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Originally our plane was meant to leave at 7:50 today but Andy wasn't feeling great at all and we ended up having to call the paramedic at Heathrow to see him. Paramedic checked him over and concluded that he had vertigo. With all this excitement we missed our 7:50 flight and ended up on the 10:35 flight to Chicago instead. We were assured our luggage would be on this flight so along we went and boarded.
Sat on the plane waiting for take off and the flight crew said there was a problem with one of the engines that they wanted to get maintenance to check out. An hour and a half later, they decided that we needed to 'de-board' the plane so they could run their tests. So we were bussed back to the terminal where we waited to see if we would be flying on this plane or a different one. We finally got the announcement that the plane checked out ok and we could get back on. So we were bussed back to the plane and finally took off at 1pm.
The flight went very smoothly. Andy slept most of the way and felt so much better for it when we got there. I napped and watched captain America.
We landed at Chicago O'Hare at about 10pm GMT or about 6pm local time. We spent absolutely forever in the queue at passport control - both feeling pretty rubbish but got through no problem. They took our picture and scanned our fingerprints there, so better no go stealing anything!
When we finally got through passport control, the carousel our bags came on already had the bags from the next flight going round them. We were told that our suitcases should be on the floor next to carousel 9 but we couldn't see them anywhere. We asked a member of staff who said if we went through to the United Airlines desk they should be able to help us. That was where we met the most miserable woman ever. We told her our bags were missing and gave her our luggage tags so she could check where they might be. Turns out they hadn't been put on that flight at all! They had been put on the next flight from Heathrow to Chicago and all we could do was wait for someone to find them and bring them through. We waited and waited and eventually they arrived! I have never been so glad to get out of an airport! By this time it was about 12:30 GMT or 6:30 in Chicago.
We found our shuttle bus to the car rental company, hopped on and arrived there no trouble. That was where the fun began. We were all set to pay cash for our car but turns out that car rental company don't take cash at all. We had hardly any signal, no wifi and pretty much no hope of being able to activate a card at that particular point in time. After trying and trying to sort it out, we eventually decided we would get a taxi to our hotel, get some rest and sort the car out in the morning. At 9:30 local time (3:30am GMT) our taxi arrived and we went to our Best Western hotel. We got there and tried to check in when the lady on the desk said that they had no record of a booking in our name. Of course. The other lady said she would try the Holiday Inn down the road to see if we had been moved there. It turns out that this Best Western stopped taking bookings from Hayes & Jarvis (the company who our self drive package is with) in August 2015! Somehow they had cocked up dramatically and given us the details to this hotel instead of the one we were meant to be at. Thankfully, the lady on the desk found out we were meant to be at the Holiday Inn, called us a taxi and gave us the address and directions. The 2 ladies on the front desk at Best Western could not have been more helpful.
We got in our 2nd taxi of the evening and made our way to the Holiday Inn. Thankfully they knew who we were! We were finally where we were meant to be at just gone 11pm local time and 5am GMT. At this point we had been on the go for over 24hrs. We hadn't eaten since our meal on the plane about 12hrs previously so I asked if we could get any food. The lady on the desk said that their restaurant shut at 11 but she had takeaway menus that we could order from and get delivered to the hotel. We finally got pizza (the best pizza I have ever tasted) and a burger and fries delivered at midnight local time and went to bed.
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June Wow! Very intense x But coming good for you now x Enjoy x