Let's Go To London

We're off on our journey!

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Hi all. It’s Kara getting us started off today. After the change in travel plans that Gayle discussed in The Journey to the Journey, she added a surprise for this trip - an upgrade to business class on the Indy>Chicago and Chicago>London legs of the trip. We both prefer to fly Business Class or at least Premium Economy on all international trips. We were booked premium economy for both international legs, but Gayle snuck in and surprised with the addition of Business Class for Chicago to London. 

Snuggle Time!

We had a pretty leisurely start to the day with our normal Sunday activities of leftovers for lunch, watching the current episode of "Married to Real Estate", and I got some much needed snuggles with my miniature double doodle, Kona. 

As Kona and I were out taking a quick walk around the neighborhood about an hour before we were to leave for the airport, we got texts from United that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. We had ample time in between when our Indy flight was to land and our London flight was to take off that this shouldn’t cause a problem.

My sister Susie and my dad Frank came over to the house to pick us up, take us to the airport and take Kona home with them for the whole time we’re gone. We made a quick pit stop for some chicken nuggets on the way to the airport - just in case we didn’t have time to get dinner in Chicago. 

Gayle: We arrived at the airport, quickly dropped our bags with United Premiere Access. Because we did all the things we were supposed to online in advance, we were set for both TSA Precheck and Travel Ready. Kara got stopped by TSA for less than ⅛” of water still in her bottle, but because we were there by 4pm for our original 6pm flight from IND, all was fine.

And then it wasn’t.

A number of delays kept arriving via notification, each one making us more nervous. If you followed our prior international travels, something always goes awry. Our fear was missing the international Chicago-London flight (similar to our last venture of missing the connection to Barcelona and ending up in Paris - without our luggage)!

One of at least three different texts we got pushing our flight time out of IND back.

Luckily, we were scheduled for a 3 hr layover at O’Hare and hoped to take advantage of the Polaris Lounge. Just as I had upgraded us, I got the notification the Polaris Lounge was closed for remodeling. Oh well. Our IND departure slipped from 6pm to 7:28pm. (It was now we knew those chicken nuggets had been a good idea!)

Luckily we landed at O’Hare around 7:20pm Central, took plenty of time to taxi to our gate due to ground construction, and were at our next departure gate by 8pm. And boarding was to begin at 8:30pm for our 9:20pm departure to London! This was as close as we would ever want. So PRO TIP: especially for international trips, make sure you have a suitably long layover when connecting! (Seriously, a prior trip had us physically running through Heathrow to catch a fight to Copenhagen! #neveragain)

We did have a slight delay in boarding due to a mechanical issue in a front galley oven that was being repaired. This was also the first time boarding a flight using the photo verification at the gate. Took a few extra minutes, but we got boarded and settled into our seats. 

(You can click on the right edge of the photo to advance through a few pictures from the plane)

The purser came around and we both declined the dinner service so that we could just head off into dreamland. 

Next up… Welcome to London!

On that note… Disclaimer: I (Gayle) am a travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Planner agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!

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