We are here
We made it, we are in Austria, safe and sound. It wouldn’t be us, however, had there not been some hiccups along the way. I am just amazed how we always seem to be uncovering new ways of making a trip more “interesting”.
In the end it wasn’t so bad and worked out quite well. Way better than last year for our honeymoon. It started in Vancouver, when the Air Canada counter wouldn’t give us a boarding pass for our second leg (Heathrow to Vienna), because the “airline doesn’t allow us to print boarding passes for you at this point.” Our luggage was checked through okay, but we were instructed to go to the transfer desk in London and get ourselves boarding cards there.
That turned out to be a bit more of a hassle than originally thought. We only had 90 minutes to make the connection to begin with, and lining up for a boarding pass was not really the plan. In London we learned that another couple travelling from Vancouver to London and Vienna had managed to get boarding passes for the London-Vienna leg in Vancouver. Quite annoying that we couldn’t.
After taking a bus to a different terminal, we had to go through security again, even though we had just stepped off a plane and had never left the secure area. That’s a Heathrow special, it seems.
Then we had to wait in line for about 30 minutes in order to get our boarding passes from an agent who didn’t exactly look like she knew what she was doing. When she was done confirming with her supervisor that we were good to go, she told us to hurry, because boarding had already started. So, we rushed from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 — only to find out that nobody was getting on the plane yet. Not only that, our plane ended up being one hour late. Fun stuff. There’s nothing like rushing for nothing.
But the fun wasn’t over yet. We spent an hour waiting for our luggage in Vienna and it never showed up on the conveyor belt. In the end, we checked with the lost and found counter and, big surprise, found our three suitcases lined up nicely against one wall, together with a bunch of other luggage. Apparently some geniuses in London had loaded some luggage in a container where it should not have been and that’s why it was never put on the conveyor in Vienna. It was instead delivered directly to the lost and found area when the error was discovered in Vienna. We weren’t the only ones affected by this. The other couple we had talked to earlier in London (the ones that had gotten the boarding passes in Vancouver) had the exact same issue.
It was a long and sometimes stressful day of travelling, but in the end we got in safe and sound and with all our belongings. And that’s what really counts. Now Christmas holiday can finally start.
