It was only a hop across the pond. How exhausting could it be? Unfortunately, it got complicated.
We got up and had a quick breakfast, then went down to claim our luggage and get on the bus to take us to the airport. It was not the slickest conversion from ship to bus that we've ever had; the people herding the passengers onto the buses had to ask us twice what airline we were taking so as to get us on the right bus. Then I think it was a 2 1/2 hr drive from Southampton to Heathrow. The airport is nearly as confusing as the one at Barcelona, and their version of TSA nearly came to loggerheads with hubby, but eventually we got through that and found our gate. For some reason, even though we were sitting next to each other on the plane, hubby and I were in different groups for boarding. So we both had to wait until the latter group was called, because I can't lift my overnight bag into the overhead bins. I'm just too short, and my shoulders no longer will lift that high.
The flight from Heathrow to Montreal was pretty uneventful. I was looking forward to actually getting home that night, even though that meant being up and awake for about 24 hours. Once we got to Montreal, we had to take our overnight bags and go through US customs before we could find our gate for the flight to Orlando. Part of that involved riding up an escalator. Here I was, juggling 3 bottles of water, a cpac case and an overnight bag, and when I lost my balance on the escalator, I just kept tumbling down to the bottom. A nice man in a uniform (not a security uniform) came over and helped me up, made sure I was okay. I had lost a shoe, which had ridden up the escalator without me. Hubby went up the escalator to claim my shoe. The uniformed man showed me where the elevator was, and then rode up with me to make sure I was okay. I was shaken a bit, but not too badly stirred.
Shortly after that, we arrived at the US TSA outpost, and I had to throw out all 3 bottles of water, because you can't take food or drink past that point. Then came US Customs, and that was even more of a madhouse. Everybody had to get in one big line, but as flight times started approaching, the crowd handlers would call out for people with that destination, and they were rushed to the front of the line so they could make their plane. If they had just had 1 or 2 more customs officers working the booths, that probably wouldn't have been such a big problem.
Eventually, we got through that, and then we found our gate for our flight to Orlando. We were just trying to decide if we had any time to grab something—chips or a drink or something—when they announced our flight was cancelled. We were lead down a couple hallways, and told to go downstairs and claim our luggage. No word on which carousel our luggage would be on, so hubby was wandering around this huge stadium-sized room, trying to figure out where our luggage was. I got to sit on a bench with our 2 overnight cases and 2 cpacs.
People were getting notices on their smart phones of what flight they had been shifted to, but our phones don't work outside the US, so we had to find the counter than handled such things. We happened to stumble on the counter we needed and got in line just before they started hollering at people to go upstairs to the ticket booths. An hour or more later, we were given our tickets for the 2 flights it would take on Monday to get us back to Orlando. We were also given $40 in vouchers for food, and a voucher for a hotel, and they told us what door to go out of to find the shuttle.
We stood outside that door for at least another hour, but the shuttle from our hotel never showed up. We noticed a sign that gave telephone numbers of hotels with shuttles, but a) our phones don't work outside the US, and b) there was no telephone number for the hotel we were assigned.
We went back inside. The airport was shutting down. So we found 2 benches next to other, shoved our luggage between them and tried to get some sleep. It was 11 o'clock or later, and we figured we had to be back by 4 am to catch our first flight. Good night, all.
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