Morocco
With EWR-RAK being a relatively short overnight flight at 7 hours 1 minute actual flight time, United flight 628 felt like it arrived in Morroco pretty quickly. Reportedly slow service up front due to turbulence meant over 2 hours to complete the meal service, which made this one of the rare flights where sitting in economy might have gotten food faster. That said, the packaged turkey and cheese bagel in economy, while actually one of United's better economy class meals, was still best described as uninspired.
In stark contrast to the food, the crew onboard were great, with international purser Susan, flight attendants Lerone and Imari, and Captain Robbie (sp?), among others, being particularly outstanding. And the crowd on arrival, while not the craziest I've experienced, was still impressive. We descended down stairs onto the tarmac, with lines of dignataries, media, and eventually, musicians, dancers, and an array of snacks and drinks as soon as you entered the terminal itself. I'm fuzzy as to how we had it, but we had Fast Track access through immigration as well (unsure if that was for Premier 1K's and up, for all passengers, or something in-between?), which saved loads of time. Once land-side, the architecture at Marrakesh Menara Airport is beautiful, and a quick walk to the departures hall revealed an even more massive area that was only slightly less striking.
Of the ~20 of us frequent fliers who I knew on the flight, most proceeded to spend a few days in Morocco, but about a quarter of us headed back immediately on the return inaugural, UA 627. Morocco requires physical passport checks so we all had to head immediately to the ticketing counters after arrival, given the relatively short layover. The fact that I had printed my boarding passes for the return before departure saved me a good chunk of time (thanks Lioni for helping the rest of us!), and I was able to head back through immigration and end up air-side after a passport check. Carl and Bruce, who had arrived a few days earlier in Morocco, met us in the (rather meh) lounge for the return inaugural. We discovered that Marrakesh has airport cat (!), and that security screening is done at the gate as well. Boarding was also decidedly odd; we walked I think barely a hundred meters (if not less) from the plane just three hours earlier, yet they insisted on using the jet bridge, then busing us less than a minute to the plane (!?!).
Once onboard with a new crew, the plane was ready to turn around and head back to Newark. Captain Alan Twig (sp?), international purser Celeste, flight attendant Wayne, and the rest were all excellent, and they worked hard to make the RAK-EWR inaugural a great flight despite being less swag, no VIPs, and some significant hiccups. Turns out one flight attendant had an issue transiting to Morocco so they were shorthanded the whole time, and most of United's catering was held up in customs in Morocco, so United did their best to cater everything in Newark for the return as well-- an effort that proved to be only partially successful. Was still a great flight back, and as fun as it was exhausting.
On arrival, 7 hours and 52 minutes later in Newark, gave compliments to the crew, snapped a quick selfie and said farewell to Romaine after trekking from Terminal B to Terminal C, then met up with Carl, Bruce, and Sue in the Polaris Lounge at Terminal C for a quick bite before we all headed our separate ways. And yes, I think we're all already looking forward to the next inaugural flight. *grins*