Review of Delta Air Lines flight from F. Lauderdale to Minneapolis in Economy

Hello all! The final part of my Spring Break 2016 trip, a return on another pencil jet.
The video trip, as always:

A week full of fun, it was time to head back. Once again, it was a very early 0725 hours departure out of Fort Lauderdale. The web check-in process threw up various inconsistencies: two of us got assigned seats, with the ability to change (despite being told seats assignments would be at the gate..), while some were held back. Lady luck was with me: I got seat 32A! Another window seat, absolutely fantastic! :D
It was pretty obvious to figure out where the plane would come in from the previous night: Minneapolis. N820DX would take us back to MSP, an ex-Shanghai Airlines bird. In fact, N820DX was put in to service just 3 days prior to this flight!
Didn’t get much sleep that night, thanks to the excitement of the 2016 Australian Grand Prix, and some inconsiderate neighbors. Ferrari fans would know what a painful race it was…..
Oh well. Woke up after a glorified nap, called an Uber and the few of us went to the airport. It was crowded on the way to the airport and the airport itself! Check in lines looked long, but they were being processed pretty quickly. Security was next, this took some time. It was very interesting to see all TSA employees of Mexican origin!

Reached the boarding area, boarding was underway by the time I got there. Couple of other flights were departing as well. This being the Delta Air Lines terminal, DL flights to New York and Atalanta were boarding, too. These were operated by Boeing 757s, as well. Headed for boarding, nice and easy.

Unlike the inbound, there was a crew member greeting all passengers. Boarded through door 2. Another packed flight, all seats were taken up…with passengers falling asleep, of course! :D I took my seat 32A, with a reasonable view of the wing. I was surprised to see a winglet, to be honest. This because the plane was delivered to Shanghai Airlines without the winglets.

A Fort Lauderdale based crew would take us to Minneapolis. A flying time of 3hr13min was announced. Pushed back a minute late at 0726 hours, and joined a long line of planes to depart, we were number 5 for departure.

Took off and went through some pretty bad turbulence.

Nothing too interesting that happened on the flight. Kinda painful to sit straight for 3 hours! But I pulled it off. Pretty meh crew again, except for Kim. She had a wide smile and a very positive attitude while serving everyone, the exact kind of crew member everyone wants to see! That really was the only good thing. Service began at 0758 PDT with a BoB snack cart, and then the regular drinks and pretzels trolley at 0820 hours PDT. The aircraft had WiFi, and some of the basic flight info pages worked. I could keep a track on how much longer the flight would take. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep as well, the seat was really uncomfortable!
Some images after take off:

In flight:

Service:

Cabin. These B752s have a lavatory in the middle of Y, unlike the other B752s which have the lavatory at the very back of the aircraft.

Some more images…

Descent started at 0925 CDT, and we descend rapidly into the very cold midwest. Back in reality :(

Touched down at 0948 hours CDT (way before the scheduled time of 1021!!), and docked at gate G15.

Not the greatest, but a memorable flight on the B757-200!

he few of us met up and then drove back to Grand Forks. And that then, is the end of this trip report!
Stay tuned for another biggie - my trip back home to India on some big planes :)