Creating a Photo: Back to New York with British Airways – PART 3 – Apple Store Grand Central
Featuring the British Airways Airbus A318E.
Or – “World. Enough now. Stop it. Please. Pretty Please…”
- The Introduction
- To London
- BA 1 – London City Airport – Shannon – New York JFK
- One Time Exception: Apple Store, Grand Central Terminal – THIS SECTION
- Holiday Inn Long Island City Manhattan View
- A trip to a camera shop
- Time with Friends and back to JFK
- JFK T7, Pre-Flight Dining
- BA4 – New York JFK – London City Airport
- Radisson Edwardian and the Trip Home
- The wrap up
- The Photo
As you join me for Part III of this trip, I’ve had my fill of children and at this point, my computer too.
In a vain attempt to get it repaired, I booked an appointment at the Genius Bar at Grand Central Terminal. The first trick was how to get there…
To Manhattan
Now, the great thing about the BA001/BA002 service is that you’ve pre-cleared already into the United States, so when you exit the plane, you exit into the Domestic side of the JFK T7, and clear as a domestic passenger. It was then a matter of following the signs to luggage claim – where there was a 5 minute wait for the luggage to be delivered. Soon enough my pully bag was spat out, and I off.
Next on the menu was how to get into town. A choice of a Shuttle bus, Train or other. In the end, I chose the shuttle bus – which took forever going around the terminals with some of the most dangerous driving I’ve seen (Would you define safe as pouring a large bag of crisps into your mouth whilst driving around JFK? I wouldn’t). Once we left the JFK terminal area, the driver took some of the side roads compared to the expressway in an effort to “speed up” the journey.
A shame the lights were against us most of the time.
Eventually, we made our way from Queens to Long Island City, under the Queensbourgh Tunnel and finally to Grand Central Terminal. Suffice to say as I didn’t have any luggage stowed at the back of the van, I walked away without giving him a tip.
Don’t get me wrong. $15.50 is cheap. But next time, I’ll take the taxi or train into town – I didn’t honestly feel safe aboard that bus.
One Time Exception – Apple Store, Grand Central Terminal.
This was the bit I was dreading – did I have a dead hard disk, a dead cable or something more deadly?
I rolled into Grand Central Terminal, and found my way to the Apple Store there, and saw I was very early for my appointment – by a good hour or so. Thankfully there was some extra space opened up, and I was seen to within 20 minutes.
Here there be Geniuses
Thankfully, the Mac booted up on the external hard disk (at least the USB connections were working), but the disk could not had been accessed. This meant either the data cable had gone – or the disk was dying. I was informed of both options as well as other ideas I could do, and offered to book the machine into repair. The job would be done overnight, and if it was “bad” I would be phoned.
Reluctantly, I left my laptop behind for the night, and headed to the hotel for the night (but not before buying an Apple iPhone charger) catching a yellow cab back to Long Island.
I’ll write about the hotel in a bit, but lets spin forward to 10pm in the hotel where I got an email saying my repair was complete, and that I was free to visit the Apple store after 7am to pick up the computer.
Returning to Grand Central at 7:30 in the morning, they had successfully changed the data cable, put a bunch of new screws in the base of my laptop, and I pressed the power button… and it begun to boot.
It booted slowly – very slowly… but eventually that wonderful OS X Lion Desktop appeared, with the data intact (well mostly – the Lightroom cache was corrupt, as well as the Entourage Database, but nothing permanently lost of high value).
The cost of this miracle work? $60. That and the $30 for an iPhone charger.
To put it blunt: I felt I got away cheaply out of this one.
Rush Hour at Grand Central Terminal
Overall: So yes, I declare the Apple Geniuses… well geniuses. Great customer service which reminds me each time why I go back to Apple for new major hardware.
Right… I’ve got write about a hotel haven’t I?
Next up, it’s back to the Holiday Inn Long Island Manhattan View. Hint: It’s good…..
