Ireland: London Layover

Our flight on Virgin Atlantic was fine once we finally left - 4 hours late. The only real issue is that the plane didn't have any bathrooms in the Premium Economy section and even though the Upper Class bathroom was closer we had to walk 15 aisles back into Economy (not easy with someone who has trouble walking.) The plane that we took from DC to London had two bathrooms in the Premium Economy section so I assumed it would on this one too.

We landed at London-Heathrow and had to walk 33 minutes (literally) from the gate to British Immigration. I told my mom that the British must only want slim, fit people in their country as the walk was so long. When I filled out our Landing Cards I left the space blank that asked for our address in the UK since we were transiting to Ireland in a few hours. I was a little worried that that would be an issue, but it wasn't. When we finally got to Immigration they had a lane for wheelchairs. A policeman was in front of us flirting with a woman (not in a wheelchair.) There was no issue at the Immigration counter and we got our bags. I had to push the wheelchair with one hand and the cart with our three bags with my other (we brought a suitcase for my dad.) Luckily, there was a place to pay to leave our bags for our layover.

I had booked us a room at the Yotel (a small hotel in Terminal 4) when we were supposed to have arrived at 7 am, but because of the 4 hour delay in Boston we didn't arrive until 12 pm and our reservation was used up before we got there. We landed in Terminal 3 and had to take the Heathrow Express Train to Terminal 5 to meet my dad. We didn't see him there and so we went back to Terminal 3 where we found him.

We ate at a pub and then collected our bags and walked to Terminal 1 for our flight to Dublin. We had no issues with British security. My dad had to take him military boots off, but they were very nice, helpful and efficient. One thing I noticed that was different from the last time I was in Heathrow is that they take your picture at security for Domestic flights.

We waited in the main area for them to announce what gate we would fly out of. Then they told us the gate was between 1-10 so we had to walked through many small corridors and then wait again for them to narrow the gate numbers some more. It was a good 20 minute walk from the main waiting area to our gate.

We flew Aer Lingus to Dublin and other than the fact that we had to keep reminding people that we had a wheelchair - I guess they couldn't see it right in front of them - the flight was fine. We were met at the gate by an airport guy who took us down to Irish Immigration. I thought there was a separate Common Travel Area between Ireland and the United Kingdom that did away with passport controls, but I guess not. The Irish Immigration stamp in my passport took the whole page.

We picked up our bags and met our transfer driver. He seemed nice at first, but when he asked us what time two days later we wanted to be picked up to leave Dublin and we told him we were supposed to have a driver for the time we were in the city he was no longer nice.

We got to our hotel, the Mont Clare, checked in (they had no idea that we had a wheelchair) and tried to call Authentic Ireland to see about our driver for our time in Dublin, but couldn't get anyone.