds. We were also given a bag of breadsticks and I opted for a Coke Zero.
Cheese and almonds and mini-breadsticks
Next was the appetizer and I opted for the smoked salmon tartare.
Smoked salmon tartare appetizer
Only one flight attendant took our entree orders ahead of time and she recommended either the grilled cod or the pasta. I’m not sure if that’s because she’d started taking orders on the other aisle and was out of the beef before she got to me or if she truly did not recommend the beef. But I’d decided on the pasta before she reached me, so that made my choice easy.
Lunch pasta entree
Hooray for airlines serving chocolate for dessert! Though strangely if you only looked at the English version of the menu you’d never know it was chocolate as it was only described as Sacher cake, a description I’m not familiar with. I did notice on the Spanish menu that chocolate was mentioned. The FA did describe it as chocolate too but of course I had to have it. And it was delicious.
Wonderful chocolate cake
It was topped off with a small super-dark chocolate bar that was 70% cacao. That’s about my limit for chocolate percentage but I still gobbled that down too.
Bite-size Chocolate
After dinner I bedded down for a much-needed nap and slept for at least two hours. This seat was much more comfortable than the one on my Lufthansa flight on the way to Europe. With the way that this seat extends to meet the footwell, I was able to find a spot where I could sleep on my side and my hip didn’t have to be on the joint between two sections of the seat. While I was sleeping the crew came around and dropped off a bottle of water.
Bottle of Water
After waking I half-watched a documentary and didn’t mind too much when I kept dozing off. During this time the crew came by and offered some sort of pre-packaged ice cream bar or treat but I wasn’t interested.
One thing that frustrated me was that the crew never picked up the wrappers that were around the bedding so they just littered the floor the whole flight. One of the lavatories ran out of toilet paper on one of the rolls (there was a second one, thank goodness) but that did not get refreshed either.
Approximately 1h 15m before landing a snack was served. The choices were listed as Russian salad or Homemade gnocchi. I’d only heard of Russian salad the day before on the ship and at least in that version of it, beef tongue was listed as an ingredient. I didn’t want to take a chance on that so I selected the gnocchi. Interestingly, the FA described the choices as “tapas” or “pasta”. At any rate it was pretty good and just filling enough.
Pre-landing gnocchi
About 30 minutes before landing the crew collected the headphones, which was a little annoying to some folks. By that point I was just watching the air show so it didn’t bother me. And speaking of that, I got amused because when the air show was displaying a wider view, the plane was shown pointed west, as would be expected when flying from Madrid to Chicago.
But when it showed a zoomed-in view, the plane was always heading to the right, which meant they flipped the map around behind it with South at the top! I mean, we could figure it out but it was just weird.
I’m not sure if it was due to the pockets of turbulence we encountered or just fighting the jet stream but the flight landed about 30 minutes late and we had a very long taxi to gate M25. The international arrivals area in Chicago is undergoing renovation so it was a whole new world for me compared to my previous arrivals here. I do like the new Global Entry kiosks that no longer require scanning my passport. Once I got to the kiosk, it was a breeze to clear through. It appeared that the baggage handlers unloaded one cart before realizing they should have unloaded the bags with priority tags but all in all my bag came out pretty quickly. I was just glad that I had plenty of time for my next flight (bought on a separate ticket) and didn’t have to worry about missing it.
In the end
This was a perfectly acceptable business class flight. If you’re traveling solo, the single seats along the window in the even-numbered rows are the way to go. The seat was comfortable and the service was friendly.
2B Traveling 
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