Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2016
Edit Blog Post
Coffee arrived at 7:00am. After waking up with caffeine, I went down to the concierge and asked someone to call the transfer company taking us to the airport, as my information didn't give a time. That would be after 9:00am, when the company was open.
Walking outside, we watched an oceangoing cruise ship dock behind the hotel. The main terminal is only a couple blocks away.
I finished repacking and called the bell desk for them to be taken down at 11:30. Just as the door closed the front desk called to say our driver had arrived. Final room check, out and down.
Our driver was a nice young man from Suriname, which had been a Dutch colony, then a constituent country, and now an independent state. He took the back way to avoid road work and the traffic problems it creates. Prepay means there's no extra charge, no matter the route.
Our flight to London was on KLM Airlines. They have you place each bag to be checked on a scale in a screened cage after scanning your boarding pass. The screen closes and your bag disappears. When done will all three the number tags are
printed. Then through Security, where both of our carry-on backpacks had to be inspected. Then through Customs.
Being noonish, we agreed to get something to eat at the airport. McDonald's with ordering kiosks called to us. Everything tasted the same as at home and they were so busy the fries were fresh and hot.
On to Gate D6E. It's downstairs, apart from all the shopping available upstairs. There was a computer counter that I used to check email and charge my laptop briefly. When boarding was called we lined up to then get on a bus to be taken to the far side of the tarmac where our plane waited. We had an Exit row for legroom and everyone received a boxed snack.
We had to circle Heathrow a few times before landing. Again we followed the lines to our shuttle bus across the fields to Customs. Not very efficient, given the number of passengers every day. One of the information screens was fuzzy and so glitchy I thought it would trigger a seizure for someone. We stood in line for over an hour before getting to an officer. Getting through only took a couple of minutes.
I did tell him about the monitor.
Next was finding the right baggage carousel and retrieving our bags. Someone from our transfer company should have been waiting, but no one was holding up our name. Ladies in purple jackets are available to help passengers, so I prevailed upon one to call for us. While doing this our driver walked in and found Roger. There were to others sharing our ride. One was a young lady visiting from Australia and the other was a mom who had gone to South Africa to see her sick mother and received a call upon landing that her children had been put in foster care. It was a very long and sad story that was still unfolding when we were dropped off at our hotel.
The Comfort Inn Buckingham Palace looked and sounded good online. Up in the elevator to the second floor, then up half a flight of stair, then down a half a flight of stairs. And then our room had maybe 18" on each side of the bed. Nowhere to open a suitcase. No place to hang a towel. Plus the only window overlooked six busy train tracks.
It
was already after 6:00pm and we had tickets to the London Eye. Lots of walking. As we got closer we saw the clock tower (otherwise known as Big Ben), Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and Parliament. Across the Thames River was the London Eye. We stopped at a sandwich shop and got hard boiled egg and ham sandwiches. There were so many people everywhere.
Our fast track vouchers had to be turned in for their regular tickets. Done. Watched a 4D video that included a covering of soap bubbles. Back to the line. It was now about 8:15 and the last ride is at 8:30. Our group was about a dozen people. A revolution takes about 30 minutes and there's no sensation of moving. The views are spectacular. It was worth the effort to get there.
It wasn't easy trudging back to our accommodations. One good thing came about because of that. We were so tired we didn't wake up for every train that passed in the night.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0249s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb