Check-in and The Pan Am Lounge

A few weeks ago, Mrs. SFO777 made the mistake of asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday.   And tonight we're off to "The Valley" and Air Hollywood, one of the movie industry's biggest suppliers of aviation props, airplane interiors, seating areas, fusilages for film scenes.   Air Hollywood is owned by aviation geek Talaat Captan who teamed up with fellow geek and Pan Am obessed memorabilia collector Anthony Toth to recreate the glory days of Pan Am.  The result is The Pan Am Experience, a wonderful 4 hour step back in time that includes a nostalgic Pan Am museum, Hollywod show and dinner on board an actual 747-200 rescued from the desert.   The experience takes place every other Saturday evening at Air Hollywood's studios in Pacoima.  This is one hard ticket to get and I lucked out when I discovered that someone had canceled their Upper Deck reservation the day before.  So we're off up the 405 for the 90 minute drive.

Inside is a wonderful Pan Am museum and lounge for guests to mingle prior to "boarding".   First stop was check-in where we selected our seats on the Upper Deck.

We enjoyed a cocktail and met some other people including a couple that flew in from New York just for tonight.   

In addition to the actual old Pan Am seats, there was some wonderful Pan Am memorabilia on display.

Cabin crew was announced and they made their entrance before boarding to prep our service tonight.

Boarding began around 7:30p.  We boarded last as we stayed back to chat with amiable CEO Talaat Captan.