At the beginning of March we embarked on a trip we've been planning for a year, I would like to say I had been looking forward to it but we heard so many bad reviews about the company organising it that I never let myself get too excited in case it all went wrong. Luckily, it all went ahead and before we knew it we were waking up at Heathrow waiting to head over to America!
The trip starts with us landing in
Chicago and connecting to Memphis where we would stay for four days,
then getting the Amtrak down to New Orleans for four days and then onto a
cruise ship to the gulf of Mexico, Belize, Roatan and Mexico before
docking back in New Orleans, connecting to Houston and then back to
London. So we had to pack for four seasons as we knew Memphis was pretty
cold and Mexico the total opposite.
Well,
it didn't really work like that. We got to Chicago with no issues, it
was -17 there, the pilot actually laughed at me when he saw my cardigan
and no jacket. But then again, it was only a connection so I though, no
big issue...right? It was still bloody freezing when we landed!! But we
picked up our luggage and headed to get the connection...WRONG! All
planes to Memphis had been cancelled due to snow, there was only one
left going in three hours so we were on standby for that one but one
lady was trying to get us to a nearby city so we could get public
transport and not miss too much. The closest we could get was Nashville
which was about 2.5 hours ago...not the end of the world. The customer
service we got from United Airlines was pretty shocking actually, it
took a long time and they didn't seem too bothered about helping us at
all. I thought that if they cancelled the flight they kind of had to
help you out...put you up...give you some advice when you're in a
foreign land and don't know the best ways to get around? No. We still
had to send our luggage on the one plane that was going but if we didn't
get there to pick it up it would be sent back to our home address so
that was a fun thing to factor in to the stress. So we didn't get on the
Memphis flight, shocker, but at least we had to Nashville flight at
11pm. Luckily I managed to purchase some wifi, book a dodgy motel and
four tickets for the Greyhound bus which took four hours from 6am so at
least we should get back to the hotel by midday, could be worse.
Only that after getting our boarding passes and seat numbers, when
scanning us on to the plane we were told that we weren't on that flight,
well, I was, but not the other three people I was with. The annoying
thing was that we were actually on it as when we eventually managed to
get on the flight and get new seats, our original ones were now vacant
on a fully booked plane. It was just extra stress after being up for now
24 hours that we so didn't need. But we got there, we landed in
Nashville, which in the end I didn't mind too much, I always wanted to
go there (but maybe in the daytime) and going on a Greyhound was going
to be an....adventure, from what I've heard. And boy, was it! As soon as
we sat down my mum broke her chair and we had to move to another, there
were no other tourists on this bus so we soon became the strange
chair-breaking English people. The bus was full of all kinds of
randomers, cowboys and Indians, some serious dodgy characters and a bus
driver that took no prisoners, thank God. Everyone fought, shouted, and
then became best friends, it was crazy, we also passed through Jackson
which I loved as I played by Johnny Cash playlist.
A little while later we arrived in Memphis, and after stressing about whether we would have any luggage, managed to retrieve it all! Hurrah! Now it was off to the hotel to finally start the holiday.
To be continued...
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Oh my what a start! I hope things improve in part two.....
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