lThe flight to London, I hope, would be the most troublesome thing to happen on this trip. Not only were we exhausted by the time we got to the hotel, but we were both at the end of tolerance for the little things that can plague a traveler on a trip to Europe.
But first...
Our flight was scheduled to leave New York at 11:55 pm. I chose this late departure knowing that the London hotel would be hesitant to release rooms to new check-ins until 3 pm local time. (See: Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/13/24 (Flying into London before the cruise) to reference our prior experience at the Leonardo Royal Tower Hotel. And I'm glad we did so, given the minor headaches (for young, able bodied people) we'd have to endure.
We left for the airport at 7:00 pm, and arrived shortly before 8:00 pm. I figured that being 3 hours early for being loaded onto the plane would be prudent, and boy was I right! RQS had forgotten where she put her cell phone/wallet, and had only her passport to identify her to authorities before the flight. So, I told her that I could handle all of the credit charges and balance things out later on. She was happy with me, but not with the situation.
Next, we had to go through TSA security, and that was our second speed bump. I sailed through the Pre-Check process easily, while RQS ended up going through the "Untrusted Traveler" lanes. And that's when her cell phone/wallet was discovered - it was in her trouser pocket all the time, and she didn't even notice it.
Now that we both felt some relief, we walked over to the gates serving Virgin Atlantic (a Delta Airlines code share partner), and took a seat. After an hour, we got text messages: Our plane went from departing from gate A3 to departing from gate B30 - a 20 minute walk for young people, but not for 2 people whose average age was over 70. Luckily I found a Delta airlines cart that would bring us to our gate. And that's where we sat for the next 45 minutes. But then we received another text - our departure gate had changed back to A3. So we had to ask a nearby Delta airlines gate agent for help - and just in the nick of time, as the cart stops running at 11:00 pm.
Returning to gate A3, we could now rest - if we could find an empty seat. We asked the gate agent if we could get on the plane early (they could see we both used canes) and it wasn't a problem. So, when the plane was ready to be boarded, we were among the first 10 people to get in our seats.
The flight wasn't much to talk about, save that the seat wasn't that comfortable to sit on, but I did have adequate leg room. By the time we arrived in London, my knees were telling me that they didn't want to be friends, but that eased off a bit when I started walking. And I was grateful for that, as we had a lot of walking ahead of us.
I don't know how many of my readers have flown into Heathrow airport, but it is a long way from where the plane discharges passengers to where passport control and baggage claim is. Luckily, unlike many American airports, they have long moving sidewalks along this path - a blessing for the two of us. And then we hit our next speed bump - passport control.
We were selected to lanes where we slide our passports into a scanner, have our faces photographed and compared with the passport. If all goes right, "Welcome to the UK!" In both of our cases, we had trouble with the scanning process. I was able to go through after several tries, where RQS needed help for this process. And from there, we went to baggage claim, and out of the controlled area to meet the person who'd be driving us to our hotel,
It would have been a nice thing if I could remember the name of the driver who took us to the hotel, but other things were on my mind. For the next 60-90 minutes, we had a nice chat, followed by hotel check-in. After 30 hours of being awake, I finally was able to connect my CPAP machine and get several hours of needed nap time.
