Chris joined me on a trip to Barcelona for the 2025 IUGA (International Urogynecology Association) meeting. I dragged him on quite the circuitous route to JFK. Partly because the routing from DC had us leaving DCA at 0530 with a 10hr layover in JFK, and partly because trains are fun! So we drove up to BWI to catch an Amtrak to NYC (if you live in the area – parking at the BWI Amtrak stop is $11/day and is right across the street from the station so it’s super easy!). We enjoyed a roughly 3-hour train ride in the Quiet car and got to Penn Station around 1045. Since our flight out of JFK wasn’t until 5pm, we decided to walk around a bit – saw the Empire State Building and Times Square. Then hopped on the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) to Jamaica station then switched to the AirTran to get to JFK. It was actually a fun little trip to get here! (sadly I somehow didn’t get any train pictures …. will have to get some on the way home from PHL to BWI on Amtrak)
We got to JFK at like 1230 for our 5pm flight because I wanted to check out the Soho Lounge (one of the JFK Terminal 8 joint-venture lounges between American Airlines and British Airways). They have 3 – Greenwich is the Business Class lounge that is also accessible by One World Sapphire and Emerald (American Platinum, Platinum Pro, and Executive Platinum). The super exclusive Chelsea Lounge is for First Class and Concierge Key only (neither of which applied to us!). The Soho lounge is the in-between one for OneWorld Sapphire/AA Executive Platinum and I hadn’t been in this lounge before. I was not disappointed! Excellent buffet food plus an a la carte menu too! And full bar service included. The lounge was very comfortable with views of the tarmac so we could see all the cool planes coming in (if you know Chris, you know this is really the good part for him!). The lounge even has showers!
Great mix of buffet food – cucumber sandwiches, tofu, pasta salad, hummus. Really a lot of good options! Topped off with a sparking rosé from the bar (all drinks included!). Figured we also had to try out the à la carte menu so we shared some fish & chips – it was pretty good!
Eventually had to leave the lounge to go board our flight. We managed to get an extra leg room exit row (a LOT of extra leg room!). Only downside was being close to the bathroom so at certain points in the flight everyone wanted to hang out there! But otherwise it was great.
We took off on time but landed an hour late due to a longer route to avoid weather. But we made it and immigration in Barcelona turned out to be a breeze! Stay tuned for some Barcelona highlights.
Update from after our trip – we landed in Barcelona and de-planed our 777 by stairs (the flight attendant called it a “ramp rack”) onto the tarmac and then onto a bus rather than a jetway. I’ve done that on smaller planes but never a 777. So that was interesting.
On the way home we hit up the only lounge in the Barcelona airport. It was … okay. Nothing special but not terrible either (I know – first world problem for sure!). We were delayed a bit leaving Barcelona and landed late in Philly. I had hoped to check out the new Flagship lounge in PHL on arrival but we were going to be cutting it too close for our Amtrak so we made our way to the Amtrak station…. only to be delayed several hours. All trains were delayed up and down the east coast due to track issues and heat-related speed restrictions (it was 100 degrees when we landed). We managed to get on an earlier train (an Acela that was delayed from a couple hours prior) – only to have an engine problem that prevented the Acela (ie the high speed train) from going faster. So it was slower than the regional one – took 2 1/2 hours to get from Philly to BWI (usually about 75 min trip on a regional train). But we made it home!
