Going to Texas
Aug. 27th, 2013 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953Set off Monday morning to go to the Worldcon in San Antonio. I had a 10:05 flight so I worked it out that to get to check-in the obligatory 120 minutes before take-off I'd need to leave Guildford station on the 6:34 to Woking to get the 6:50 Rail-Air coach. I set my alarm (well, two actually, just to be sure) for 5:15.
Of course, I was so worried about over-sleeping, I didn't sleep a wink but I got out of the house just after six to go to the station, just as it was getting light. I was annoyed to discover that the ticket machines at Guildford station don't offer a senior railcard discount on tickets for the rail-air link.
As it happened, the coach got to the bus station in plenty of time and I checked in very quickly. I even had time to find a café in the terminal where I could get bacon and eggs. (I'd left home without breakfast.)
All went well until I got on the plane. We left the gate on time and then the pilot came on the speakers to say we'd just had a circuit breaker go and we needed maintenance to fix it. They parked us on the tarmac somewhere whilst that happened. We took off over an hour late.
I had to change planes at Charlotte in North Carolina and the previous time I'd done that was in 2006 for the Worldcon in Los Angeles. That was just days after the clampdown on carrying liquids on planes and the security was so tight it took about two hours to get from the airport entrance to the departure gate. The flight took off late, I missed the connection in Charlotte, got put on a later flight, and arrived at my hotel after midnight, having been travelling for 24 hours.
So I was following with interest the estimated time of arrival display that you could get on the screen at your seat. Interestingly, although the scheduled arrival time was 14:10, the estimated time was only about 20 minutes later. Lots of slack built into the schedule, I presume.
There was also a lot or turbulence on the crossing. They suspended the lunch service for a while as it was too dangerous for the cabin crew to work in the aisles, and for the snack before landing they weren't serving hot drinks.
As it happened, we landed about 14:45 and my next flight was due at 16:14. Seems like most of the passengers on my flight had connections, many earlier than mine. Then, the next problem arose. They were having trouble getting the baggage off the flight. (People were speculating that the circuit breaker problem was connected with this.) I finally got my bag, handed it in to the connections desk and dashed across the airport to the gate advertised for my next flight. It was the other side of the airport, of course. And the queue for security was long. I got to the gate and was one of the last people to board, but still with about ten minutes to spare.
By now, I was pretty much out of it. A blinding headache meant I had no enthusiasm for reading my book so I tried to sleep. We seemed to land early at San Antonio (lots of rebuilding work going on in the airport) and although there seemed to be another delay for the bags to come out, there was no queue for taxis and I got to my hotel by six p.m. local time (midnight UK) which was about the time we were scheduled to land.
I checked in no trouble and got to my room. Didn't even have the energy to watch some baseball so I got to sleep about 19:20 and slept for something like eleven hours.
Of course, I was so worried about over-sleeping, I didn't sleep a wink but I got out of the house just after six to go to the station, just as it was getting light. I was annoyed to discover that the ticket machines at Guildford station don't offer a senior railcard discount on tickets for the rail-air link.
As it happened, the coach got to the bus station in plenty of time and I checked in very quickly. I even had time to find a café in the terminal where I could get bacon and eggs. (I'd left home without breakfast.)
All went well until I got on the plane. We left the gate on time and then the pilot came on the speakers to say we'd just had a circuit breaker go and we needed maintenance to fix it. They parked us on the tarmac somewhere whilst that happened. We took off over an hour late.
I had to change planes at Charlotte in North Carolina and the previous time I'd done that was in 2006 for the Worldcon in Los Angeles. That was just days after the clampdown on carrying liquids on planes and the security was so tight it took about two hours to get from the airport entrance to the departure gate. The flight took off late, I missed the connection in Charlotte, got put on a later flight, and arrived at my hotel after midnight, having been travelling for 24 hours.
So I was following with interest the estimated time of arrival display that you could get on the screen at your seat. Interestingly, although the scheduled arrival time was 14:10, the estimated time was only about 20 minutes later. Lots of slack built into the schedule, I presume.
There was also a lot or turbulence on the crossing. They suspended the lunch service for a while as it was too dangerous for the cabin crew to work in the aisles, and for the snack before landing they weren't serving hot drinks.
As it happened, we landed about 14:45 and my next flight was due at 16:14. Seems like most of the passengers on my flight had connections, many earlier than mine. Then, the next problem arose. They were having trouble getting the baggage off the flight. (People were speculating that the circuit breaker problem was connected with this.) I finally got my bag, handed it in to the connections desk and dashed across the airport to the gate advertised for my next flight. It was the other side of the airport, of course. And the queue for security was long. I got to the gate and was one of the last people to board, but still with about ten minutes to spare.
By now, I was pretty much out of it. A blinding headache meant I had no enthusiasm for reading my book so I tried to sleep. We seemed to land early at San Antonio (lots of rebuilding work going on in the airport) and although there seemed to be another delay for the bags to come out, there was no queue for taxis and I got to my hotel by six p.m. local time (midnight UK) which was about the time we were scheduled to land.
I checked in no trouble and got to my room. Didn't even have the energy to watch some baseball so I got to sleep about 19:20 and slept for something like eleven hours.
