I’m fairly certain that anyone who has traveled any distance lately knows that it is no longer an enjoyable experience. Without ranting about lack of services, tiny spaces, and rude/entitled passengers, one of the hardest parts is just the amount of time it takes to get places. Of course when timetables and schedules aren’t adhered to, it just makes things even more ugly.
We knew that travel was going to be difficult if for no other reason than we were on separate tickets which meant that if things went south for one of us they wouldn’t necessarily be bad for the other. So we decided to get to the Aberdeen airport super early to make sure we could chat with the folks and check in and get everything sorted. Except no. The check in desk for British Airways doesn’t open until 2 hours befor the flight so we already had time to kill. So first round of drinks was in order!
By the time we got to check in, we already knew that our flight to London was delayed by about 30 minutes which would make the connection tight if not impossible. We phoned BA to ask about alternatives but all they said was “there’s an alternative route to follow” but who knows what that meant. They checked the bags through to Santiago and then we had nothing to do but wait. For another 3 hours. Because our flight was delayed by more than an hour making the connection impossible. We landed in Heathrow and found that we had been rebooked for first thing in the morning (6:15am!) to Barcelona (in the entirely wrong direction) where we would connect to an Iberian airlines nonstop to Santiago (14 hours!). We had vouchers to get food at the M&S food shop in Terminal 5 – which you couldn’t use for alcohol so we tried to figure out how to spend £40 on thing that didn’t need cooking and could go on the plane with us the next day. {sigh}
Then a bus to the Renaissance hotel where we were staying for approximately 4 hours. They orignally gave us a room that had been stripped but not made up -ugh! Now I know what hotel matresses really look like. 😦 We got another room and proceeded to try to get a few hours kip. Up at 4am, shower, and Uber back to the terminal because the shuttle service didn’t start for another 45 minutes. We get through security and find somewhere to spend our £20 in vouchers for breakfast. The flight to Barcelona was short and uneventful. Then things got weird.
As soon as we landed, it said we needed to go to the gate for our flight to Santiago. Although we had an Iberia Air flight code, the airline we were actually flying was called Level and might be the Spanish long haul version of Ryan Air. The boarding process was supposed to start at 9:40 for a 10:55 departure – it takes a while to board an Airbus 330 – but no one showed up at the gate until 10am. Then the boarding process was an absolute nightmare. After waiting our turn in Grupa 4 (out of 4), our BA boarding passes didn’t work so we had to stand in another line to get Level boarding passes. Which also didn’t work. So we had to get back into the boarding pass line to get our passport info updated in the system. THEN we could board the plane.
The flight itself was fine. There was nearly enough leg room. There was a handful of movies we could watch – not nearly enough to cover 14 hours but I can watch the Lego movies over and over. We did get meals and even though my GF meal request didn’t transfer, one of the meal options they had was marked as GF in the menu. Because not all the tickets included a meal so some people had to buy them. As you had to do with snacks during the flight. We consumed mucho wino which we expected to claim back from BA but they never got around to charging us so I didn’t complain.
And then we sat. And sat. And sat. I finished the new Richard Osman book (warning: there is a sad part which had me crying on an airplane) and proceeded to watch old movies (Zodiac, I am Legend, Lego Movie 2) and tried to keep my keester from falling asleep.
Eventually we landed at 8pm local which would be 1am UK time or about 21 hours after we woke up in London. Then to passport control – fine – and baggage claim – not fine. BA is now 0 for 2 for delivering Cannon luggage this year. In March it was Frank’s stuff that took 2 days to find us in Switzerland. Now it was my bag that was missing. Luckily I had packed a change of clothes in my carry on but that would only do for one day. I went to the lost baggage desk and realized that all the Duolingo baby Spanish would actually come in handy because not everyone speaks English. Like the woman at the lost baggage desk. Luckily I know enough Spanish to tell her the color of my case (gris) and to know when she wanted the address of the hotel (dirrection) and my email address (correo electronico). I also understood that the bags would come tomorrow (mañana) and then a flood of emails from the airline- also in Spanish – told me the same thing except in contradictory information.
Luckily we had transport waiting for us so off to the hotel to check in, grab a glass of lovely Chilean Malbec, get ourselves sorted and off to bed nearly 24 hours after waking up more than 7000 miles away.
Data for today:
- Number of times I said “Gracias” – 2,000 give or take
- Number of flights boarded: 3
- Number of flight my suitcase seems to have been on: 5
- Number of ibuprofen consumed: 6
- Level of gratitude for finally arriving: 14/10
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