Over Easter my father past away, and that caused me to need to get to Orlando very quickly. I found out on the Tuesday after Easter at around 2pm, and by 6pm I was booked on a Delta airlines flight to Orlando via Detroit as this was significantly cheaper than any of the direct flights as this was the middle of the 3 days of leave for 11 days away, with the Royal wedding due that Friday.
So after packing quickly that night, an early start (4am) and I was off to Heathrow Terminal 4 for the flight, The Cab had picked me up at (5am) with this being a 9:15am flight, I got to the terminal and having checked in dropped my suitcase and headed through security, at this time it was quiet and I headed to Garfunkels for breakfast.
The Flight was uneventful and I landed at Detroit at 1:40 local time, as I got to immigration I did have a slight concern as the queue looked long and I only had 1.5 hours to get my connection. As I waited a video was playing explaining the procedure and then a video welcoming visitors to the USA, and i noticed that the music was from Epcot's Illuminations, The connection to our December trip and the last time I had seen my father brought a slight tear to my eye. But after the 10th repeat of the same video loop I was started to wonder if an indirect flight was a good idea. The Queue seemed to be full of Chinese and Japanese visitors and these seemed to be causing significant delays in each visitors processing. So slowly the time passed and I came to accept that I was probably going to miss my connection. After 1hour 20 mins the TSA officals finally decided to allow some of us to use the US citizen's booths and I finally made it into the USA and found my bag which had already been unloaded from the carousel and almost ran to the customs section. Now as I was away that internal US flights do not like to feed their passengers I had grabbed a couple of Boots' sandwiches before I left heathrow to have something to eat. Now this came back to haunt me as I had to declare the fresh food and have my suitcase and carry on scanned. It was now 10 mins after my flight to Orlando was due to depart and I had only just made it through customs.
I was directed to the ticket desk where a helpful Delta employee told me that there were no remaing seats on any of the direct flights to orlando that day and both already had over 5 people of standby, so I asked about indirect knowing that Delta have a hub in Atlanta and that was pretty much in the right direction. So after more tapping at the screen I was transferred onto a flight to Atlanta with a connecting flight on to Orlando. It would mean I would only get in at 23:15 rather than arround 17:00 when I had been due to arrive but I was on my way again.
I was rescanned for security, obviously US security don't trust that I was properly scanned before I left heathrow, and made my way into Detroit airport proper with 2.5 hours to kill till the next flight, I called Celia to let her know what had happened and wandered the terminal finding a bar showing the Real Madrid v Barcelona Champions league semifinal (1st Leg) which had just kicked off and sat down for a coke and a snack, and immediatly realising that I had no Dollars, so asking the bar staff to wait, and headed off for an ATM to get get some cash.
The ATM told me that my bank had rejected the transaction, so I tried a different card same response, I walked and found a different ATM same again. Then it dawn on me that my bank had decided that I was not in the USA so why would my card work, I have had this before but normally get a phone call to confirm. So I called Celia again to get a number set up on "Skype to go" for my bank so I could explain the trip, Celia did try via Internet banking to set me up as away but could only do this from the next day, so I made the call, went back to the first ATM got some cash and watched the 2nd half of the match, after Messi's scored the 2nd goal I decided that it was getting close to departure time so headed for the gate.
When I got to the plane to have my seat allocated (window) and boarded not looking forward to the 2 hour flight, once on board though we were told that due to weather at Atlanta we were going to be delayed by about an hour but could everyone go no further than the air bridge as they could try to leave sooner. Knowing that i had a 2.5 hours layover in Atlanta I wasn't additionaly worried by this delay.
So an hour late we headed south to Atlanta, They did start to serve drinks but stopped just after serving my row due to turbelance so snacking on my sandwiches the flight passed and we came to land at Atlanta airport.
On leaving the plane, and I am still a bit perturbed when you are just dumped back out into teh main terminal rather than a landing section. I hunted for a display board to find where my next flight was leaving from, to see that it was at gate T5 and I was at Gate D19 but it was showing 23:50 for expected depart time, rather than the 21:45 I was expecting, but I did also see that there was another Delta flight about to leave, infact it was showing as Boarding at gate A19, so thought I would try to get there to see what was happening and could I get to Orlando sooner.
I rushed through the airport till i got to the gate just as the Woman looking after the gate closed the door, with a long printout in her hand, so now all i could do was wait.
I warned Shelley that I would be delayed into the late night slot and said that I should still be there just after 1am, dawning on me that from my body clock that would be 6am UK time or just over 26 hours since I had woken up. I grabbed some Coke Zero to help keep me awake and found somewhere to sit.
Finally at 2300 there was some movement at the gate and I started to chat to a young couple who had been hiking in the hills near Atlanta when he had damaged his ankle and they were now returning home with his leg in a cast. They were only on Standby for this flight, at least I had a guarenteed seat. At 2330 they started to show that the couple were going to be on the flight and we all started to board.
After the plan was between half and 2/3rd full the passengers stopped coming in the door and an announcement was made to plane, the storm had arrived and if we looked out the windows we could see rain and lightning and hear the thunder, so the Airport had advised that all airbridges were to be closed. Oh and our pilots were on the airport side of the bridge so we definatly were going to go until the storm subsided. Time now got into a bit of a blur, the crew decided to show Little Fockers to those that were interested, the storm died down, the pilots ran out of time so we had to wait for a new crew and finally we were all kicked off the plane to wait, aparently for our comfort but I had a seat in the plane but not at the gate. Some of the business class passengers and frequently travellers obviously decided that it was only a matter of time before the flight was cancelled so started to try and get on standby for the morning flights, I got in line as I decided to join them, with the option of a night in a hotel room looking like a good idea at this point as I had been up for over 24 hours and was still at least a couple of hours away from a bed. I had also called Celia as in the UK she had already got back up, which made me feel more tired.
As I got to the front of the line and was just about to see what could be done, a cheer went up from the other passengers as the new pilots arrived. We were loaded into the plane in double quick time, and with a slight pause just before we got on the Runway we took off, it was now 5am EST, 10am GMT and I was in cloud cuckooland, The flight was an hour and we did get a great view of the storm heading out into the Atlantic, but all i cared about was getting to Orlando and some sleep.
We finally landed at MCO at 6am EST, 11am GMT, or 26 hours after I left Heathrow, or 30 hours after the taxi had picked me up at home, But at least I have some idea where everything is at MCO, so quick jump on the Monorail, off to the Car Hire desk got the paperwork sorted, back to the luggage carousel to still wait for my bag, once it came, a quick call to Shelley to warn her i was on my way, into the car, the attendant had giving me a comp upgrade from Compact to Economy (or is it the other way round) and a quick drive down boggy creak road I finally arrived at 7am, said hi and went to get some well needed rest.
