Ok so I arrived into London Heathrow Terminal 3 on time, just after 12 noon. The first part of this day went fine, the latter went awry. Rookie travel mistake extraordinaire!
Heathrow Terminal 3 & 4 Arrivals
The line for immigration in London was considerable. Once through, I waited for my bag for 1 hour and 20 minutes! If you are transferring in Heathrow or even worse, switching airports say from Heathrow to Gatwick, plan for loads of spare time.
I made my way to Terminal 4 via the free train between terminals. This wait was 46 minutes for the train once I had arrived onto the platform. For a ticket, simply use a kiosk or ask for one from the ticket booth if it is during daytime hours.
The train was lovely and clean. I arrived into Terminal 4 just a few minutes later. I was early to check into my hotel for the night, so I purchased a SIM card and tracked down food, which turned out was a meal deal from WHSmith. For 5 English pounds I bought an egg & cress sandy, a bag of Walkers Supreme Shrimp Cocktail flavoured crisps and a big bottle of water.
Overnight Hotel
I made my way through the overhead walkway to my hotel and checked in right at 3pm. Arriving at my room, I changed into clean clothes, set up wifi on my devices and plugged everything in to charge. Settling into a mind numbing session of tiktok, I ate my sandwich (no flavour) and drank some water. Before I knew it it was 5pm and my eyes were not staying open no matter the fight. The plan had been to stay awake until 8pm to try and combat the jet-lag quickly. However, my body and mind were having none of that. I fell asleep at 5:45pm.
I awoke the next morning at 10:30am. Yes your brain has calculated that correctly, I slept for 17 hours! I rarely sleep for 6 hours so this was absolutely out of left field. To say I was distraught is an understatement. I was so discombobulated I couldn’t think straight.
My flight was due to depart at 10:50, in 20 minutes. There was no way I was going to make it out of the hotel room let alone to the gate.
The first thing I did was check Air Malta to see if my flight was delayed. Nope.
Well that threw a wrench into my plans for the day to say the least. With check-out time fast approaching, I had a shower and headed down to the lobby to hand in my key card. I sat in the coffee shop trying to figure out what to do now. I have never missed a flight before. I never miss anything. I am always on time, no matter what. I am proudly one of those people.
For the first little while I couldn’t even think straight, I was that upset. Once I decided all I could do was put one foot forward, that’s what I did.
Decisions, decisions
I checked the hotel price for an additional night and at it was 100 pounds. Too steep, so I decided I had to fly out today.
Onto Google Flights and Expedia. After a lot and I mean a lot of humming and hawing, going back and forth between decisions, I decided to book the second cheapest option which was 177 English pounds. The flights were with KLM, there were three of them and the first one left at 20:55 this evening. It was going to be a hell of a trip but I needed to get on with it.
My initial flight from London to Holland was 3 hours and 10 minutes. This new route was 17 hours in total, and overnighting in the airport in Amsterdam.
I booked the flight, and checked in right away. Then I made my way to the terminal to find a meal.
I’m going to end this post here. All I can say is a lesson was learned. Always, and I mean always, set an alarm. It takes two seconds but do it. To tell the truth, it didn’t even occur to me to set an alarm, I was so sure with jet lag and all, that I would be awake hours before that flight. The body has a mind of its own folks.
Dang. Costly, rookie travel mistake. All good, live and learn, makes you stronger and wiser. 🙂
