The next series of posts will focus on our recent trip to Rwanda and Kenya. We first traveled to Rwanda for two Gorilla Treks at Volcanoes National Park. After that, we headed to Kenya for a Safari while staying at Mahali Mzuri.
Our trip started out by waking up Friday morning to emails from United stating the weather was affecting flights in the area and we could change our itinerary if needed. This brought back bad memories of our trip earlier in the year to Belize where we had to fly to Fort Meyers and drive to Miami airport.
We decided to stick with our itinerary and hope for the best. Our car service to take us to Newark Airport (EWR) arrived early and off we went. The drive was uneventful with no delays. This was our first time to Newark airport, so we were excited to see if it is better or worse than Philadelphia. The check in was pretty easy, but it was chaos at pre check and premier access lanes. The escalator from the check-in area deposits you directly into the lines were are already fairly long. We were unaware of the premier access lanes at first, but once we found the signs, we used those lanes to expedite our security screening.
We got to the Polaris lounge to sit down and have an early dinner. The weather wasn’t looking great on the forecast, but we tried to remain optimistic. We had arrived almost 4 hours early and had time to kill.
Finally, boarding time has arrived. There was a short delay in the process, but we were able to take off less than 30 minutes late and beat the storms. This was our first time in United Polaris business class. The seats were nice, but we still prefer Qatar Q-Suites. We had our meals and arrived 7 hours later in Brussels. Once we deplaned, we took a shuttle transfer to T terminal which is the location for Africa flights. It was an easy transfer and the airport had easy to understand signs.
We entered the Brussels lounge to have an amazing croissant and wait for boarding. Flights are boarded much differently here, as business class seems to be boarded last. Also, there seemed to be no urgency or planning to get this flight out on time. After talking to a few people, it seemed normal that the flight is often delayed by more than 45 minutes. After a long delay, we finally took off and 8 hours later arrived in Kigali, Rwanda.
We were immediately met by Singita representatives to expedite us through the immigration process. We also were required to obtain COVID-19 tests since we would be visiting the Gorillas. This was required by Volcanoes National Park. This was conducted in the arrivals lounge. Since we were one of the first passengers off the plane and through immigration, the whole entry process with testing took approximately 30 minutes.
We left the airport and Sula, our Singita driver for our stay, took us to the Serena Kigali Hotel for the night. We arrived close to 10pm, so we went straight to bed to wake up for the start of our adventures.
Take a look below for our next post on our trip to Rwanda and Kenya.