Japan/TransPacific Cruise Pre Cruise Day 1 CVG to DFW to HND “Drink the Coke Zero, do NOT Wear the Coke Zero” or “Wow, Andrea can Move Fast if She Really Needs To”

Our Lyft driver is picking us up at 6:40 am. We have a 9:25 flight, an hour to the airport, check bags, get through TSA, get to gate. Yeah, this should work out. We have decided to have the alarm go off at 5:45. I do not know how Rob does it but he has some sort of internal alarm clock and he wakes up at 4:55. How do I know? Because I woke up. Not that I GOT up, I chose to cram in as much more sleep as possible. My stomach has chosen today as a good day to kick up. That’s fine, you won’t be getting many chances to eat anyway. There are always those last minute things to take care of. Since we spent a while out of the house yesterday we had a lot done ahead of time. We moved the luggage out to the driveway then had a discussion about how you have to turn the front porch light off before you lock the door. Come on, it was early in the morning. Our driver is on time and has a minivan. It is nice to not have to ride to the airport with a suitcase on my lap. The driver is nice and we enjoy chatting with him. He drops us off right in front of American Airlines. Oh, wow, there is a huge line to check bags. Oh well, we got here in plenty of time. There are two lines, very clearly marked. One is for “Priority/First Class” and the other is for steerage. We are in the steerage line. They have plenty of counter agents working so it is moving but the line behind us is growing. Finally one agent comes out from behind the counter and yells that only priority or first class should be in the line on the left. We lose about a third of the people from the steerage line to that line. OK, cool. You would think that if you were priority or first class you would be looking for that line. We get our bags checked and head for TSA. I have our boarding passes and passports. I take the passports out of the holders and put the boarding passes with the matching passport. I choose the far left line at TSA pre check. The last time we flew I chose the one on the right. They have this new system call Clear something where you pay $200.00/year and you get to skip the lines. They are brought over in front of the TSA pre check people. The use the lines on the right the most so we went left. We get everything on the belt and I look for the body scanner. I have an artificial knee so the metal detector goes bonkers. Rob has a pacemaker and the metal detector will make the pacemaker go bonkers, something that we would prefer to avoid. Oops, there is no body scanner here, just a metal detector. They tell me that I should be fine. Yeah, it was not happy with my bionic knee. We are not going to see what happens if Rob goes through. We have to gather up our bins and suitcases and go to a different line with a body scanner. An agent assists us and we skip the to the front, just what I was complaining about. We are pulled back together and take off for our gate. I ride the train and Rob walks. I have an Apple Airtag on him so if he gets lost I can find him. We make it to the gate in time to get a notice about a flight delay. We have 44 minutes to make our connection at the Dallas/Fort Worth. I talk to a flight attendant and navigator at the counter. Yeah, there is bad weather between here and there and we will not be able to fly straight through. We have looked at other options and this is about it for us. Here is a life hack, while you cannot take liquids through TSA you can take ice. I fill our water bottles up with ice cubes before a flight then fill them at a water bottle filler in the airport. They are asking people to gate check their carry on bags. Yeah, with a short connection that is not happening. I also have all of my camera stuff in there, not happening. We get on board. This is one of those newer planes where you put your roller bag in on it’s side. Do you know how many people cannot follow that direction? They are laying flat, one is even put in laying flat the long way. I have no problem flipping suitcases onto their side to make room. They have also announced no jackets or backpacks in the overhead so you can imagine what else is up there. Our plan is to meet up with Page and Barry in Dallas. We are on the same flight to Haneda and will be sharing a ride to the airport. I have been messaging Page, they have blue skies in Dallas so maybe we will be on time. People are finally getting seated and we take off 7 minutes early. Not a lot, but I will take anything that we can get. The flight attendant who I spoke to before the flight is serving drinks in our section. He has looked up our connecting flights and has told me how to get to that gate. There is a new sky bridge connecting Terminal C & D. I am sipping on my Coke Zero, it does help to settle my stomach when I reach for a wrapper to throw away, yup, there goes the entire cup of soda and ice on my lap. Lovely, I am in these clothes for a long time. The flight attendant brings me a huge stack of napkins and then tells me to go to the restroom in business class to clean up. He points out that at least it was not sugar. Surprisingly he brings me another soda. I don’t know that I would have brought me another soda. I am checking our flight path. Instead of going WSW from Cincinnati to Dallas we go due west then southwest then due south. We all know that the shortest distance is a straight line. I am back to messaging Page. She has spoken to the people at the gate to tell them that we are coming. This is going to be close. We land 25 minutes later than scheduled and actually do not take that long to get to a gate. We have our luggage down and ready to go. I ask the people ahead of us if we can go, we have to catch a connection. Everyone is nice and lets us go. Rick, the flight attendant tells us to go out turn right, go up then across, down and keep going and we will get there in 5 to 10 minutes. We take off. I did ask the gate agent if she could contact the other gate to tell them that we are on our way. Nope. We take off as fast as I can go. I can hear the last call for American flight to Tokyo Haneda. Yeah, yeah, we are coming. There are moving walkways and we are sprinting on them. We cross the bridge and go down the escalator. Gates D 1 – D 40. Oh Lordy, how many gates do we have to go? Oh, we are starting at 40, we only have to get to 30. I have no problem cutting through lines. I can get through a high school hallway at class change, this is nothing. D 30 is in sight. We get to the gate and the woman asks if we are the Andersons. I stop panting long enough to say yes. They need our passports. We pass and we head down the skyway. I am still rushing and Rob points out that at this point they will not leave without us. We are in 13 H & J, we are aimed to our seats and passengers assist us with stowing our bags. The 20 something couple next to Rob are not happy. They probably thought that they would have an empty seat between them. I am in the middle three seats on the aisle. There is a father on the other aisle seat and his wife has two boys on the outside three seats. I know what that is like. You think that you have an empty seat then last minute someone comes on the plane. Sorry. They shut the door right after we got on. A flight attendant makes sure that we are OK and they strap in for take off. We are plane #20 in the take off line. Oh dear why am I coughing? Oh yeah, that run through the airport and stress has triggered a mild asthma attack. An organized person would have their inhaler in their personal item under the seat in front of them. Mine is in a bag in the overhead. I keep looking at the flight attendant strapped into the jump seat. What would happen if I jump up to get the inhaler? These days if you cough on an airplane people freak out. I keep drinking water and try to get through it. We finally take off and when we level out I grab my inhaler. It does take a bit for it to work but it does. Note to self; pack inhaler in personal item. I have been checking the status of our suitcases. Both got unloaded in Dallas but only one got unloaded. We will be in Tokyo at the same hotel for three nights so hopefully it will catch up to us. We have 14 hours on this flight. We will also have daylight for the entire time, we are chasing the sun. The windows do not have pull down shades on them, but the windows automatically darken. I find a movie to watch “Death of the Flower Moon.” I had heard good things about it and I think that it won several awards at the Oscars. I have really good noise cancelling headphones so I can concentrate on the movie. Oh, here comes drink service. Pause the movie and take the headphones off. Back to the movie. Rob needs help with his tablet, to be fair it is my old tablet and he is just starting to use it. Pause movie and take off headphones. Rob cannot get headphones to work. Pause movie and take off headphones. I think that he is set up, restart movie. Rob is getting the buttons on the tablet mixed up. Pause movie and take off headphones. Start movie and remember to not dump Coke Zero into my lap. Now we are getting meal service. I have to figure out my evening and morning meds and when to do my eye drop. Such fun. Back to the movie. I think that I understand what is happening. By the way, it is a good movie, a tad on the depressing side. Now I am looking for something funny to watch. How about “Forgetting Sarah Marshall?” Yeah, that is a lot of nudity to be watching on an airplane. Maybe I will look for funny shows to watch. They have dimmed the lights, I guess that they want us to go to sleep. A plane full of sleeping people are much easier to take care of than awake people. The toddler in the family in my row only wants MAMA. He is unhappy even when MAMA has him. The parents try swapping places and try to calm him down. I am pretty good at wedging the headphones into my neck pillow to block out noise. Will I get to sleep? I try to read for a while, that works at home. It must have worked here. Rob wakes me up to put his eye drop in. He feels bad but it is too difficult for him to do this on a plane and our seat do not recline at all. He feels bad because he knows that I do not sleep well on planes and he woke me up. I go back to reading and alternate between a little dozing and listening to relaxing elevator type music. The kid is still crying. I feel sorry for the parents but wow, this is a long time.