Heading for Ireland

June 1, 2013  Toronto to Dublin

The much awaited day has arrived and we packed, checked in, checked out, and waiting for a plane to carry us from Columbus to Dublin, Ireland via Toronto and Heathrow.  We are slated to leave Columbus at 4:25 and the big board promises that it will happen as scheduled.  It is hot in Columbus but the weather in both Dublin and London will be quite cool so I dressed with long trousers, under shirt and long sleeves which has now caused my core temperature to begin to rise! 

This trip is amazingly well planned.  Our leader, Tony, is one of those that dots every “I” and crosses every “t” and then rechecks to make sure that it has occurred.  He is an interesting fellow.  This will be his 6^th trip of this type.  He has a daughter who lives in London so he makes the trip frequently and has all of the plans down to a science.  He does not get paid for his efforts.  We heard about a trip that he spearheaded last year for a group of MG enthusiasts and asked if he was planning on repeating it any time soon.  He said that he was taking a group of Morris Minor enthusiasts (the national organization of which he is president.  He is a member of 8 car clubs).  He made all of the arrangements for London portion of our trip.  He researched flights for all of us so that we were to get the best/cheapest flight. 

As the time for the trip approached, he had the local folks going over to his home for dinner and an orientation meeting.  The dinner provided consisted of a number of wonderful dishes that we will experience in the UK.  After the dinner, he had a slide presentation and a 2 hour discussion period with beautifully prepared handouts.  They covered everything from how to get from the plane to the hotel (3 different ways) to maps of London and the UK, to “Must See” sites.  He provided each of us with a metal name tags and monogrammed backpacks.  Also, he had monogrammed luggage tags with printed cards with our destination going and then another heading back home.  For our friends, he provided several refrigerator magnets with our itinerary and the phone numbers of each of our various lodges. 

To make our trip easier, he ordered and provided British Pound notes (and for us Euros) so we would not have to trouble ourselves with that detail when we get overseas.  He also has a US phone that transfers calls to him in the UK with a minimal expense.  He advised all of us to have those who need to contact us to use that phone so as to save a significant amount of cash.

As it turned out, our plane to Toronto developed a weather radar problem and our flight was cancelled.  Our baggage was already on the plane so that became a concern as we negotiated with Air Canada to get us to our destination.  They looked across the airlines for an alternate route and were not able to come up with anything.  The best that they could do was to have us take the next flight to Toronto, departing at about 10:00pm, spend the night there and then catch a flight to Heathrow the next evening.  That equated to a day layover in Toronto.  OK! 

I had made a reservation for Aer Lingus to carry us from London to Dublin but when I called them to change the flight, the informed me that it would cost an additional $380.00 because I had not booked the flight as a through flight.   The lady then suggested that I see if Air Canada would change my flight to Heathrow to a direct one to Dublin.  She told me that there was a flight leaving Toronto around 9:00pm tomorrow.  I contacted Air Canada and they agreed to change our flight.  Whew! 

So, the plane left Columbus at 10:45pm and we got to Toronto at about midnight.  The small commuter plane that we were on was gated at the far end of a really huge airport.  This required a long walk to customs.  We stopped at the baggage claim area assuming that our bags would not be there because they had been checked through to Heathrow.  To our surprise, they were indeed there!  The airport at 12:30 was busy.  We were herded through security and into an empty hallway where we were told to turn left to find an Air Canada person who would help us out.  We walked down this long sterile hall  at the end of which was a locked door and a sign indicating that the Air Canada customer service desk was closed.  There was a door off to the left and upon checking it out, I found a lady who asked, “Are you the folks I am waiting for?” 

It turns out that we had stumbled onto the exact place we needed to be.   She confirmed that we were indeed scheduled to fly directly to Dublin and then promptly put us up in a Hilton hotel.  She also provided a voucher for meals at the hotel for the entire day along with a $20.00 voucher to be used at the airport when we returned for our flight out.     

We finally got to our room at about 1:45am.  The beds were wonderful and sleeping was great!