The routing was from Mumbai to London Heathrow, change planes, then from London Heathrow to Atlanta, Georgia. Each leg was scheduled to be about nine and a half hours long. The flight from Mumbai was scheduled to leave at 2:35 am. That meant arriving at the airport not later than midnight. It turned out to be the right amount of time. By the time we cleared both sets of security, checked our luggage, went through immigration, and walked to the gate we had about ten minutes before boarding. Flights from Mumbai are always delayed, apparently; we were fortunate that the delay was only about twenty minutes.
All of the formalities were completely uneventful. The only issue that came up was our chosen seats. I had booked us into exit row seats, which on this Airbus A-330 airplane were seats 50H and 50K. Two seats next to each other on the right side of the airplane. However, it turns out that Indian regulations prohibit anyone over the age of 50 sitting in an emergency row. We were relocated to 55A and 55C (there was no 55B). Those seats, while they had the extra leg room I had paid for, were still very cramped. In the end the flight took just over 10 hours from takeoff to landing in London. According to the flight attendant, the airplane was completely full.
The flight itself was mostly uneventful, except for my nasal CPAP machine. Without that machine, I can’t sleep. I had called Delta about the machine and they assured me that there was not problem using the machine and that they would inform Virgin Atlantic. Well, they didn’t inform Virgin Atlantic. The flight attendants were quite upset when I put the mask on and drifted off to sleep. It took over an hour for them to inspect the machine, verify with someone(s) that it was OK, that the battery wasn’t dangerous, etc., etc. Eventually I did get a couple of hours of rather restless sleep, with the machine.
When we got to London, I was met at the door of the airplane by a Virgin Atlantic person who had me wait to go with her to the checkin place so they could note my CPAP machine in the records so I could use it on the next flight.
I had booked a room at the Comfort Suites hotel at the airport. That worked out just OK. The facility turned out to be under new ownership and had been converted into a Comfort Suites. It was an old facility, very worn. The TV didn’t work. The remote was missing. Light bulbs were missing. But the bed was nice and we both slept (after ordering in Chinese food) about nine hours.
On Saturday morning we picked up the rental car and drove back to Ninety Six, South Carolina where Nina’s sister lives and where our motor home was waiting for us. We were back in the US, back to our “home”, and it’s almost like the trip never happened.
Except, it did. We had a great time. I’ve got great memories (and a couple hundred photographs to back them up). Over the next few days I’ll write about some of our experiences, starting with the Taj Mahal.
Life is great!