Our latest trip to Europe took place from late August to early October 2023.  It encompassed two cruises and some varied land stays before, in-between and after.  The adventure began in London, even though it wasn’t supposed to.  London got us -again!

Leaving Phoenix started well.  Our traveling friends, Connie and Warren, arrived at our house the day before and we enjoyed an evening at Arizona Broadway Theater.

The next afternoon we went to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.   We had drinks and a light meal before boarding our flight for London at 7:30 pm.  We had a connection in London the next morning and then into Prague mid day.

Our planned trip with Connie and Warren was a Viking River Cruise called the Cities of Light – beginning in Prague, cruising through Germany, and ending in Paris.

We had an uneventful flight in premium economy on British Airways. 

All was well – until we arrived at Heathrow in London.  We spent 45 minutes on the tarmac because “a computer system used by ground control was down” – or so we were told.  Planes currently at the stands (gates) could not leave, and those waiting for stands (gates) could not enter.

When we were eventually able to go inside the terminal we discovered that the computer outage was a much bigger deal than we understood on the plane.  The problem was with air traffic control across the UK, not just ground control.  Many flights out of Heathrow were already canceled but ours was just showing as delayed.   

We made our way from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 for our next flight not knowing if we were going or staying.  We received mixed messages about whether our flight was canceled or really was just delayed.

The emergency travel contact at Viking couldn’t rebook us on a flight for the next day because our current flight had not been canceled officially.

I texted our travel agent in Phoenix and she got right on it contacting and working with Viking until they had us booked out the next afternoon.  We had four of the eight available seats on the afternoon flight to Prague the next day. 

Then our travel agent went to work trying to find us hotel rooms for the night. Options kept slipping away as everyone who was stranded also needed accommodations. Many thousands of people were involved.

After about 90 minutes, we had new airline tickets and hotel reservations for the night.  While I was working on tickets and hotel with our travel agent, Randy and Connie spent all that time trying to locate our bags. The airline knew they had been loaded onto our connecting flight but didn’t know exactly what has happened to them when the flight was canceled.

Almost all baggage from the canceled flights was going to be brought to two baggage claim carousels in Terminal 3 where we were. Several hours later our luggage still hadn’t come out. 

We had purchased four Apple Air Tags (gps trackers) for this trip so he knew our two suitcases had made it to the vicinity of Terminal 3 – where our next flight was supposed to have left from and where we now were.  

Two Air Tags were in our suitcases with the other two in my general bag and Randy’s backpack.  He could “see” our checked luggage near us.  Randy spoke to several baggage people but they were not able, or willing, to go get them, even though they were “right there.” So close – and yet so far.

Eventually British Airways baggage personnel suggested we go upstairs to departures because we were within the check in window for our flight the next day.  Checking in, and assigning our bags to our new flight, should keep them in the vicinity and not let them wander away somewhere.  

We would have felt better actually having our luggage with us but we had no option other than to leave without them and hope.

Connie and Warren had a carry-on luggage bag each so had a change of clothes and necessities.  I had a change of clothing in my general bag.  Randy had a toothbrush in his backpack.

We took an Uber to the hotel as there was a very long line for the hotel loop bus. 

We had a late dinner.  Randy ordered fish and chips because he had been disappointed that he hadn’t had fish and chips the last time we were stranded in London. Unfortunately he was a bit disappointed in his meal and isn’t a fan of mashed peas!

We collapsed when we got to our room after not having gotten a lot of sleep on the plane the night before. I did wake up in the night, checked my phone, and saw the Mariners were winning.  Priorities people!

The next morning I laughed while trying to figure out the shower fixtures.  Welcome back to Europe!  We experienced fixture confusion repeatedly on our trip to Italy last year!

It took me awhile to figure out there was no hot water and it wasn’t just that I didn’t know how to get it. The lack of hot water got us complimentary breakfast.  I almost got decaf coffee until I remembered I was in London and had tea with milk.

We took an Uber to the airport and found that our 1:45 flight was delayed to 2:41.   We already knew we had lost one of our planned excursions in Prague, but this extra delay made the evening excursion undoable too.

We went to a currency exchange booth at the airport because we wanted to have some Czech Republic Crowns and we had time to do it.  The agent  explained we would be going from USD to Pounds to Crowns.   We knew they would take a share but the share they took was very large!  For $42 USD we got 500 Crowns. The fair exchange would have been 940 Crowns. Oh well.  At least we weren’t concerned about getting a lot!

When we were on the plane, finally ready to go to Prague, I thought we were lucky that we were just one day late instead of later.  Many thousands of people were involved in this mess and the ripples likely took days to totally sort out.

Because of the AirTags we had some confidence that our bags would arrive with us in Prague, but we could only hope that Connie and Warren’s luggage was with us too.

The reason I titled this “London – Again” was because we were in this same place and time a little over a year ago when we were flying from Rome to Phoenix through London.  We were late out of Rome so missed our connecting flight at Heathrow and had to stay the night at a hotel (when Randy didn’t get fish and chips).  That was courtesy of British Air.

We were flying British Air this time too but the problem wasn’t theirs.  We’ll be making a claim through our travel insurance for our trip interruption.

I’m glad to say our return flight at the end of this trip was scheduled on Swiss Air through Zurich, avoiding Heathrow and London.

We have plans to be in London, on purpose, in 2024.  Hopefully our planned visit to London will be better than the unplanned ones.

Next up:  We do get to Prague!