The day has arrived at last and here we are at London Heathrow. ✈️

Dave, our driver, arrived on time and we had a straight run through to the airport. We know Dave as he’s driven us a few times now. He has ten grown-up children, who he’s obviously very proud of, and one of the girls ran the Marathon last Sunday and did a very respectable time. 🏃‍♀️

As always, Si and Security turned out to be interesting! Long-time followers of the blog will know that Si and Security are not a match made in heaven!! 😂

We usually have a dedicated Virgin security channel to go through but as it’s being refurbished we had to use Fastrack instead. That wasn’t a problem as it’s only a two-minute walk from our check-in area and they are now using the new 3D scanners which means you do not have to take laptops out of bags and are no longer restricted to 100ml of liquids, you can take through up to two litres in your bag.

Well, I sailed through but when I turned round there was no sign of Si!! Oh, oh I thought, here we go again! 🤷‍♀️ Sure enough, although we were told to keep everything in our bags, they failed to mention it was still necessary to empty pockets and of course, Si still had his wallet in his pocket so the alarm went off and he had to go to the back of the queue to go through again. Luckily, the guy called him forward to jump the queue. Unfortunately, the alarm went off again, this time because he had his earbuds still in his pocket and so this time the man said he would run through the machine and Si could come on through although he had to be ‘paddled’

By this time I’m through collected everything and are waiting patiently wondering what on earth is going on! 🤷‍♀️He eventually arrives and thinking we have everything, move out onto the concourse do go to Duty Free. Oh no you don’t you two! Suddenly Si asks me if he could have his belt! Belt, what belt? Well, I hadn’t seen that when I was collecting everything else. Luckily, we were able to walk back into security and sure enough, there was his belt hanging up just waiting to be retrieved! 😅

Next was Duty Free, perfume purchased and of course, a couple of extra goodies for on the plane and we were off to the Virgin Lounge and breakfast.

We started with the champagne, well who wouldn’t and although I’m not vegetarian I decided to have the vegetarian breakfast. It was delicious and just the right size for me. Si decided on the trout and scrambled eggs on toast and he enjoyed it so much he asked for a second one!! 😱

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like to think I’m a very organised person and most of the time I think I am but today I’ve missed a step. We’ve just discovered that we left Si’s cap at home! Not good for someone with a bald head. Guess our first purchase when we get to Atlanta will be to buy him one! 🧢

Our flight was 30 minutes late departing but the trip was shorter than we were originally told as it took just 8 hours 15 minutes. The staff were all very friendly and we loved the Upper Class seating ‘pods’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was plenty of room to stretch out, the seats were large and even had lumbar support. The touch TV was the largest we’ve ever seen on a plane. The food was delicious. Once again, we were too full to partake of the afternoon delights but we did have the ice-cream. The headphones were noise-cancelling and very comfy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had quite a lot of turbulence en-route and the landing was not the best we’ve ever had! At one point it sounded as though we were going to take off again and it was a very bumping landing.

We won’t be flying into Atlanta again! Going through Security took one hour!! There were hundreds of people and where we had to queue there were only two officers checking all the passports!

The USA have a special scheme called ‘Global Entry‘. That basically means there’s no queuing when you arrive at Security, you more or less march straight through. That’s one thing I will definitely be checking out when we get home!

Atlanta Airport is the world’s busiest apparently and we confirmed that today!

We’ve made it to our overnight hotel at the airport and tomorrow we will be up bright and early to collect our hire car and start making our way towards Asheville, North Carolina and the B&B we shall be staying at over the weekend.

Catch you there! 😀