June 28 - Back at Home

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This is just a quick wrap up of our vacation. We had to leave the ship and head back home today, but it was a really great cruise.

We got up at 5:30 AM in order to get dressed and pack the last items. We then went up to the Horizon Court for a quick breakfast, before going to the Good Spirits Bar to await our departure from the ship. We were supposed to be there by 7:00 for the wheelchair assistance getting off the ship. Unfortunately there were a lot of people asking for this service and we had to wait for more than an hour before one was available for us. NO Problem - the bus to Heathrow Airport was still waiting for everyone. So we got the suitcases from the pier and loaded onto a trolley and took them to the bus (with our wheelchair person pushing Janet all the way to the bus).

The ride to the airport went well and we got to the "Asistance Lounge" for luggage check-in and boarding passes. That went fairly smoothly, although we had one extra suitcase that we had to pay for. We waited an hour and they took us through the security checks using a wheelchair, so Janet didn't have to walk. It also got us to the front of the line so it was much faster. After clearing security we were taken to another lounge to wait for our flight to be assiged a gate (Heathrow does not announce gates until about 20 minutes before boarding so the gates aren't crowded with people waiting for later flights). But we had plenty of time since our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 3:30 PM.

Janet got picked up from the second lounge for a ride in a "buggy" to the gate. That was actually a golf cart, but there was no room for David, so he had to walk to the gate - a looooong walk. But we both got to the gate as they were starting to board the flight. We had reserved a seat for Janet which did not have anything in front, so she could stretch out and also making it easier to get up from the seat. But they had assigned it to someone else despite our previous payment to reserve it. We had to sit in regular seats, but were lucky enough to have 3 seats for the 2 of us. We will be talking to British Airways about their failure to provide our seats.

The flight was about 8.5 hours in length and was pretty boring, but uneventful. It was very uncomfortable for Janet. There was a wheelchair person waiting in Chicago and he took us through Customs and Immigration, collected our suitcases, and turned them back in for American Airlines to send to St Louis. We were shuttled from one terminal to another and Janet was taken to the gate for our final flight. We had plenty of time built into the connection schedule. Happily our flight was also on-time and we were able to board before other folks.

The flight to St Louis was short but uneventful. By the time we got back to St Louis airport, we had endured a very long day. Happily the luggage arrived with us and our daughter (Valerie) was waiting to pick us up. We got back home aftrer 11:00, which means after 5:00 AM London time. We were pretty tired but were happy to be home without any extra travel problems.

We have another cruise planned next year and hopefully will be able to give you another narrative about that exciting cruise. That's all for this tirp though.

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