Day -03 & -02- Wed - Thu 09/24-25/2025 - In Transit to the UK

 After many months of waiting and planning, it was finally time for this next adventure to begin. Our Pastor, Ronal, picked us up shortly after noon on this our 57th wedding anniversary day and drove us to the SeaTac airport. We were booked on an Alaska Airlines flight to Los Angeles, where we would connect with a British Airways flight to London's Heathrow airport. At the Seattle airport, the ticketing software would not issue us baggage claim checks and we had to see an agent. When we finally found the correct agent to see, that agent couldn't do anything either. He had to phone into his help desk and the issue revolved around attaching our electronic travel authorization for the UK to the reservation, which he was unable to do. I tried to explain to them that the ETA is not tied to a reservation, but rather is linked to our passport. In the end, his help desk counseled him to allow us to proceed and to deal with the issue in Los Angeles with the British Airways folks. With a few more struggles, he was finally able to print luggage tags for us, and our luggage was ticketed to go all the way through to Heathrow airport. Going through security was pretty easy since we had TSA pre-check. We then caught the underground train out to the North Concourse and we were there an hour and a half before boarding was to begin. So we took the opportunity to have a light lunch at Wendy's as there would not be a meal served on the flight down to Los Angeles, which was leaving a little after 2 o'clock. After boarding, the pilot came on the PA system and indicated that since everyone had boarded early, he was going to try and depart early. However, that never happened and we departed a few minutes after our scheduled departure time.

The flight down was smooth and and pretty, and we landed to the west and taxied to our gate at terminal five. We then had to make our way over a mile through the labyrinth of tunnels to the international terminal where our British Airways flight would be departing from. We took our time and got there plenty of time before our flight, which wasn't scheduled to depart until 8:05pm. While waiting, I went up to the desk and explained the situation that we had encountered with Alaska check in, and the agent just shrugged his shoulders and said that the ETA was not even connected to our reservations but rather to the passportsso he scanned our passports and no red flags went up so I'm assuming  that the ETA was in fact completed and useable by us for two years.  The agent just laughed at the notion that the ETA had to be attached to the reservation.

For the flight to London, we were booked on an A–380, which is my favorite airplane to fly long distances because it's such a smooth ride. Boarding was by groups and we were in the last group number six. They do use visual scanning software to do the boarding and no one looks at a ticket or passport. With our group 6 designation we were the last group to board and the facial recognition software worked pretty easy and I have to say I rather like it compared to other methods that most other airlines use. For those not familiar with the A380 airplane, it has two full decks with the upper deck being the premium class and the lower depth being divided among business class and economy.  It holds over 500 passengers

Our seats in 20 A and B were near the back of the first section of economy class. we departed on time and one of the beauties of the A380 aircraft is that once the takeoff roll starts it takes for me a count of 32 before we lift off the runway, but there is not as much tilt to the cabin as the plane climbs into the air. Shortly after takeoff, we were served complementary sodas and shortly after that a very nice chicken dinner. I couldn't find any movies that were interesting to watch so I plugged into their offerings of classical music and I listened to classical songs as I slept my way through most of this long 10 hour flight. 

About two hours before our scheduled landing, the  flight attendants came around with a breakfast service, which was a choice of an English breakfast or a vegetarian omelette. We chose the English breakfast and it was quite good. During the approach to our landing at Heathrow we did a full 360° loop probably to get in sequence for the landing which was quite smooth. It was a fairly lengthy taxi to our gate at terminal five. Once we deplaned, it was a very lengthy walk down corridors, up and down escalators, and finally to the border control where our passport was scanned and compared to facial recognition software. After that we went down to baggage claim where shortly our luggage showed up on carousel number nine.

To get to Southampton, in the lobby we purchased bus tickets on National Express which were about £30 per person. We were scheduled to be on a 4:15 PM bus and 4:15 came and went. I inquired of a supervisor as to what the issue was and he said it likely was traffic but he wasn't really sure. Finally about an hour later our bus showed up and our group of 10 or 12 people totally filled the remaining seats. The driver apologized profusely for being late, but he could not get here any sooner because of the traffic issues. As we left the airport on the bus, bad traffic continued and eventually it caused the trip to Southampton to be delayed by another 45 minutes so we had almost a two hour delay in our projected arrival into Southampton. 

At the bus terminal in Southampton, once we retrieved our luggage from under the bus, I booked an Uber to take us to our Airbnb which was located about 2 miles away from the bus station. The Uber app directed us to wait a ways away from the bus station but when the driver got there, he was parked at the bus station. He apologized for the app being wrong. Soon we were quickly at our Airbnb on W. Bassett Cove St. I retrieved the key from the lockbox and tried to use it in the front door it turned out that was the main house and Ian the owner came out and showed me where we were to enter. We enjoyed a short conversation with him and he noted that there were some simple food items which would allow us to make some beans and chicken noodle soup for a simple tide me over meal.

The Airbnb unit is a converted garage and loft that is beautifully and simply decorated. A full kitchen, including a washer/dryer is in the downstairs and up a small flight of stairs is the bedroom with a double bed and a bathroom. We loved the unit and after a refreshing light dinner we went to bed around 9 PM Thursday local time. Needless to say we did not set any alarm as the next day, Friday, would be our rest day in transition to our cruise ship departure on Saturday.

It had been a good but long travel day to reach Southampton and we look forward to exploring more of the area the following day. Sleep came easy and was quite deep. More adventures should be happening tomorrow.