Timeless travel

 

Operating the lift in the Sofitel Heathrow was not straight-forward. Whilst it apparently responded to pressing buttons, it did not actually respond until the room card was swiped. So TSH and Diva travelled up and down the hotel several times, under the control of guests who had swiped. As a result, they exited the lift at the wrong floor and had to use the stairs.

TSH and Diva wanted to sit together on the 9 hour plus flight and had booked seats accordingly. But TSH’s seat had broken and the check-in desk informed him that he had been moved elsewhere. It took quite a bit of discussion before a satisfactory resolution was obtained. Their profile was raised to the level where, on embarking the plane, the steward said ‘We have heard about you’.  The BA crew were very helpful and the service excellent.

During the flight, Diva’s watch was adjusted to Florida time. Involving both of them – Diva’s nail do is too precious to allow her to pull out the control buttons. It was an hour or so later that she realised that the watch was not telling the correct time and the battery had fallen out of the back, To lodge somewhere in the innards of one of the aircraft seats.  Forever.

Miami airport was chaotic. Only a handful of passport booths for a queue of hundreds of non-US citizens. TSH and Diva eventually got to a booth with a very friendly border officer. Then the ‘system went down’ – apparently a frequent occurrence, resulting in a 15 minute delay. The people organising Silversea hotel transfers were muddled and unhelpful, resulting in a delay of almost an hour. Later they discovered that their driver had been waiting in the vicinity of the airport for 2 hours.  On arrival at the Four Seasons the Silversea reception desk was already closed and very little information available. But they made it to the welcome dinner – welcome in every sense.