On the Road Again!

Eventually. The weather forecast was for heavy rain and then thunder and lightning. As boarding time approached we didn't get to move very far. The plane was here and so were the crew and passengers.  Once on the plane we were told that due to the weather the area was shutdown for refuelling and flight. It was just about midnight when we eventually took off. Estimated flight time 7h 40m. It would mean cutting it fine for the transfer in Dublin to the London flight  We landed with about 35 minutes in hand but sat in the taxi way before getting a gate until 1345. And our 1340 connection had left. Stranding over a hundred passengers in Dublin. We were lucky to get a new flight at 1430. We saw quite a few others from the MIA flight.  It took off 20 minutes late and we touched down just before 1600 at Heathrow. Our bags managed to come with us though and that might be a miracle. DriveFly were really good and the car was there  We were back in Hythe around 1800. A stop in ...

Late up. Why? At 4am I woke up wondering where I had put the DriveFly receipt for our car at Heathrow. Panic! It was in my backpack. With a late departure we had a run out to get some vittels for the plane, and some US biscuits (it's kinda traditional) to take to work. I opted for Nutter Butter. You can't make that up. We were packed up and the car loaded to check out before 6pm. TomTom brought us right to the Dollar check-in. I remembered to fuel up this time. At $2.659 a US gallon. It worked out at about 31 mpg (US gals)  for the last tank fill-up we bought in Marathon on Tuesday. Start mileage End Mileage I n the end we covered 1158 miles in the two weeks.  Not bad really. The car was rented on a full to full basis and judging how much to prepay was always guesswork. I usually slightly under guessed but this time I need to be more spot-on. I can't be too peed off that when collected it was one bar from full and we took it back full! So here I am whiling away the last hou...

Hotel very good. Meet and Greet parking good. Problem was we went into T2 following meet and greet signs instead of "pickup" to level 4. Once we exited and re-entered. All fine. Check-in done by nice lady at Aer Lingus. Self weigh and despatch cases. Easy. Now it's coffee time as we wait for a gate for the hop to Dublin.

Again. Flight from Dublin to Miami now 45 earlier than scheduled. Although still later than when booked.  Hope no more surprises.

The knock-on effect of us arriving nearly two hours later into UK means that we have a problem collecting the dog from the kennel.  Reggie does like his holiday away at Wyncot Kennels but they close at 5pm and we don't land at Heathrow until 3.05pm.   With the passport controls and customs, getting the car and driving 100 miles home we have no chance of collecting him before 5pm! They are closed Sunday/Monday as it is Easter and so we will have to leave him there an extra two days. It will cost an extra £30 or so, but the problem is getting time off work on Tuesday.  So we have "reached out" to Mark the Dog Walker to see if he can collect him for us before 5pm and drop him home. It might cost us but I'd rather have Reggie home. Fingers crossed. Update 20/03/19 All sorted. Mark to collect him for us. posted from Bloggeroid

Claire was asking what seats we had on the plane on the long leg of the journey from Dublin to Miami and the reverse leg. We have seats at the front of the economy cabin going. It means we won't have any dickhead reclining their seat under your chin. Like we had last time.  Personally seats should have a restriction on the amount they can be reclined. If you want to recline go business class. But. Coming back we have seats at the back. The "free" or standard seats. With Claire having a back problem,   I tried to change the reservation today. Online was hopeless. In the  end I called the airline and got the corresponding seats in the rear cabin for a supplement. Even with that added the fare is still £250 each less than Virgin or BA.

Another email from Aer Lingus confirming our flights.  As they didn't say that anything had changed I had a quick look against the previous email to see and there's nothing changed. The re-timing of the Dublin to Miami flight in December might actually be a benefit as the US Immigration is done in Dublin and a bit longer might aid getting through there and maybe be a boon in Miami.  There are scare stories about Miami and the massive queues of foreigners trying to get in, whether with ESTA or Visa. On the car-hire front I cancelled the National booking and have a new one with Dollar at a lower rate for an "intermediate" car.  The example is a Nissan Sentra. I don't tend to look at Nissan at home or away and so have little idea what one looks like.  I Googled it and this is a  Sentra .

I had an email from Aer Lingus.  They have re-timed the outward flight to Miami from Dublin.  It is now an hour later. It shouldn't affect the car hire or the overnight hotel by very much.

So. The question of how to use the 36 RCI points I have banked was coming down to two periods of time. From UK to the US it is really not good value to spend 9 hours plus flying for one week away. So it needs to be when there are two weeks or more to fit into. Easter and Summer holidays. Surprisingly July/August was best for the timeshare exchanges in the more westerly states; Arizona etc. But from reading Roger Naylor's articles for Arizona magazines it's monsoon time. After last year in Florida following the hurricanes, no thanks!!!  But airfares to Phoenix or Last Vegas are for the rich only. So my attention was shifted to Easter. Schools break up on April 5th and return the day after Easter Monday. And since our management dictated our holidays could only be in school holidays I booked that fortnight off ages ago. Now the problem was looking for flights. We went into the Thomas Cook agency in Hythe. Got some ideas. Then used Skyscanner.  London Heathrow to Miami, on April...