Apologies to Rod Stewart fans – this is not the first part of the Great USA Song Contest. I thought that I could cover the travelling, airline, car and other bits, leaving the next free for the contest.<\/p>\n
After a 5 a.m. start, we had a remarkably trouble free drive to Gatwick airport. Dropped off our car and caught the shuttle bus to The South Terminal. Time to spare.<\/p>\n
L (a.k.a. The Wife) is disabled, so we had arranged for ‘assistance’ at the airport. This means standing in a long queue, waiting to get through security. Not a lot of help here, just the usual body search while they check out the metalwork in her knees. L had inadvertantly put her bottles of stuff in her hand baggage, so zip went her hairspray, hand cream and quite a few others. She was NOT happy. Particularly with herself! Ah well, gotta get something wrong! I’ll settle for some lost lotion …<\/p>\n
Then, at the assist desk, we were given a pager. A huge chunk of antique technology.
\n“Come back when it bleeps. Be about 45 minutes” We wandered off to peruse the Duty Free.
\n45 seconds later -it bleeped. Lots of little flashing LEDs. Forget the Duty Frees, then …<\/p>\n
We were taken to a little Golf Trolley cum Cart vehicle. Told to stap in, and wait while another pair of needy people were brought down. After 5 minutes, gazing across at the ‘Win A Supercar’ stand, I unbuckled and wandered across to by a ticket. Talk about high-pressure sales! I wanted a couple of tickets, and the sales slick was telling me how much money I could save by buying them in bulk! No chance – not to a timeshare owner. I’ve been brow-beaten by the best!<\/p>\n
The Virgin Atlantic flight was OK. Food edible, but in such small quantities that my blood sugar level was dangerously low by the time we arrived at Orlando.<\/p>\n
As for the ‘assistance’ at the Orlando terminal – forget it. Didn’t happen. We were on our own. Join the queue!<\/p>\n
The terminal is now equipped with the new, do-it-yourself Immigration Check-in. If you have completed your ESTA, and been there before, you can whizz through. Scan passport, fingerprint, click ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as appropriate, get photographed and collect receipt.
\nWord of warning – if you think that your passport photo is dreadful, just wait to see the photo on your receipt. You’ll be a long time dead before you look as bad as that!<\/p>\n
Customs were quick. Baggage was on the carousel by the time we reached it (London – take note!). We found the car rental desk, and claimed our car. I’ll save the car for it’s own blog. It deserves a full chapter to itself.<\/p>\n
The contest proper will start with the next blog – ‘Sea to Shining Sea’<\/p>\n
See you soon. L and I desperately need a rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apologies to Rod Stewart fans – this is not the first part of the Great USA Song Contest. I thought that I could cover the travelling, airline, car and other bits, leaving the next free for the contest.<\/p>\n
After a 5 a.m. start, we had a remarkably trouble free drive to Gatwick airport. Dropped off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-having-a-say","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tachras.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}