Thursday morning, I woke up earlier than I needed to and probably still under the influence of a boatload of rosado. I repacked as quickly as I could, grabbed a shower and woke up the hubby. Previously, there had been some issues getting through security at the Barcelona Airport because there were work slowdowns by the security forces in the airport. I had heard horror stories of 3+ hour waits to get through and was paranoid after the referendum debacle that there would be more of those stoppages. As a precaution, I wanted to get to the airport at least 3 hours in advance.
As luck would have it, there was a taxi literally at the end of the street as we exited the apartment. It was like he was waiting for us. And even better, he accepted credit cards – which as anyone who has taken a cab anywhere in the world, that’s not a guarantee. So, oddly enough, we went through this entire trip without needing cash. With me, I had some random Euros from my previous trip in the Spring, but never needed it. So glad we were able to put everything on the card to get points and miles!
The ride to the airport was quick and before I knew it, we were dropped off at T1. Thankfully, we didn’t need to check a bag because that line was a good 150 people deep. We waltzed through security fairly quickly, although my hubby jacked us up by scanning my boarding pass rather than his because he didn’t look closely enough when he pulled it up from the app. The security guy was kinda laughing about it though so all good. My hubby did get randomly selected for additional screening, meaning he had to get swabbed. I somehow forgot my hoodie but lo and behold, the security people had it pulled to the side when I went back to retrieve it 15 minutes later. Honestly, the security and the lost and found people were awesome.
In the airport, we wandered around and Zara called to my hubby like a “beacon of shining light”. Fortunately, he didn’t buy anything because he would have been over the bag limit and the way the United gate agents have been lately, that would have been no bueno. Apparently, we needed to get McDonald’s one last time but I sorely needed some food anyway. We did have a fairly long, tedious wait at passport control before we could enter the sterile gate area but after we made it through, we boarded pretty quickly. We got settled in for our 8 hour flight back to Washington Dulles and I passed the time playing games on the entertainment center (which randomly would go blank screen every 4 minutes – United, get your entertainment displays fixed) and reading. Finally, we were making our final descent and touching back down on U.S. soil.
Fortunately for me, I have Global Entry and TSA Pre-check so I was through passport control, customs, and rescreening security in less than five minutes. Quite a change from the hour I spent during that process the last time I flew international through Dulles. I cooled my heels sitting at a random gate waiting for my hubby who does not have Global Entry; but I was sucked into a book as it was and didn’t mind waiting for him. The gate for our flight to Orlando was the exact same gate we had to fly out to Barcelona, which was kinda weird. We also had the bag sizer dragon ladies at our gate who made even first class people put their bags in the sizer (seriously). Mine and my husband’s both had to go in the sizer, which is dumb because my bag was smaller than half the ones that the dragon ladies let through unchallenged. I hate randomly applied rules and United seems to do that all the freaking time now.
In Orlando, we stood in the drizzle for the hotel shuttle, and finally got to check in for our last night on the road. At check-in, I mentioned the issue with the AC from our previous time and the boy at the check in desk assured me that we could switch rooms if there was a problem. Well, lo and behold, our AC unit was broken and leaking water onto the carpet. And when we went back downstairs on our way to dinner, there was a different person at the desk. She told me that they were sold out and there were no other rooms to move me to but she would get engineering to look at it. I have to imagine the look on my face was not pleasant. We went to dinner a short walk away but I spent the whole time stewing about the AC situation. When we got back, of course the engineer couldn’t fix it but they managed to come up with a room that did have somewhat working AC, but with two beds rather than the king I had booked. I was so exhausted that I collapsed on one of the beds and fell asleep – but I had to wake up every four hours to reset the AC to cool the room. Suffice to say, despite my elite status with that hotel chain, I will never stay there again when I need a room in the Orlando Airport area. The only good thing is that they honored my late check out request and so we could relax in the room until 3pm without the maids banging on the door every five minutes.
We took the shuttle back to the airport and I was never more grateful for having both TSA Pre-Check and Clear because the lines were insane at security. As it was, we had to wait 15 minutes but the lines without would have been at least 45 minutes, if not longer. I overheard someone complaining they waited over an hour! And of course, I got my bag pulled aside for extra screening because I apparently did too good of a job rolling my clothes. The TSA agent was impressed with my packing abilities but he couldn’t get everything back in “just so” to make the bag not look like it was about to spew my clothes everywhere. Fortunately, JetBlue is less militant about putting bags in the sizer and I didn’t have to worry about struggling to jam it in one of those. The flight from Orlando to Austin was extraordinarily pleasant and again JetBlue deserves some props for making air travel nice.
One of my friends offered to come pick us up from the airport in Austin, and seeing as I’ve had to set an alarm clock to take him to and from the airport a few times, I took him up on the offer. It was nice to ride in his car rather than the bus home. We walked into our condo to hear our kitty meowing incessantly for the next couple of hours. I guess she had a lot to tell us.
We had a great trip and I’m really glad that my hubby seems to enjoy wandering Europe just as much as I do. I’m looking forward to having him experience my favorite city – London – next month. I just won’t have him be in charge of directions…