While checking our luggage into American Airlines, we were told we that we would have to get our boarding pass through British Airlines once we arrive in London since their system isn't compatible. After a 30 minute delay at LAX, we were up in the friendly skies…
Upon arriving in London the following day, we endured a 20-30 minute delay in the air as we didn't yet have a gate to pull up to. Once we landed we waited on the runway for another 30 minutes before pulling up to a gate. We grabbed our carry-ons and rushed to the bus to get to terminal 5 where our second flight was scheduled to leave. We arrived there only to be ushered into a long line to get through security, plus get our boarding pass. The line was ridiculously long and curved around every corner to where we couldn't see the end. We reached our half way point in the line and asked for assistance. You see, our flight was now scheduled to leave in 25 minutes! We were told to go stand in the Orange Express line instead, which wasn't that much shorter than where we were, plus it didn't seem that the line was moving. We arrived at the front of the line at 3:21, only 4 minutes before our plane was to depart. Needless to say, we didn't make our flight and were told to go stand in the re-booking line, which was also lengthy. We approached the end of the line and I think two minutes later a British Airlines representative terminated the line and asked everyone to go down stairs, exit through customs, but don't pick up your luggage, then make your way up to the 5th floor where departures are and find Zone E to re-book our flight. Zone E was awful! It was so bad that employees were passing around bottles of water and tiny sandwiches to eat. We ended up in this line for 4 hours before being helped! Ultimately, we were re-booked for a flight from LHR to HYD. We also learned that British Airways would not be able to book any hotel rooms as they had already met their quota for the day. We were forced to find lodging on our own or through the hotel helper downstairs that the airport uses. I got in that line and waited, only to be offered a room for £267. That's $400+! No thank you! We jumped on the free Wi-Fi and started looking for a hotel as all the nearest ones were booked up! We found one and tried to reserve it online, but we kept getting errors, so we tried to call them. We received help from an employee who let us borrow his phone to make the call and all they had was a suite available for a crazy amount of money. The employee told us to either check Paddington or Earl’s Court off the Piccadilly Line using the Underground. He said they have reasonable room rates on both those areas. We hopped back on our phones and started looking online. We found the Lord Kensington Hotel off the Earl’s Court stop. We booked our room online, bought train tickets for the Underground and just made the last train that departed the airport for the night. It was almost 11pm at this point. We arrived at our stop, and made a beeline to the hotel. God is so gracious! We had 10 minutes to spare before they closed their doors for the night. Oddly enough, it was an Indian-run hotel. We made our way up to our room so we could gets some sleep. The next morning we had breakfast in the basement of the hotel and then got ready to leave for the airport. Everything went smoothly at the airport while we waited for our flight until I tried to use my food vouchers and couldn't get an order in at the restaurant, so I ran down to the convenient shoppe and purchased take-away food there. We rushed to make it up to our gate when we heard that they were closing our gate. Literally, Risa and I ran through the airport only to find another long line to stand in. All in all, we stood in line for over 9 hours while we were in London! We got situated on the plane without any major issues or delays. Upon arriving in Hyderabad, we disembarked the plane and got our e-Visas before proceeding to the baggage claim area. While at the conveyor belt, we notice our one “loaner” bag was no longer wrapped in plastic and realized that it was probably TSA screened. Piece after piece of luggage was claimed until no other bags came off the line. We stood in line to file a lost baggage claim with British Airways and had to get a stamp for customs for our non-present bags. We finally made our way out to the receiving area to meet our driver but so much time had passed that he wasn't around! We walked about and eventually someone came to greet us… he had been waiting there since 530 and it was now 715am. Before we left with him, he showed us that he had our names on a sign that he had rolled up and put aside, as he wasn't sure if we made it on the plane or not. Our driver had also showed up yesterday to pick us up before he was notified that we weren't on that plane. I think he was tired of waiting for us…
More to come about our CRAZY drive into town and our time here so far.
Thanks for reading,
Tiffany
