The trip had been almost a year in the making. Three friends were going to travel to Scotland, the land of our ancestors, to see it's beauty and possibly search for family history. Shortly after the planning began, a fourth friend was added. So here we were, Connie Hughes, Sally Schatz, Judy Eichwald, and me, planning this trip of a lifetime to a location I only dreamed of going to visit. In less than a year, that dream would actually come true!
Here is how it was supposed to go....
We were scheduled to take off from St. Louis on Friday, June 28 and fly to Philadelphia where we were to have a 5 1/2 hour layover.
After the layover, we were to take off from Philadelphia, fly during the night, and arrive in London in the morning on Saturday, June 29.
We would have Saturday to recover and do some exploring in London.
Sunday, we had a tour scheduled to Cottswald.
Monday we were going to take the train in the chunnel (the train tunnel under the English Channel) to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, and the Mona Lisa, among other locations.
The rest of the trip would go on as scheduled with only a few hiccups along with way.
Here is how the trip actually happened....
June 28 was a clear day in the St. Louis area. Just a few clouds in the sky. Jeff and I left the house to go pick up each of my traveling partners; Connie, Judy, and Sally. Then, it was on to the airport.
Once we arrived, we had to go to the ticket desk to check our bags and get our boarding passes. Connie, Judy, and I had all three attempted to print our boarding passes from home the day before with no luck. Was this a bad omen or just a computer glitch? Regardless of how we look at it, it was the beginning of a few days of headaches and aggravations that would try our patience and test our fortitude.
After receiving our boarding passes and checking our bags, we made our way through security and headed towards the gate. Knowing it would be a while before we had to board the plane, we decided to go to Chili's and eat some lunch. We sat and talked for a while and watched some of the planes come and go. We talked about what we were going to do once we got to London, if we were going to feel like going shopping that first day, go exploring the area around the apartment, or what? At this point, we were just so excited about everything.
Once we had finished our lunch, we leisurely made our way to the gate thinking it would only be a short wait until our flight. We probably had about 30 minutes or so until they started calling for us to board the plane. That 30 minutes passed as well as an additional 30-45 minutes as our flight to Philadelphia was late. At this point, we had nothing to fear because the weather was clear and we had such a long layover in Philadelphia before flying to London. So as we boarded the plane, we fully expected to be bored waiting in the airport for our flight "across the pond". Little did we know that our adventure was going to make such a drastic turn in just a few short hours that would cause many travelers to just turn around and go home.
We weren't paying any attention to the amount of time it was taking to get to Philadelphia until the captain made an announcement on the intercom that we had been circling the airport for a while because of storms and were being diverted to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. Then, as we were flying to Dulles, the captain again made an announcement that we were instead being diverted to Richmond because we were getting low on fuel and there was quite a bit of traffic at Dulles. No big deal. Land at Richmond, refuel, take off, and still arrive in Philadelphia in plenty of time to connect our flight to London.
During the flight to Richmond, the lone flight attendant was making her way with drinks through the cabin. Normally the only complimentary drinks are coffee, water, and soft drinks. However, this flight attendant told all of the passengers that the first "drink" was on her. Many of the passengers gladly accepted the free adult beverage she gave them.
As we are landing at Richmond, I was watching out the window. I became a bit concerned when I saw 3 of the airport emergency vehicles on the side of the runway with their lights flashing and as we landed they followed us into the gate. Does that mean we were THAT low on fuel? I don't know but that was a bit nerve-wracking!
We pulled up to the gate and sat there on the plane while it was determined how long we would actually be there. Within minutes, we were being off-loaded into the terminal at Richmond but told to stay close as we could be boarding at any time. So, we went to get something to eat from the only restaurant in this area of the airport. Needless to say, it was less than stellar. I'm pretty sure they weren't prepared for an entire plane full of starving people to be dropped off at the last minute.
We quickly ate our sandwiches thinking we were going to get back on the plane very soon. However, we waited and waited and waited. We all kept watching the time because many of us had connecting flights once we arrived at Philadelphia and our long layover was very quickly shrinking. After about an hour to an hour and a half we finally boarded the plane ready to head on to Philadelphia. However, once again we sat on the plane waiting for the air traffic control to give us permission to leave. When we finally did leave, we knew we would be cutting it very close once we go to Philadelphia. Our only hope was that the plane that would be taking us to London would be late arriving from its destination.
I should interject that all during this time we were on the ground, I was updating our status on Facebook and talking and texting with Jeff, my kids, and my sister-in-law Judi who lives outside of Philadelphia. The texting with Judi will play a key role to more that occurs later. Now, back to the story...
As we are flying to Philadelphia, the flight attendant once again brings the beverage cart around and tells everyone that the adult beverages are on her. This time, instead of giving out a glass of wine, she gave many of them the entire bottle! The bottles aren't full size, however, they were large enough. I think the only ones who didn't get the free adult beverages were Judy and Connie and if anyone deserved the drinks, they did. Their seats were directly next to the toilet.!
We get closer and closer to our destination and can see the storms off in the distance. We also keep an eye on the time knowing it is going to be VERY close. We are hoping and praying that our outbound flight is delayed.
We land at Philadelphia, go as fast as we can to the shuttle service that will take us to a totally different terminal to catch our plane, and keep praying that it is still there even though we have arrived after our official take-off time. Once off the shuttle, we RUN to the gate only to find it....empty. It's gone. Our plane left without us.
There must have been many other people who had been left behind by various airlines because there was an incredibly long line waiting to book a different flight to their destination. Connie made her way to an agent who attempted to assist us however, she couldn't get us a flight out of Phillie until Tuesday evening and arriving in London on Wednesday (this is Friday night). That would definitely NOT work for us. We needed to get there NOW! We already had tours scheduled for Sunday and Monday and we certainly didn't want to miss anything. We thought that since we still had Saturday to work with we would be okay. So, we walk back to the shuttle area to go back to the other terminal to get our luggage except that the shuttle was no longer working as it had stopped for the night. We enquired as to how we were supposed to get back to the other terminal and found out that we had to take the employee shuttle. Ok....no big deal. We'll go back, get our luggage, go to a ticket agent there, rebook our flight, and all will be good. Right.....
When we arrived at the luggage carousel, no luggage. It had all been stored away for the night because we had taken so long in the other terminal. We had no way of getting it until the next day. So, we decided to walk over to the terminal where the ticket agents are and no one is on duty until 4am. It is now about 11 or 11:30 pm. We decide that the only thing we can do is get a hotel room, go to their business center to find a flight, and try to get some rest.
Remember I had been texting my sister-in-law, Judi? Well, as I'm texting her now, the responder becomes my brother-in-law, Darryl. I informed him that we missed our flight, can't get our luggage until the next day, and need a hotel room. He give some suggestions that we try but they are all booked up. We finally find a Holiday Inn Express that is nearby and has a room available (thank you Judy Eichwald for having those priority points!!). We take a cab to the hotel, check in, and send Judy and Sally up to the room while Connie and I go to the business center to begin our search for a new flight. Sally joined us shortly and we all began searching for a flight to London. At this point we didn't care what airline or where we had a layover. We just wanted to get there. During our flight search we found one that would take us through Reykjavik, Iceland. That would have been awesome to have had that stamp in our passport! However, that flight was full.
Finally, around 3am, we found one that would get us from JFK to Paris and then we booked a short flight from Paris to London. This would get us to London on Sunday which would mean we would miss the trip to Cottswald but we would still make the trip to Paris on Monday. The next issue we had to face was how to get to JFK. We planned to rent a car the next day once we got our luggage. So, we headed to our room to get a few hours of sleep. Since I hadn't planned to miss my flight, I didn't pack any pajamas or a change of clothes in my carry-on. I did, however, pack my toothbrush, toothpaste, contact solution, contact case, glasses, deodorant (I was the only one of us to pack deodorant in my carry-on), and a clean pair of underwear. Needless to say, I slept in my clothes. Judy and Connie each brought pajamas in their carryon and a change of clothes but Sally and I didn't. Oh well.
After sleeping a few hours my phone rang about 7:30am. It was Judi asking what the plan was for the trip. Darryl had already filled her in on the details from the night before and I told her about our flight out of JFK and that we had planned to get our luggage and rent a car. She told me that she would drive us to New York and that she would bring food for us, since it was many hours since we had eaten. So we slept a couple more hours, showered, caught the shuttle to the airport, and collected our luggage. This last part took about an hour to an hour and a half because the man working in the luggage area had to go to the fifth terminal (we were in the 1st terminal) to get our luggage. He didn't have to do this but was incredibly nice and must have felt sorry for us.
Once we got our luggage we made our way past a few terminals, into another, across the busy road on the walkway, down another elevator to the parking lot where she was parked. It was only Saturday, 1 day into our adventure, but she was a sight for sore eyes!! We loaded all of our stuff into her Jeep and took off for New York. On the way to pick us up she stopped at Wawa (a place I had never heard of before and found out that it is just like a quick stop) and bought some turkey sandwiches for us. They were just simple sandwiches but we were starving so they were delicious.
Most of the way to New York there really wasn't much traffic until we got very close and then the traffic was bumper to bumper. Our trip to JFK included traveling through Staten Island, one part of New York that we missed going to while we vacationed there a year ago. This wasn't really the time for us to travel through Staten Island, but better late than never. Once we finally arrived at the airport, Judi wouldn't take any money for gas so she was made an honorary sister chick and promised a gray t-shirt from Scotland. Don't worry Judi, we got one! We all hugged her good-by, thanked her profusely for the ride and the sandwiches, and made our way into the terminal. We had several hours to wait until we could check in as the flight wasn't until 10:50pm and it was only about 2:30 or 3pm. We went to the lower level of the terminal to find some place to sit and wait, maybe find something to eat, and just relax for a few hours. This terminal was the busiest terminal I have ever seen! I think it was the main terminal for international travel because there were planes arriving from places all over the world constantly with a steady flow of foreign visitors with the largest suitcases I have ever seen! I always worry about my suitcase being over the weight limit but none of mine could EVER equal some of the ones we saw that day in JFK. And, they had multiple suitcases of this size. What were they taking with them and why? Did they bring their entire wardrobe with them? Also, we saw many that were shrink-wrapped. Why did they need to be shrink-wrapped? (There will be another story of a family and luggage at the end of the trip)
After many hours of waiting, people watching, and reading, we made our way to the check-in area feeling excited that we were finally on our way. We snaked our way slowly through the line and finally made it to the check-in counter. We handed our passports over to the ticket agent and waited for our boarding passes and for him to take our luggage. However, he passed our passports to the ticket agent beside him and asked us to move over to the next counter. This was not looking good. He looked at the passports and his computer and then told us that we were actually on stand-by. That meant that we might get on the plane and we might not. It just depends on how many people actually check-in. So, we had to move off to the side and wait for everyone to check-in which took a couple of hours. In the meantime, Judi, Sally, and Connie are going around to other airlines looking for flights to get us to London while I stayed with the luggage. This was beginning to get very frustrating.
We wandered around the terminal for a couple of hours waiting for all to check-in and when it looked like there was no one else in line we finally went back to check-in, load our luggage, get our boarding passes, and head for security. However, after we got to the check-in counter we were told that there were actually seats available but we couldn't use them because there wasn't time to check us in, check our luggage, get it on the plane, get us through security, get us to the gate, and get us on the plane before take-off. We didn't get to board this plane. We were not going to London yet again. What now?!
We decided to go downstairs to the terminal concierge to get a hotel room. We could at least go get a decent nights sleep, since we only had a couple of hours sleep the night before, and something to eat while we looked for another flight. We made our way down to the concierge and asked for assistance to get a hotel room near the airport. We were promptly told that there were no hotels available within 20 miles of JFK. It was at that point that I was ready to sit down on the floor there in the middle of Terminal 7 at JFK and cry. I was tired. I was hungry. I was aggravated. I wanted to get to London! Once more, Judy got on the phone and used her priority points for Holiday Express and found the last room in the Holiday Inn Express just 10 miles from JFK! Take that concierge!!
We got in line for a taxi and I got on the phone with Alex back at home to look for flights out of JFK (or any other airport on the eastern seaboard) for London. He found a couple and sent the link to me so that I could open it once we arrived at the hotel. I was also texting Darryl again about all of the problems we were having this evening too. He graciously offered to give us a tour of Manhattan the next day just in case we couldn't get a flight. As much as I would have loved that, I told him that maybe that could wait for the trip that Jeff and I were going to make in September.
We made it to the hotel, got settled in, ordered some food, and Connie and I went to the business center to check out those flights Alex found. One would take off from New York and go through Berlin on its way to London. The other would take off from New York and go through Toronto on its way to London. We decided to go with the one through Toronto. It was an afternoon flight from JFK to Toronto so we were able to get a good dinner, good nights sleep, showered and clean clothes the next morning, and we were able to get our boarding passes printed BEFORE going to the airport. We were feeling GOOD!!
We arrive at the airport (to a different terminal thank goodness) and checked our bags with the skycap. We walked in and made it through security in no time because there was literally no one there at that time. We made our way to the gate to patiently wait for what we just knew would be THE flight. We sat at the gate, got snacks, did some reading, and a great deal of people watching. As it was getting closer to our boarding time, there was an announcement in our area stating that our flight was cancelled. Cancelled?! Really!!!??? WE WERE SOOOOO CLOSE!!! (We found out later that the flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems. We also found out later that the next day in Toronto they had horrible storms and part of the airport actually flooded.)
Right after announcing that the flight was cancelled, they requested for us to make our way to the counter to make other arrangements. I'm pretty sure we may have hurdled a few people and knocked some children down on our way to the counter. Once we arrived, there were 2 young men at the counter and we nearly attacked them in an attempt to get another flight to London. They took our passports and the old boarding passes to get both flights cancelled and then to find one that would work. They actually found one that was better than the one with a layover in Toronto. This one would be non-stop to London and was taking off that same night!! All we had to do was go get our luggage off the carousel, recheck it, and go back through security. No problem!
We went to the luggage area, retrieved our bags and attempted to go check it in at the airline, however, it was incredibly busy. So, we went back outside to the skycap and checked it there. Then we made our way to security which was incredibly busy by this time and then on to the gate. We still had a little bit of time to wait for this flight but not too long.
As we sat there waiting we saw what appeared to be our flight crew preparing to board the plane. However, they waited and waited and waited before they went onto the plane. Our boarding time came and went and we still weren't on the plane. They announced that the flight was delayed due to heavy traffic in New York because of storms. I don't remember how much time had passed when they finally began boarding our flight. Because it was such a huge plane it took forever to get everyone on and ready to go.
We were finally boarded and moving away from the gate. Were we really going to be taking off? Were we really going to be making our way to London 3 days late? YES!! We took off for the 5-1/2 hour flight.
What happens on the flight? Is it uneventful? What do the 4 friends do once they arrive in London? Stay tuned for the next chapter in The Dream Vacation.....
