Close Call

Let’s see if I can sum this up (really this is a long one).  After our awesome trip to Ireland which went without a hitch, mostly (excluding a closed bridge for maintenance which occurs once every 5 years when the weather is nice for at least 4 days), we had a day in London.  Our afternoon in London was fantastic; the girls and I toured Westminster Abbey, we spent at least two hours in Hamley’s Toy Store on Regent Street, and finished our night with a delicious pizza at a bistro with live jazzy blues music!  It was the next day that our close call came; we were waiting at the hotel for the airport bus to take us to the airport (we had the bus schedule, prepaid tickets everything lined up), after about fifteen-minutes pass the scheduled departure time our bus finally arrives…apparently the “other” bus was too full and they called for a back up bus.  We were then dropped off at the wrong terminal after figuring out where we needed to be, we headed to the correct terminal (a two-minute walk in the rain).  We go in, look and look and look to finally figure out you have to go back to the entrance, almost leaving the building to go up three-floors for the departures desks.  Lines aren’t too bad if you consider fifteen-minutes not too bad.  When we get to the counter the agent asks for our boarding pass.  We were quite confused and told her that’s why we were here, to get one.  She tells us that we have to “check in at the kiosks” (everywhere we have traveled you can go to the counter for a boarding pass, every airport, like a dozen airports in 10 different countries).  Once we got our tickets we had to get in another “check-in” line; thankfully Tony found a shorter line (waited only five-minutes this time).  I’ve been giving you time checks for a reason we tend to follow the guideline to arrive at the airport two-hours before departure….we have now lost a little more than an hour and we are finally heading into security.  Fortunately that doesn’t go too bad it only took about fifteen-minutes and we didn’t get stopped for any reason (O.K., maybe one or two of us had the honor of a pat down). 

We had two things that needed to be done after security, Tony wanted to send in our VAT receipts for a refund and we had to pick up two items at Duty Free for others.  We made it through Duty Free pretty quickly and we then stopped at a customer service center to ask where a drop box is for the refunds.  Turns out, the information needed before you mail it is an “official” stamp from Customs.  So Tony’s sealed envelopes had to be opened and he had to go to the Customs office which was up two flights and on the other side of the airport.  By this time we had about 20-minutes before boarding so the girls and I went to the gate as Tony went to take care of the receipts.  The gate appears to be nearby, nice….wait…there gate 6, gate 5, gate 3, where’s gate 4?!  Sigh, no one is around, another passenger saw the sign telling us to begin boarding!  The gate is down two floors and it’s a bus transfer to our plane that means the gate actually “closes” in 20-minutes (I thought that only happened at second world countries or very small airports, not Heathrow).  As we board the bus the girls are starting to really worry about Daddy, the bus is not even half full so I know Tony has a little more time to join us.  We are waiting, waiting, Ellie worrying, Rylie crying, waiting, waiting.  The bus is getting fuller, of course it’s filling with Ukrainians since we are heading to Kiev so they pile just inside the doors and refuse to move further into the bus (hello, we are all leaving at the same time, getting on the same plane, with assigned seat numbers, just move away from the door and make room for more passengers).  We keep hoping to see Tony, I’m thinking another plane ticket for him will cost a lot more than the 60£ he’s hoping to get back. 

Now from Tony’s vantage he gets upstairs, gets everything stamped but he needs his envelope repaired, but the lady refuses to staple or tape it for him.  So he heads back downstairs, gets the first lady to fix the envelope, but the stapler runs out of staples.  He waits (what felt like forever) for her to find the staples and fill it, she fixes the envelope, then he runs back upstairs and down the hall to the mail box and then heads back to the gate, which of course he will be surprised to discover is downstairs. 

Mean while with three-minutes left before the gate “closes” I see a glimmer of hope when I see a family with a stroller running to the gate and struggling with their stuff, whew, a little more time for Tony; well, maybe, maybe not.  The guy next to me was nice, he said Tony had at least one possibly two whole minutes to spare. At this point I had already decided to stay on the bus and fly home without Tony if necessary (thinking it was the economical choice).  The gate check lady comes to the bus and calls for Tony James….I was just going to say he should be here any minute as I see him in his blue coat running down the escalator…“oh, there he is!”  By the way, they never called his name on the intercom, I hear people getting called at so many airports, but oh no, not this one.  Have I mentioned my heart rate, I suppose that goes without saying.  I guess this is a good example of why you should plan to be at the airport two-hours before departure, as we did, but things do not always go according to plan at least it wasn’t a boring wait.