Ireland: Trip Home

The same car and driver took us back to Heathrow the next day (Tuesday) for our flight home. We checked-in at Virgin Atlantic and then were told to go to the Information Desk to fill out a form for the wheelchair. When we got there no one was around and when the guy finally did come I asked him about us putting the chair inside the cabin instead of underneath. He was such a moron and kept saying the wheelchair wouldn't fit in the overhead compartments. I tried to explain to him that when we flew over to London they put the chair in the closet on the plane, but he wasn't having any of it. Finally we walked away. My mom and I said good-bye to my dad (our flight was leaving at 3 pm and his plane back to Kuwait was at 10 pm.)

We had no problem going through security - again the British were nice and helpful. We had to wait in the general waiting area until they announced which gate we would leave from.

When we went to the gate I asked the woman there about putting the wheelchair inside the cabin and she said they wouldn't do it. Then I asked her if they could put in a request to have the wheelchair brought up to the gate as quickly as possible - the woman gave a stupid answer and I walked away. The rest of the flight was uneventful. When we landed we walked to the gate and waited for the chair. Then when we were going to US Immigration I saw something I have never seen before in the US - they had a line for Diplomats and Wheelchairs. Usually we would just have to go in the main line and wait with the other hundreds of people. After the guy stamped our passports we saw that the elevator down to our bags and Customs required a code. No one was around to help so I waited for an Immigration guy to finish with a person and asked him about the elevator. He said it was because it was a secured area (yet there was no code needed for the secured stairs.) We waited some more and I even waved at the cameras hoping someone would come - eventually the guy came and we got our bags. I pushed the wheelchair with one hand and the cart with the 3 bags with my other - no one would help or move out of the way.

I called the parking place to bring a wheelchair van and they came. We had no issues the rest of the trip home (2 hours from Boston.) The house was fine and we were exhausted. The next morning (my birthday) at 8 am we picked up my dogs and started unpacking.

I have to say that when things went badly on the trip they were horrible and when they were good they were great. Ireland is a very beautiful country, but the majority of people we personally dealt with did not care to help in any way and many lied to us. The main exceptions were our Dublin driver - Ezio, the owner of the Abbeyglen Castle Hotel - Brian and our main driver - Des. They were really great and helped make the middle of the trip a lot of fun. Of course my parents did a lot to make things better and visiting my friend in London was fun too. I may go back to Ireland again, but will stay away from Authentic Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher, Bunratty Castle and several other places.