Saturday - flying home

Our flight was to leave Heathrow at 11am, and we had been told to check in 3 hours before that (8am). We could have taken the passageway back to Terminal 4, found the Elizabeth line train and taken it to Terminal 3, and then find the American Airlines departures area at Terminal 3. However, there was information at the hotel front desk about a "Hoppa Bus" that would take us to Terminal 3, so we decided to do that. The information indicated it was about a 30 minute ride from the hotel to the terminal, so we decided to try to catch the Hoppa Bus at 7:14am. The hotel provided us with a free breakfast buffet, so we headed down there at a little after 6am.

Sun rise over Heathrow from our hotel room at about 5:30am

We finished packing up our suitcases and were waiting with our luggage outside the hotel by 7am.

Another view of the cylinder that we used to walk from Terminal 4 departures area to our hotel -- it was actually pretty easy, even though we had had to deal with the challenging luggage trolleys and elevators going up to the Departures and then down into the hotel.

The Hoppa Hotel bus was late arriving (about 7:25 instead of 7:14am) and then stopped at several additional hotels before heading to Terminal 3. The traffic around Heathrow was horrendous at that time on a Saturday morning, but we eventually got to the American Airlines check in counter a little after 8am. We got checked in for our flight and headed to security.

I had read that Heathrow had state-of-the-art CT scanning machines so you didn't have to take anything out of your baggage. What they didn't tell you was, if the scan cannot figure out what is in your bag that may be a concern, it gets sent off in a different path where a security guy needs to open it and figure out what the scan had a concern with, and then examine it more closely (wand it with a detector for explosives, open liquids to make sure they are what they are labeled) to determine if they need to be refused for passage. We had 4 bins of items that went through the scanner, and 3 were kicked off for additional scrutiny (one of the kicked-off bins only contained Carl's wallet and passport!). Many other passengers were also waiting for the security guy to go through their bags. One young lady in front of us had all of her toiletries taken out of her bag and checked for explosives -- the security guy worked on her bag for about 10-15 minutes, it seemed. The American Airlines check in person had specifically asked if we had any powder in our hand luggage, and we said "no", but maybe she had some powdery substance.

This guy who was working at our security line was *very* methodical and *very* slow. He was starting to work with another passenger after the lady with the toiletries was done ("done" means she had gotten her suitcase and all her toiletries back and had to carry them over to another area to get them re-packed and then leave), when another security lady came up and wanted to start on one of our bins -- Carl went to work with her, and she processed whatever had been flagged on all three of our bins in about a minute. We knew we had plenty of time, so weren't concerned, other than wondering if they would end up telling us that something couldn't go in hand luggage and we'd need to either discard it or try to check another bag. As it turned out, there were no issues, just the delay.

When you get beyond security at Heathrow, you don't know which gate your flight will be leaving from, so you wait in this large area with all the other passengers (who have also gotten there 3 hours early) waiting for the gate for your flight to be displayed.

This is the flight display board -- it indicated that our gate should be listed at 9:30am.

Inside this area where you wait to get your gate assignment, there is a mall-type area with lots and lots of stores where you can purchase last minute souvenirs, or duty free items, or travel items, or food... or almost anything you can imagine!

The area where we were sitting

Looking the other way as we started making our way to our assigned gate

Although there were a lot of people there, and it could have been chaotic, it wasn't too bad.

When we got to our gate, there was an automatic cleaner trying to clean the area where we were sitting... there were a few guys standing in front of the seats a little down from us, and it kept on coming up to them and saying, "Please step aside," but they didn't...

... so it cleaned the area in front of us over and over again, I guess hoping they might leave.

Our flight information at the gate.

Once we got to our seats, information displayed about our flight on the seatback display

We flew over the southern part of Greenland where we had cruised just a couple of weeks before... Our flight had gotten to that point in just 3 hours and 21 minutes!

Halfway through our flight, we were just coming over the northern part of Quebec.

We got in to Phoenix a little early, went through immigration, collected our luggage and went through the customs area (we weren't selected for further inspection), and then had a *very* long walk to get to Terminal 4 where we could meet up with our friend Linda who would be driving us and our luggage back to Mesa.

We got back into the motorhome, and then went out to get Miss Kitty from her cat-care person. We got Miss Kitty settled, unpacked, and were ready for bed by soon after 7pm (which was 3am London time Sunday, where we had gotten up at 5am Saturday). We were tuckered! 

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, but it sure is good to be home!