Plan B

If bad thing come in 3's then I don't want to know what still awaits...

It all began yesterday evening when in my rush to clean the apartment, my camera slipped off my wrist as I dumped the garbage down the shoot.  The poor thing died upon impact - an 8 story drop will do that.  At least it happened at the end of the trip rather than at the beginning.  

Then this morning we got up at 3:00am and were in a taxi to Heathrow by 5:00am.  We had a nice quiet pre-dawn ride.  Along the Thames past the Tower, the Eye, and Parliament. Then down the Mall past Buckingham Palace and through Knightsbridge past Harrods and on to Heathrow.

I was thrilled to find based on my Chase VISA that we could skip the long Disneyland-like check-in line and instead use the no-line Priority Guests lane.  We checked in our bags and paid an hefty tariff for the extra ones.  Then on to security where Mom got stopped and her carry-on emptied.  The culprit - her British wedges of cheese! We were still very early so had time to peruse the Duty-Free shops and then off to Gate 31.

Again things went well as we were in the 2nd group to board.  I had us booked in a two person row near the back of the plane so we did not have to share with anyone else and were able to stow our carry-ons.

The flight had not an empty seat, but still took off right on time. We watched the English countryside as we flew along north and west...until...

..about an hour or so into the flight the Captain announced that there was a pressurization failure and we could not achieve the altitude needed for a trans-Atlantic flight.  We flew over the ocean and dumped our fuel load (see photo) to insure a proper weight for landing.  Then the plane flew back to Heathrow.

When we got there we were told the flight had been cancelled and would not be rescheduled until the next day.  We had to go through Customs and get all of our luggage once again.  We were given vouchers to the Sofitel Hotel at Terminal Five, but not provided shuttles to get there.  Instead we had to use the airport terminal train.  No trollies allowed on the train platform.  Thank goodness for the kindness of fellow passengers.  As my Mom had 5 bags she could not begin to manage alone.

Hot and sweaty and stressed (me anyway) we made it to the hotel.  

It took quite some time to get checked in with the number of people from the flight suddenly thronging the reception area.  While we waited another passenger let me use her cell phone and I was able to rebook us for tomorrow. The hotel has treated us very well.  They provided a Mark & Spencer sandwich, fruit and drink to get us something to immediately eat.

Tonight we had a nice buffet dinner - several choices of mains and a good selection of desserts.

After dinner we wandered back over to Terminal 5 to look at this courtyard.

The wheelbarrows are a fun piece of art.

The courtyard also has this lighted art - airport destination codes.

Isn't it great?

So not exactly how I expected to spend today.  By now we'd  expected to be in San Francisco.  "The plans of mice and men go often awry".

And "Tomorrow is another day!"

Anyway - we were never in danger and another day's stay here does not impact our plans at all.  We talked to people starting their honeymoon, and other's with very finite travel plans who were impacted by the flight cancellation.  We were just inconvenienced.