As promised to Barbara via email, the next installment of our 2011 Thanksgiving travel saga. Because I can always find a way to make it a saga.
So I mentioned in my last post about travelling (
There...) that returning home was lucrative. It was also long. It also started off badly, but through no one's fault, unless you want to blame my grandfather for getting tumors on his bladder. I don't, because they didn't do laparoscopic surgery, but rather went in through the urethra. Joy...
Anyway, the reason my grandfather's surgery* affected our travel plans is because my grandmother gave up her license a year ago** and my grandfather was told that, day surgery notwithstanding, he needed a driver. Hence, their daughter, aka my mother, was asked to drive. The surgeon wanted Grandpa at the hospital about 9 am the day we flew out, so Mom drove up the night before. Makes complete sense, but ironically, she could have taken us to the airport with Dad and still been able to get up to my grandparents' and get them out to the hospital for 9 am. But I don't blame her for not wanting to do that.
The problem with Mom leaving Wednesday night and us leaving Thursday morning was poor Faith. The puppy girl had had a tough time of it, since Mom and Dad went to Spain for about 2 weeks in late October-early November, were home for a week, and then left again to spend a week in Napa with us. Jane is a wonderful dog sitter and watches the house, but she takes Faith to her place some nights, and for the Napa trip, the whole time (she'd had surgery and couldn't drive). So the puppy sees suitcases and gets worried. She's adorable like that, but it's also a sign of a rescue dog, at least in my mind. Jennifer loved it when she got to go to the kennel (Faith can't be kenneled; she has panic attacks because she was abandoned at Greenhill) because they treated her like royalty.
But I digress. Adam and I eventually managed to get most of our shit stowed into the two suitcases and the rolling carry-on bag, with quite a lot also crammed into our backpacks and my laptop case. Yes, for those keeping score, that's all free, valid luggage. One free suitcase (50 pounds) each, the little rolling suitcase is carry-on size, and we each get a personal item. In Adam's case, a backpack. In my case, the laptop case, with my second allowed bag my backpack. I do know how to play the rules, thanks much. We couldn't take quite all of it, due to a combination of weight and the obscenely large (but light) present my grandmother gave us. New rule: if a box--no matter how light it may be--takes up more than 1/4 of my suitcase, it's not going. We like gift certificates.
So at about 3:30am the Thursday after Thanksgiving, we hauled our sorry asses out of bed, loaded the car, and headed off to Eugene airport. Mahlon Sweet is a tiny airport, despite being the second largest in Oregon. It is, however, far more convenient for early morning flights, and the staff there are generally awesome. We got checked in--we couldn't do that online for some reason--after the nice guy who was manning the kiosks*** couldn't check us in either. The woman at the counter was cranky and wanted us to try the kiosks again, but then decided that my arguing "we tried, it didn't work" wasn't going to get me to try again, so she gave up, became pleasant, and checked us all the way through to Manchester. Nor did we get charged for our "economy plus" seats, that we did not book, but United put us in and then tried to charge me for later. So no fight there, which was good. We also learned that United will overlook a 1/2 pound for your checked luggage. I wouldn't try it, however. We then dropped off our barely free luggage with the security boys, and hopped in the security line, where Dad said goodbye to us, but said he'd wait til we cleared security. In Eugene, this means you can still talk to people, though the TSA crew doesn't really like that if you're too close. At that point, we uneventfully went upstairs to wait for our plane to San Francisco.
SFO was equally uneventful, to the point where I can't remember it at all. Newark, however, overshadowed all of that. We had to go through security again, because that airport has shit for signage and while we were supposed to be able to transfer terminals and bypass security somehow, we couldn't figure out how. We were distinctly not happy, and Adam swears he'll never fly through Newark again. Since I'm the one who books tickets, he's being awfully bold about that, but since I also swear to not use Delta or fly through Atlanta (mostly because I hate Delta), he can hate on Newark and I'll try to respect his wishes. We finally made it to the gate in Newark, after about an hour of trying to get there (no exaggeration), I might add, and it was crammed. As before, they oversold the flight, though at least this time we weren't getting a smaller plane (I might have thrown a tantrum if that had happened again).
So Adam and I sat at the very busy gate, filled with lots of British people who were presumably visiting New York, and waited. And waited. And they kept announcing they needed 2 people to take a bump. A flight later that night to Heathrow, and then a flight from Heathrow up to Manchester, arriving about 5 hours later than the original flight. $500 (in travel vouchers) for that. $100 an hour isn't bad, but the fact of the matter was that Adam and I were on 3 flights already to get home, and were already tired and cranky. Instead of getting back to the house by 11 am, we'd be boarding our flight out of Heathrow then, so we said no. But...
But...after a couple of announcements at that price and no more takers (Adam said someone took it at $500), the price was suddenly $800. Same deal as before, just more money in vouchers. I gave Adam about 10 seconds to make up his mind, and while he was hemming and hawing, I sprinted up to the counter. And stood there. After a minute or so, they finally looked up and said in that long-suffering tone gate agents have because all they ever deal with is cranky customers, "Yes, can I help you?" and I said "Yeah, do you still need a couple of people to bump?" They looked slightly more cheerful at that point (I wasn't complaining, and it's not their money, though the woman who upped the offer said to someone else "I need you to back me up that I tried 3 times at the lower price and no one would take it"), and so the paperwork commenced, at which point a couple of other people had meandered up and tried to take the bump. I handed them all our tickets, my passport, and went and grabbed Adam, his passport, and our luggage. They then sent a gal to pull our checked luggage off the plane and reroute it, a process that made me feel like we might never see our luggage again (we did, and even before we got to Manchester for one piece!). Then we filled out forms and signed them, and were instructed that if we lose the vouchers, we're screwed. She also told us to write down the number in several different places, because that's what's needed to redeem them, and use them within a year, etc. etc. Supposedly they're usable on any Star Alliance flight. I'm not convinced, but I bet I can make it work (just make sure the flight is code-shared with Continental, which is who we bumped from). They also gave us $12 in food vouchers a person (we didn't need them, but hey, I paid a lot for the original tickets, so I'll take what I can get.****).
So that's all done, and we have to walk to the far end of the terminal. Same terminal, but it's like a mile away. In hindsight, it was a lot less far after our hike through Heathrow. We got food, fought over redeeming the vouchers ("yes, I know I can't get change. I don't want change, just keep the extra 18 cents and give me my $11.82 worth of food"), and eventually reached our gate in the creepy part of the airport. Creepy because they had cordoned part of it off, I assume to create a secure area for a international flight that was continuing on from somewhere to Tel Aviv. That flight left very late, since they last-called it for about an hour.
The later part of Newark and our flight to Heathrow was uneventful, minus the fact that we were late touching down, and not sure we would make our flight (we totally did, but we were only supposed to have an hour). Because we were connecting through Heathrow, we got a completely different passport control line, which was good, because it was empty. Then we got a bus to a different terminal. Then we got security, followed by weird creepy security, as in the kind that photographs you (it's in a testing phase, and we can't figure out what good it does, so we're betting they scrap it). Then we ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. And ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. And ran some more. Then we finally saw signs for our gate (8) and gates 77-80. Then we saw gates 77-80 turn off. Then we ran some more, and found gate 7. Then another 5 minutes on, we got to gate 8. Or should I say gates, since it was 8a-8f. And if you think I'm exaggerating, I'm really not. From the time we cleared security the last time (the creepy photo turn-in one, because there really were 3 different security things) we still had almost a 10 minute walk. It was really bizarre.
At the gate area, we hadn't missed our flight (Heathrow is organized and fast if you've travelled at all), and so we went to the counter to talk to a BMI rep to see if she could get us seated together. Continental could get us confirmed and seats, but because it's a different system, they couldn't get us seated together. Woman at the gate had no problems, though all she did was cross out my seat and write a new one on it. Not very official, but whatever. Then at boarding, the gate agent looked at it, and asked me a couple of questions, and then said "ahh, I see. You're on my list (points to a sticky note) to move your seat." So no problem, except that we now can't see the person in front of us in line. Shouldn't be a problem, but we're walking down a very long hallway that ends in stairs going down. That ends in a propped open door. Hmm...zombies? Or maybe we'll get arrested for walking out on the tarmac? Nope. A plane was out there, and it even turned out to be ours. So we gate check our bags (it's a small plane), and board. We're in the second row. It was lovely, and there were two seats on one side, and one on the other side of the aisle. And the plane was mostly empty. Actually, it turned out it wasn't, as we discovered when we deplaned and about 8 million people walked past us that we never saw board before or after us. Granted, half of the people on that plane were dead-heading to Manchester--there were I think 4 pilots on the plane, plus two full captains flying the plane (instead of a captain and a pilot or co-pilot), as well as several other flight crew members.
We boarded, collapsed in our seats, and waited. A long time. Then the gate agent comes on board and asks me for ticket information, because the bump for some reason said we were issued paper tickets, but we weren't, just e-tickets. In Newark, that was solved by the gate agent crossing out paper and writing e-ticket on it. So I said "well, I can show you everything they gave us" and handed over our new tickets from Newark. She said "perfect, I need that bit" and I said "fine, but I want to keep the rest of it so I can have proof when they don't issue our airline miles." She laughed and gave me back the stub, and all was good. Until a few minutes later another guy--this one new--came by and asked for me. This time I needed to confirm that a piece of luggage was ours. Why, I have no idea, but that's how I knew that at least one of our bags had made it. I tried to find out about the other one, but they didn't know. Luckily, when we grabbed our bags after an uneventful flight up to Manchester, they were both there.
We never did go through Customs, by the way. In the UK, you go through Customs in your final destination, because you don't have to pick your bags up at the port of entry like you do in the US. It's great. Except we arrived into the domestic terminal in Manchester, where there is no Customs. Awesome. Too bad we didn't want to smuggle anything in. To be fair, I don't know what we would have smuggled in.
An uneventful train ride, followed by a second uneventful train ride (punctuated by my trying to fall asleep in the 8 minutes it takes to get from Huddersfield to Slaithwaite), and a stagger down the hill, and we were home. I was hoping to stay up until 8 pm that night, but I passed out about 4 pm. Classy. After his shower, Adam found me curled up in bed, arms protectively around Henry the laptop (I was "watching" Leverage). So he removed Henry, put on his jammies, and used his computer for an hour so before he came to bed, which is when I woke up, but not for long.
In short, that is how Adam and I are $1600 richer in travel vouchers. Here's hoping he can use his next year--but that's a different story, one without a middle, let alone an ending.
*Day surgery, and they removed all the tumors and a bit of surrounding cells to ensure it was all removed, but the biopsy said the tumors were benign, which was both a major surprise to us all, and quite awesome.
**This is a problem for her, because she no longer has a valid ID, and can't understand why places aren't willing to accept an expired license. She refuses to go get an Oregon ID card because--sorry Mom--she's old and crabby and doesn't like it when people don't do things her way. Ironically, about 20 years ago she used to complain that old people were stubborn and set in their ways and it made them obnoxious and rude.
***These always seem to be manned because they a) never work or b) people can't make them work. Cost cutting measures indeed!
****This included a blanket on the flight out.
