No Place Like Home

16 April, 2017

A glorious visit was capped off by a memorable morning, weather-wise. Sunday dawned bright and clear, which isn't unheard of for London but certainly goes against the stereotype of persistent fog and rain. It was a Sunday, and even London has a slow, lazy feel one day of the week.

We bid the staff at The Harrington farewell once again as our driver from Eddie Manning loaded the abundant luggage in the van for the trek to Heathrow. Thanks to plentiful reward miles, we were headed to the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Wing for drop off, which makes departure absolutely painless. (This service is available to Delta passengers as well as Virgin Atlantic, depending upon class of service and loyalty status.)

We ended up with an additional bag, thanks to a combination of reducing the inventory of our son's dorm and a bit of additional shopping. It was a pleasant surprise when the agent simply tagged all our bags, handed over our boarding cards, and sent us on our way to the dedicated security checkpoint. A reasonably painless trip through security and a quick stop at the U.K. Customs desk for validation of our VAT refund forms was followed by a scavenger hunt to locate the "correct" duty-free desk (which turned out to be a wild-goose chase, thanks to misinformation provided by the representative at Liberty the day prior.) After walking all over the duty-free area (thanks to incorrect signage) and standing in line unnecessarily I deposited the forms in the mail box just across from the Customs desk, where I started ~20 minutes prior. UGH!

With all the housekeeping details complete, we headed off to the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Lounge for a bite to eat while we waited for our flight to be called. As we expected based on our experience last September, the lounge staff was attentive and efficient. We had about an hour before boarding, so that gave us the opportunity to get things in order while enjoying a pot of tea. When the flight was called we made the short walk to the gate and were settled in to our seats in a matter of minutes.

The flight was smooth and hassle-free, arriving in Atlanta on time where the customs lines were long. Our huge stack of luggage and lack of anything to declare caught the attention of an officer, but he was more than satisfied that we were beginning to move our son home from London. The Atlanta security checkpoint was the usual mess, with no accommodation for those holding TSA Pre-Check status.

After a reasonable layover we were on our final flight home and welcomed a night's rest in our own bed!