OK, let's start with the good news - we are here in Florida, settled in to our villa at Old Key West, the sun is shining, and we'll be here for the next couple of weeks.
Now, for the story of the journey here - yesterday was a long day!
We started off with a lift to the airport (thanks Grandad), leaving home just after 6am, and having a smooth run to Heathrow, where there was no queue for checking in with United, and we deposited our bags, and picked up our boarding cards for both our flight to Washington and the onward connection to Orlando.
Security only took 10 or 15 minutes, and once airside, we checked out what Terminal 1 had to offer before settling in to a diner for sausage sandwiches and juice for breakfast. Our flight was showing as having a small, 45 minute delay, so we had a fairly long time to wait in the departure area. Still, this wasn't a problem, and we took our time over breakfast, before setting up camp in the departure area and taking turns to go for a wander in the shops. Jake got a new game for his Vita (Lord of the Rings Lego), Nicky got a magazine, and I picked up a couple of books from the WHS Bookstore.
Our gate opened as expected at 11.45, and we boarded pretty quickly. The flight to Washington was uneventful, and we made up a little bit of our lost time. We all had a little doze at some point - I read a couple of books, and the food was ok - Lasagne for lunch and a cheese and ham roll for tea.
We landed at 4pm local time, meaning that we had an hour to get our connecting flight, which was due to depart at 5.04pm. Lots of the people around us on the plane also had connecting flights, some earlier than ours, and it seemed like we were going to be ok. We were off the plane fairly quickly, and likes lots of others followed the "transit" signs to where we would be able to get our connection.
Down a few escalators, along a corridor, around the corner - and then we saw the immigration queue!
It was long, and we were at the back of it. Stress levels started to rise, and not just ours - there were lots of people in the queue who were looking to make connections, and a number of people started to get a little agitated. The staff made announcements to the whole queue to say that we were all in the same boat, and that no-one would be jumping the line.
There were about 20 immigration desks, and the majority of them were set up for US passport holders, and we watched as the line for US nationals moved quickly whilst ours crawled along. We took 20 minutes to do the first length of it before turning 180 degrees and moving onto the second part of the zig zag. Things were not looking good.
Around now the US line emptied out completely, and the immigration staff did at least start using all of the open desks for our queue, so progress was a little faster, and hopes for making connections rose and fell as we shuffled forward, stopped, and then shuffled forward a bit more again.
We made it to a desk at 5pm. Our only hope by this time was that there might be a delay in our flight to Orlando. Hugely frustratingly there were no flight information screens in the immigration hall, so we had no idea what the situation was (and our mobiles would not connect up to let us look online either).
After the faffing about with fingerprints and photos, we legged it along to where our bags were waiting for us, and moved them along about 100 yards, through the bag check, to where we put them on another conveyor to be sent on to our next flight, still not knowing whether it had actually gone already, which it would have done by now if it was running on time.
Round another corner, and lo and behold, another ******* queue, this time to go back through security screening once again. Stress levels go up a bit more. We make it through, put our shoes back on, go back up another escalator, and finally see our first flight information screen. By now it is about 5.30pm, and sure enough, it says that our flight has closed. A member of staff says that we need to go down to the United customer services desk, where they will sort us out.
We make the hike to customer services, and when we get there, we discover that it has a long queue already formed. Stress levels go through the roof!
Nicky and I stand in line and Jake has a sit down. The queue doesn't move - at all. We watch the people at the front talking to the desk staff, for a very long time, and contemplate the fact that with 50 or so people in front of us, this could be a very long wait. We know that there is one more United flight to Orlando tonight, leaving at 9.50pm but looking at how busy things are, don't rate our chances of getting on it.
Realising that things are looking a little bleak, I go off in search of the United staff member who was at the information board to ask them about whether we can at least get our bags back. But when I hike back up to that end of the terminal, no-one is there, and there is nobody around to talk to. So back I go with no news.
Whilst Nicky is standing in line, Jake and I go off to Wendy's to get burger / nuggets. Nicky decides she doesn't want anything, but Jake and I have some food. By the time we are back, Nicky has moved forward in the line a little way, but when I look, I'm sure it's still some of the same people talking at the desk, and people have just shuffled forward in line a little to close up gaps. You can cut the tension in the air with a knife. There are lots and lots of people here who aren't going to be getting where they want to go today, and due to the time of year with everyone travelling for the holidays, very little sign of open spaces on other flights. By now it is about 6.30pm.
The idea of spending the next couple of days at the airport hanging around on standby for flights fills us with dread, and we start to talk seriously about hiring a car and driving it down to Florida. Looking at google maps, it is about 850 miles and a 13 hour drive.
Nicky gets talking to a young chap in line who is also travelling to Orlando and should have been on the 5.04pm plane (we never did find out his name, but he was a really nice guy, and for the purposes of this story I'm going to call him Fred!). We all agree that if we could just get our bags back, we could check in to a hotel, get some sleep, and reassess / set of in a car, in the morning. There are lots of people from our London flight in the line.
Next thing I know, Nicky and Fred are moving up to the front of the line. Someone at the desk has asked if anyone just wants their bags back, and so we take that option. The staff start calling the gate and seeing if they can establish where our bags are. It seems unlikely that they would have made it through in time to get onto the 5.04pm plane, and the normal approach is to send them on the next available flight, so they are probably waiting to be loaded onto the next available flight - the 9.50pm (it seems like they don't seem to care about making sure that bags and people travel together on internal flights).
By now it is about 7.30pm, and we notice that our 5.04pm flight has just reappeared on the departure board, saying that it has returned to the gate. We have no idea why. I wander off and have a chat with a staff member at another nearby gate, and they phone down to D23 (the gate for our flight) to find out what is going on. It sounds like our flight has returned with a mechanical problem, but the flight remains "closed", i.e. they are not letting any new passengers on board.
We make a fuss about this at the desk, and the staff are utterly useless! They can't tell us what is going on with our original flight, and they can't give us any clear answers about where our bags are. Stress levels are up in the stratosphere.
Fred decides that as there is a slim possibility of getting on to the original flight, he is going to go down to the gate and see what is happening there, but he says that he will come back and let us know what is going on. We continue trying to get some idea of where our bags are. More time passes and it is now about 8pm and despair is setting in.
After a while, Fred reappears, completely out of breath, having sprinted back from the Gate D23 (which it turns out is about a kilometre away at the other end of the terminal). He tells us that he thinks he might be getting on the original flight and that it may be worth our while to go down to the gate.
We try to get the attention of the staff member who currently has our bag check tickets, eventually get them from her, and set off at a jog to the gate. We arrive there and there are a number of people milling around who had previously been on the flight but who've got off to stretch their legs whilst the mechanical (brakes) issue is being sorted out. We go up to the desk and tell them we have been sent down by customer services, and present our original boarding cards that we had been given what seems like many days ago in London!
The staff member we are dealing with (Oscar) explains that whilst some people have got off to stretch their legs, the flight is still closed, and is full. We should not have come down here, and he calls the customer services desk and starts telling them off and telling them not so send anyone else down.
We basically refuse to move, start brandishing our boarding cards, and declare that we have a right to be on that plane, and that they should not have given away our seats to anyone else. There is much confusion.
By now the youngest member of our party is in tears, and frankly we all feel pretty terrible.
There is much scratching of heads and consultation between the staff members at the gate.
After a while, Oscar comes over to us and hands us a scrap of paper with three seat numbers (spread around the plane) dotted on it. He tells us to get on the plane and go and sit in those seats.
Before anyone can change their mind, we are off down the walkway.
Just as we head towards the plane, we see Fred and the desk, still deep in conversation with a United staff member. We all think the same thing - oh no - we are getting the last three seats, and Fred, who helped us out - is going to be stranded. ****.
We get on the plane, and some of the seat numbers we have been given are already occupied.
Again - ****.
Still, we are on the plane, and there is no way they are getting us off now!
We present ourselves to one of the cabin staff, and explain that we have been sent by Oscar, but that we can't sit in the seats that he has told us to. We are sent to the galley at the rear of the plane, and told to stand there whilst they try to sort things out. We watch as all the other passengers start getting on, and the plane fills up.
Once everyone is on, one of the cabin crew comes to the back and tells us to walk forward and grab any available seats. We see one about 6 or 7 rows from the back, and so get Jake to sit down. Then about half way through the plane there is another one, and Nicky tells me to claim it and she continues forward. But there are no more seats. More panic. But, one of the stewards calls her to the back, and a seat is found (I spend the flight thinking that she is on one of the crew jump seats in the back galley, but it turns out that another seat was available in the second row from the back - Nicky thinks that a staff member who was travelling got moved into one of the jump seats.)
An announcement comes over the PA system to say that the doors are closed, and we will be departing as soon as refuelling has finished.
We are on board and we are going to Orlando - thank the Lord!! We're not sure if our luggage is coming with us on the same flight, but at least we are getting there!
We finally take off at about 9pm, and land in Orlando at about 10.50pm.
No need to do immigration again in Orlando (be grateful for small mercies), and so we are straight on the connecting monorail to the main terminal and to baggage claim. Nicky waits in the hope that our bags might appear whilst Jake and I head off to the Dollar car hire desk.
There is no wait at the car hire, so we are done fairly quickly. The staff member gives us the hard sell on upgrading the car, and by this time my defences against this are at zero, so I sign away another couple of hundred dollars, but at this point am past caring. He had me when he said that our "economy" car could be a Fiat 500! We upgrade to a "standard" and have actually ended up with a Ford 4x4 which we are happy with. (I also think he probably did us over, on the basis that when we got to the garage we couldn't see any economy cars at all - we think they had probably rented them all earlier in the day and so would have had to give us an upgrade anyway. Oh well - never mind!!)
Paperwork done, we went up to baggage reclaim where Nicky was still waiting with no bags. But she was chatting with our friend Fred. To our great relief, he'd made it as well (I'd seen him as we'd disembarked the plane, so had told Nicky this whilst we were on the monorail.) I turns out that Fred owed his good fortune to a nervous flyer who once the plane had developed a mechanical problem with the brakes had refused to get back on even after they were fixed, and so Fred got her seat!
Then, after a few minutes, to our great delight and surprise, the first our our bags appeared, fairly quickly followed by the other two. We loaded up onto a trolley and made our way to the garage where we chose our car, flung things in the boot, and drove to OKW.
We arrived here at about 12.30am, and after checking in, we unloaded our bags into the room, and fell into bed after a journey of only just under 24 hours.
But as I said at the start, we are here now, and I'm just off to have a game of table tennis with Jake.
More later on day 1 proper!