London to Oslo or maybe not

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What a day. It started reasonably. Andy and I checked out of the apartment at Hyde Terrace thinking ya no more 4 floors of stairs to climb. We went to the Imperial War Museum this morning. It is an interesting museum and worth the visit. The guide says allow about 1.5 hours which to me was good timing but Andy needed at least twice that.

From here we went back and collected our bags in preparation of our flight to Oslo. Got the train to Liverpool then raced to get tickets for Stansted Airport. The express train went through some lovely scenery and got us to the airport without any dramas. From here on things did not run so smoothly. As we went to readjust our bags by adding items such as Andy's leatherman, we noticed some keys left behind so Andy took them of to information. We then went to check our luggage through. The staff assisting sent us to the other side of the checkout area which we couldn't check in from so back around to rejoin the queue. Finally we were able to drop of our bags. There was no priority for flights leaving soon and were really slow with processing people.

From here made our way to security. More really long queues and again no priority lines. Andy and I put our bags through and both got shunted to the the other side of the conveyer for further checking. Andy because he had his iPad and me because of the iPad mini and my e-reader. There were long delays while we waited to get to our bags. The iPads and e-readers were swabbed and cleared and then sent back through security. which were then emptied and swabbed. Andy's was then diverted as he had his thermo travel cup and his bottlekeeper otherwise known as 'the best Christmas present ever'. Again we were delayed. I understand the need for heightened security especially in light of past events but what is the different with risk with an iPad in a bag or out of a bag or from an e-book.

From here we ran to the departure gate as we knew it was close to closing. To get to the gates you have to go through all the shops ad food court areas around where everyone is milling and then get a shuttle train to where the gates are. There are then 2 escalators and a walk. Andy reached the gate just as it closed and me not long after. We were both denied entry.

We then had to ring airport staff to take us back through the corridors (much shorter than the train etc) sothat we could reclaim our luggage. Probably took them longer to offload our luggage than to let us on.

Back to the Ryanair counter who told us it would cost us another £100 each to change our tickets or we could just go on line and get new tickets which would be cheaper. Not very happy with this but not much choice about it. We went back out to the rail station to look at where we could go for the night. The man on the tickets suggested Harlowtown as it was a bit out from Stansted but not back in London. So bought another ticket and back we went. Got to Harlowtown and the hotel across the road was full. Back to the railway station to look at options.

The rail staff were fantastic in checking the web for possidle accommodation. Hours later and several phone calls, it was established that there was absolutely no accommodation in the area. We were just about to go back to Stanstard, when a woman (Sarah) came in to buy a ticket for the next day and it turned out she had a hotel. Unfortunately it was full. Sarch then took it upon herself to find us somewhere for the night. She finally found us a room in Epping, tried to negotiate a cheaper rate and then organise transport back to the airport in the morning. Sarah drove us to the hotel as well. Thank you to these people for helping us out.

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Comments

[Lorinda]

Wasn't it great that someone did care and you did get a bed for the night.