Review of Delta Air Lines flight from Baltimore to Atlanta in Domestic First

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first Flight Report. From January 5th through January 17th of 2014, I flew from Washington, DC to the Middle East. Eventually, my Flight Reports will cover the following flights:
DL 1625; BWI-ATL; F Class; 5/1/2014 (Current Report)
DL 5324; ATL-YUL; F Class; 5/1/2014
AF 346; YUL-CDG; J Class; 5/1/2014
AF 3886; CDG-AMM; J Class; 6/1/2014
RJ 344; AMM-TLV; J Class; 9/1/2014
AZ 809; TLV-FCO; J Class; 17/1/2014
AZ 610; FCO-JFK; J Class; 17/1/2014
DL 2914; JFK-DCA; F Class; 17/1/2014
All Flight Reports will be written in English, because I don't speak French. Throughout the Reports, you will find great variability in the quality of the photographs: Some were taken with my iPhone, whilst some where taken with my Canon 5D mkII.
I started out at Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport. Because I live about 240km from the airport and the flight was so early in the morning, I opted to stay at the Aloft BWI. This is my second time staying at this Aloft. Given the cookie-cutterness of Alofts, if you've stayed in an Aloft, you should know what to expect. Since I'm a Starwood Preferred Guest Gold, this Aloft gave me a $10 voucher for food (along with the other usual amenities). Here are photographs of my room.

I arrived at BWI perhaps an hour and a half before my flight. Even at 4:45 or 5:00, lines were long. I'm not sure if this is a picture of the Delta or the United line, but it probably doesn't matter, as both were comparable. Being a Platinum Medallion and flying on a First/Business Class ticket, I thankfully didn't have to do deal with these lines.

For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the security lines. I don't remember them being long, even for non-Sky Priority (or equivalent) passengers.
As it was early in the morning, once through check-in and security, BWI was rather empty.

Unlike, say, DCA or IAD, BWI has a paucity of amenities. The single lounge is Airspace Lounge, which is not affiliated with any airline. Delta doesn't provide passes to the lounge, and as far as I know, no other airlines do, either. Most other restaurants were closed.

One of the few open restaurants was Pepper's Mexican Grill. Whilst I didn't eat there this time, I've eaten there before, and I strongly suggest everyone stay away from it. I ordered crispy fish tacos, and they came out cold, but not crispy. Notifying the waitress of this, I received a scant apology, and she took the tacos back, assumedly to run them through the microwave again. This time, they were almost not cold, but still not crispy. Assuming either that there are other restaurants open or that you're not in dire need of food, stay away.

Boarding was relatively painless. As I was seated in first class, I got to board first (well, before all of those without mobility issues or small children).

The First Class in Delta's MD-90s is set up in a 2x2 arrangement, unlike the 3x2 in the back.

Leg room wasn't particularly fabulous, but please note that I'm 1.97m, and space is at a premium in most aircraft.

Unlike almost all European airlines, and unlike many other domestic planes (Delta or otherwise), Delta's MD-90s have power ports in First Class. Additionally, Delta has refitted some of her planes to indicate the on-board GoGo wifi.

While I don't have any photographs of our plane sitting at BWI, Delta had an MD-90 at the gate next door.

Conditions at BWI were deteriorating. Precipitation—likely frozen rain or sleet—had started, and we needed to be deiced. The gate was closed on time, and we began our taxi to the deicing pad. On the way there, I had the good fortune to see a World Airways MD-11.

Deicing at BWI is done at a centralized pad. A Delta A-320 (or perhaps A-319) was ahead of us in the pad.

We were deiced by Frosty-1. I assume it is not a snowman.

We're done deicing, so we taxi on to the runway, and we're off!

Since the flight is less than 900 miles, Delta will not serve a meal. (There are a few scattered exceptions to this rule, most notably ATL-NYC and NYC-CHI.) The flight attendants passed around the snack basket, which is filled with, according to the Delta website, peanuts, pretzels, Biscoff cookies, biscotti, bananas, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and Quaker Oats chewy granola bars. I don't remember what I took, if I took anything. I know that I did have my usual Delta morning Bloody Mary. Although there was no meal, the flight attendants were fantastic, as Delta flight attendants are want to be.

Since the flight took off before sunrise, and because of the fantastic cloud coverage, I was able to get some great shots of the early morning sky.

Final approach into ATL was incredibly foggy. We were nearly on the ground before we could see anything. Like usual, the ATL taxi was quite long, but afforded a great view of various planes.

We deplane without incident. Here's our plane in ATL.