British Airways is pretty darn cool. When you travel with an infant or toddler they assign you to the bulkhead, and they have “bassinets” (which in reality are sort of like those baby seats we used to stick Maddie in before she could sit up) that strap to tables that fold down from the wall.
Our plane wasn’t all that crowded, so we got the window bulkhead and had the whole row to ourselves. Our plane took off around 7:00. It wasn’t long before Maddie was asleep and we were able to sit back and enjoy a little dinner and wine (free on international flights, baby!) and relax a bit. All in all, the flight was relatively uneventful, consider how bad it could have been. Maddie slept some of the time, though she was fitful about it. Andrew and I did not sleep, at all, even though we had some little white pills that were supposed to help with that.
Our saving grace was that Maddie fell fast asleep not long before the plane landed in Heathrow. She managed to sleep through what was hands-down the worst airport experience Andrew and I have ever had! We’d heard the horror stories about Heathrow’s new Terminal 5, which is supposed to be state-of-the-art and instead has caused nothing but headaches since it opened a few months ago. We, unfortunately, got to experience it first-hand.
We got off the plane in Terminal 4. It was about 7 in the morning, and the terminal seemed deserted. We walked and walked and walked, not exactly sure where we were headed. Finally we came to a down escalator, which was right next to a “lift,” which we opted for because of our “pram” (10 minutes in London and I was already speaking like an Englishwoman). Just as we stepped on to the elevator we noticed that they blocked off access to the down escalator, so our fellow travelers couldn’t go down. We had no idea why.
Until the elevator doors opened on the ground level and we saw the people in line waiting. Waiting for what? It took us a few minutes to figure out that we were all supposed to get on busses to go to another terminal. It took us another 15 minutes to realize that the back of the line was only the tip of the iceberg, and that as we rounded the corner the line snaked back and forth and filled up an entire waiting room. Busses were only coming every 15 minutes or so, and there were easily 200 people in line.
When we finally got on the bus to go to Terminal 5, the friendly recorded announcement informed us it would take 20 minutes to drive to Terminal 5. It was at this point that I, operating on no sleep and a shocking absence of morning coffee, began to realize why Americans get such a bad reputation abroad. Whereas everyone else on the bus rode stone-faced, Andrew and I were huffing and scoffing and making obnoxiously sarcastic comments to each other, a la the Griswalds.
We arrived at Terminal 5 in a record 17 minutes and walked into a beautiful, shiny lobby, where an employee escorted us with our sleeping babe-in-stroller to the lift. At this point we were pretty sure we were home-free. We rode the elevator up to another vast, shiny lobby. Then, we walked around the corner.
At this point I should mention that we had a 2-hour layover between flights. We were probably about 50 minutes away from the “door closes at” time listed on our boarding passes. In front of us, however, were hundreds and hundreds of people. We could not exactly tell where they were going, or what they had to do when they got there. All we could see was a mob, and that we were at the back of it.
We went through passport check, where the BAA employee checking our passport was so disgruntled he told us how incompetent everyone working there that day was, and told us to seek out “the only one who halfway knows what she’s doing” to see if we could get pulled out of line and sent up the elevator. We finally realized that people were queuing up to go up an escalator, and that there was a security checkpoint at the top. They were letting about 15 people up the escalator at a time. We later saw why: there was such a short distance from the top of the escalator to the checkpoint that people would have had to queue up the escalator.
Our saving grace was that someone plucked us out of line and sent us on to the elevator. At the top, we joined one of the lines for security. One of the employees had told us to pull our baby bottles with milk out and put them in a bin, which I did along with our shoes. Maddie was still fast asleep and the BAA employee let me walk through the scanner with her in the stroller, which I was grateful for.
But what they didn’t tell us when we sent the milk through was that we had the option of tasting it back before sending it through the X-ray. And that if we didn’t taste it before the X-ray, it would have to be hand-checked at the end. We got through the scanner and saw that our bin (with bottles and shoes) had been flagged for hand-check. In front of us in line were about 6 Italian tourists who were carrying countless pieces of leather hand luggage. A single security employee was meticulously opening each bag, turning each content over and over in her hands, walking to the back of the station for each piece of paper that had to be discarded … it was infuriating. Again, the pissy Americans in us emerged while the clock ticked away. Finally, she got to our milk. As I sipped the warm and not-so-fresh milk from Maddie’s bottle, the security employee smiled pleasantly and said: “You know, if you had tasted the milk before the security checkpoint, you wouldn’t have gotten held up.”
Sensing that this was no time to start cussing out the airport official, we threw on our shoes and started to run. Ten minutes left. Maddie woke up at this point, and were just lucky that she stayed calm, almost serene — she must have sensed that we couldn’t deal with a temper tantrum at that point. We raced through the terminal following signs for our gates. Guess what! We had to take a tram to the B gates. A sign told us to be absolutely sure we actually had to go to B gates, because it would take 40 minutes to get back if we ended up there accidentally. We were sure that we were just plain screwed.
Luckily the tram ride only took a few minutes, and we got off and ran as fast as we possibly could with 50 pounds of string cheese, bunny crackers and Sandra Boynton books on our backs. We arrived at the gate with only 2 minutes to spare. As crazed as we were as we got the gate, we were also so happy to have made our flight and were laughing and exclaiming as we flew into home base – but the British Airways gate crew didn’t really seem to have much of a sense of humor about it.
After all of that, we had a pretty uneventful flight to Rome. Andrew decompressed and Maddie discovered how to open and close, open and close, open and close the window shade. We arrived around 12:30 on a Sunday, which meant the airport wasn’t heavily staffed … so when our car seat never showed up on the conveyor belt, Andrew stood in line at the passenger assistance line for nearly an hour to talk to someone about it. Maddie and I finally went out to meet Sam, who had driven to pick us up. Andrew finally joined us, car seat-less (it arrived a few days later), and we had our first Italian meal in the airport.
Next up in part 3: Italian towns, Italian cities
Maddie's first Italian meal at the Rome airport
Whilst I'm sorry the Gordon family were so inconvenienced at Heathrow - which most experienced travellers avoid - they should understand why I and many Europeans no longer consider visiting the USA. Not only do we always have to wait in line for up to two hours (only Moscow during the early 90's was worse) but we are treated like criminals by staff with the personality and attitude of automatons on a bad day.
What Americans, driven by the tragedy of 9/11, must remember is that all the terrorists had entered the US legally and that it was lax domestic airport security which enabled them to get their weapons on board. Penalising innocent tourists now is too late and only costs you income and friends.
Next time you visit Europe please avoid London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle and your flights should be a pleasure.
Posted by: Philip | June 12, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Take that Gordon family! Who do you think you are?
Posted by: Andrew | June 12, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Don;t be too hard on them....we are all on the same boat!
Posted by: Aldo Caronia | July 12, 2008 at 03:01 PM
I am sorry to hear your trip through Heathrow was a nightmare. I an American living abroad in France and therefore travel at least twice a year to the states for vacation usually with British Airways. Heathrow before Terminal 5 was already a mess and the transition to getting all Briish Air flights to Terminal 5 is not easy. I did it with my husband and two small children and by myself with the two kids on the way back. I was presently surprised with all the help I received. Travelling with one child I never got any help but with one strapped across my chest and the other in the stroller people were rather helpful. Thank goodness. Luckily come this October all the transferring from Terminal 4-5 should be over. All British Airways flights will go in and out of Terminal 5. The Terminal 5 is very nice, but already quite croweded and only luxury shopping and no place to be in a quiet area with children.
I, personally, have had a good experience with British and Lufthansa but will avoid at all costs flying with American airline companies and making my first stop in the US because you always have to go through customs and get the luggage and recheck plus you have to pay extra for everything!!! Not a fun experience, especially with children.
As mentioned above by another person, avoid Charles de Gaulle in the future. It is an awful airport.
Posted by: Bobbi Maulet | September 16, 2008 at 03:22 AM