If it could go wrong, it probably did

To be fair, it started out pretty well. Relaxed start to the day, dropped Kairi at her holiday home, and a straightforward drive to Heathrow.
Light afternoon meal in the lounge and time to chill.
We even boarded the plane and were ready to go slightly early.
And then it started to unravel.
Firstly, we pushed back late because another plane had stopped on the runway.
We joined the queue to take off and exactly as we got to the turn onto the runway, we turned the opposite way. Turns out, the aircon wasn't working at the back of the plane and in the cockpit and it was becoming unbearably hot. So time for a system reset. 30 mins ish and no dice, back to stand so we can all get off and be put on another plane.
The stand was a remote stand, so buses, which took another 30 mins or so to arrive.
At this point, you roll with it, shit happens. It's fine. Everyone gets on the buses and we're taken to the terminal to get more info. Except, the buses go to the wrong place - arrivals instead of back to departures. So now a plane load of people are stuck at arrivals with no-one there to help.
After nearly an hour stood by flight connections, we had been told, yes there'll be a new plane today, oh sorry, no there won't. You're being rebooked.

Ok, understandable. And we're rebooked onto a flight the next morning and given a voucher for hotel. Good. Through immigration quickly straight to baggage claim. We were in the first few so got a seat. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Some flights got announcements saying there were technical issues and getting estimates for the bags to arrive. Ours was not mentioned. Eventually, after an hour of waiting for the bag (2 hours after we got off plane, nearly 4 hours after we got on the plane in the first place) they announced the hold door was stuck and there was a delay getting the bags off. Not sure how that took 2 hrs to figure out.

Then not too long later they said, 10 minutes. As it was almost 9pm, I left Heath waiting for the bag and I went through customs to grab some food for dinner from M&S.

At this point the prospect of some mini Colin caterpillar cakes was sustaining me, so i grabbed some real food, and went to the cake section. Noooooooo, no Colins 🐛 😢 Another disaster (arguably the biggest).

Got the food and went to wait at the barrier for Heath (well past the 10 mins estimated for bag delivery). No bag. No bag 30 mins later. Some people had bags, but others including us, had no bag arrive.

And they weren't sure if the bag had gone to T2 ready for morning flight, or if it had been put on a plane to Copenhagen. So off I trotted to boots to buy some toiletries while Heath waited at the service desk in baggage reclaim.

So an hour and a half after I'd left Heath, he came through customs, with no bag. 5 1/2 hours after we'd got on the plane.

Bag of essential toiletries in hand and the food from m&s we headed to get the shuttle bus to hotel. Only to find the next one wasn't for an hour because it was so late.

Ended up sharing a taxi with someone else off our aborted flight. To get to the hotel at 10.30pm. But at least I had been able to get food and toiletries.

Long day, not really getting anywhere.Читать далее