Flights Home

We took a car to the Dubrovnik Airport only to see that the board with the flight information said our plane to Zagreb was “Cancelled.” I asked at the Information Desk and was told the flight was leaving and that check-in would start in 15 minutes. Almost an hour later check-in finally opened. There were numerous issues but no one from the airport would explain anything. After checking-in we had to wait for the one security section to open. It seemed that this time no one was that helpful or nice. When it finally did the people there didn’t say anything. It was pretty weird. We boarded our flight and an hour later we were in Zagreb.

We were told by the airport people to be at security at 4 pm so they could help us. We were there (after first trying to get some food at a café which had nothing to eat and then exchanging my Kunas into Euros with a very nasty woman) at 3:40 pm and at 4:30 pm I finally went to the Information Desk and asked her. She told me that the plane from Munich was late and to just wait. After hearing an announcement for passengers going to Munich to head to the gate I went back to the Information Desk and the same lady started yelling at me. I yelled back that I wanted to speak to an airport official because we had been waiting 30 minutes. A guy did come and was pretty rude saying the flight was delayed and we had to wait. I told him the airport could have at least told us this rather than making it seem as though they were just abandoning us. Around 5 pm an airport guy came and took us through security and Passport Control. That’s when I heard our names announced and the guy called someone who said they needed our passports to put in our information. We finally boarded the flight (which was part of Lufthansa – Augsburg Airways. The flight attendant was really nice and when we landed in Munich she gave me some of her own chocolate in a little box that said “Merry Christmas” in German and English.

We were helped by some good airport people in Munich. They even brought our bags to the Kempinski Hotel where we were spending the night. The hotel was pretty nice. Too bad we were only staying there from 6 pm to 4 am before checking-in for our flight to London. In the morning we were again helped through checking-in at the special assistance desk (where the same mean woman who checked us in for our flight to Croatia was) and through Passport Control. We had some breakfast. Munich Airport has smoking Lounges past security which is pretty nice. We boarded our flight to London (a Lufthansa flight.) After waiting on the runway for an hour we took off.

When we landed at Heathrow we were met by a guy from Special Assistance. He was nice and helped us through British Immigration. Then he brought us to the Special Assistance place and called a bus to bring us from Terminal 1 to 3 (because I didn’t want to walk with the chair and bags again.) He then left and the woman at the desk was a complete witch. Whenever I asked her when the bus would come she just kept saying 10-15 minutes and when I told her that she said the same thing 15 minutes ago she said it wasn’t up to her. I don’t like people who just make things up in the hope that you shut up. I would rather they say that they didn’t know. We finally got fed up and told the woman how unhelpful she was. We boarded the bus and went to Terminal 3.

I went into the Terminal and asked the Virgin Atlantic Information Desk for help with the bags and they told me to go to Special Assistance. I told the woman about our bad experience in Terminal 1 and she said these were from a different company. When I went to the Special Assistance place they were of no help. There were 4 people just standing there doing nothing and no one would help so I told them that they were worthless and moved the chair and bags myself.

I checked in for our flight. We then had some breakfast/lunch and then went through security. Again we had to wait in the General Waiting Area for our gate information to be announced. When it finally was we went to the gate. We pre-boarded the plane. The plane turned out to not have bathrooms in our section and the entertainment system was on a loop so you had to wait for the last movie to play before seeing another. Our plane was not full at all.

When we had 2 hours before landing in Boston my mom and I saw the flight attendants bring a drunk guy up to First Class (called Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic.) It looked like we may have to land in Gander, Canada - the first airport in North America from Europe, but we landed in Boston where the police were checking everyone’s passports as they got off the plane. They arrested two guys and I saw them being taken away. I wonder what they did.

We had no issues going through US Immigration or getting our bags. We took the bus to our car and I spent about 30 minutes lost in rush hour traffic trying to find my way – and I had a GPS to help. There was a good amount of traffic until we got past Manchester. We stopped for a quick dinner and then got home. There was snow and ice everywhere on my mountain even when there was none in the rest of town. It was good to finally be home.

I have to say that for the most part the trip was good and fun. There were issues with some airports, airlines and people at the airports, but if you take that out the rest of the trip was great. As I said before: Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro were a lot of fun while Munich was also good.