The original draft title of this post was ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’. When I was sat on the sunny deck of the Constellation eating free fries, sipping a free (well, prepaid) gin & tonic, and wistfully gazing forward a few days, I imagined myself writing about the sadness we had leaving the ship, the debarkation procedure and our prompt and timely journey home.

This … this isn’t that.

We awoke at 4:30am (3:30am in the UK, 10:30pm the previous night back in Boston) in order to pull our luggage down to the Reflections Lounge on Deck 4 midship. Neither of us had slept particularly well that night, but we knew that we had a long day ahead so had already steeled ourselves – no complaining, just action.

After one final look around we bid farewell to our stateroom and shut the door for the last time. Even though I’ve grown accustomed to living in huge spaces thanks to my New American Life, it was quite refreshing to stay somewhere that had just enough space – no more and no less than one needed to be comfortable.

The ship was eerily quiet at this time of the morning as we made our way down to Deck 4 – the elevator opening immediately for us – and we observed the sun already starting to brighten the sky as we pulled our cases through the ever bright casino, towards the Reflections Lounge.

The lights there were dimmed – a relief to our tired eyes – but we realized that no matter how prompt you are, somebody’s always the earlier bird. A couple already sat in two of the chairs and we nodded a sleepy ‘good morning’ as we took our seats.
We had been told to be at the lounge for 5:15 sharp, in order to be off the boat at 5:30 for the 5:45 bus to Venice Marco Polo Airport, and a few nervous looks were shared as the time ticked closer to 5:30 and nothing happened.

I chatted with another couple who – like us – had a very early flight to catch and were eager to get going. We chatted about the eMed Covid test and how the app was supposed to work, and continued to share nervous looks as the time ticked on. I stepped out occasionally to get photos of the still-rising sun, and noticed some of the ship staff ashore and starting to set up the debarkation area. I duly reported back to our sextet.

A few minutes after 5:30 we were given the go-ahead to debark. We trundled our cases out to the glass elevators on the port side, headed down to Deck 1, and just like that, the vacation was over.

We passed through customs, pausing to say ‘Hi’ and ‘thanks again’ to the Customer Relations crew member who had helped us the previous day (she also gave us our Covid test kits) and boarded the bus. At this point, there were just four of us – the early birds still didn’t have their luggage unlike us and the other couple – and as time ticked on past 5:45 we started to get nervous.

Was this it? Was it just us? Were we going to have to sit and wait until the bus filled up? Were we fucked again?

Our questions were answered a few moments later as the luggage-less ladies got on the coach (their luggage having been found and stowed), the doors swished shut and we were off.

Ravenna seemed like a pretty but fairly rural coastal town. We rolled through streets adjacent to the port that contained some nice middle-class-looking houses before passing through an agricultural area. At this point I shut my eyes and tried to fall asleep. It seems that I was successful as two hours later we arrived at the airport.

The 2.5-that-became-3 hour bus ride turned out to have taken us just over 2 hours. Of course, we left extremely early and I’m sure the later journeys had to suffer the full 3 hours, but it was somewhat annoying as we now faced some unexpected wait time at the airport.

We decided to take our Covid tests, which were much cheaper and flimsier than the ones we’d taken back in Boston. They came delivered in a huge box – total waste of cardboard – and weren’t much more than pieces of cardboard with litmus paper attached, but they were good enough to show us that neither of us had Covid, and to create a pass that we could keep on our phones.

After waiting for our bag drop to be opened, we headed into the queue. This was my first experience with easyJet’s self-bag-drop (having only flown with them when I had hand luggage) and I was impressed. I’m all for self-service stuff when it works well.
For the uninitiated, you drop your bag onto the belt and it weighs the bag. You scan your boarding pass and, if it’s within the weight that you’ve paid for, you get a bag tag printed to attach to the case. I assume if it’s over weight you get to pay extra. Once attached, the belt whisks the bag away to be processed and you walk away, or throw the next bag on.

Bags dropped, it was a quick ride through security upstairs and we were officially ‘airside’ – we had made our milestones and were one step closer to home!

We got some food and loitered around until our gate was called. Going down to the gate was another interesting experience for me, as we had to scan our passports through an eGate, then have them inspected by a human before getting a stamp and being allowed to the gate.

The queue was long. Our plane was apparently parked in a neighboring town, as the first bus took about 15 minutes to deliver the first set of passengers and return for the rest of us. It was parked a long way away, and was a plain (heh) white with no easyJet branding. easyJet is known for its ‘cheap & cheerful’ image, so having less of almost nothing doesn’t really make much of a difference. As far as I was concerned I just wanted the thing to take off and land in one piece and I’d consider myself thrilled.

As we flew across Europe I grew restless and paged back through my emails, giving our tight schedule one last check.

Narrator: It was at this point he realized, he’d fucked up.

I had our return flight leaving Heathrow at 19:05. It was actually leaving at 17:05, two hour hours earlier. This made our already-tight timetable even tighter still.
I did the math and realized there was no possible way we could make initial check-in.
We’d be late.
We’d be really late.

But we would make it.

I broke the news to AJ as we deplaned, and she seemed unfazed – at this point probably just resigned to her fate. Our goal now was to get to Heathrow as fast as possible. That meant getting on a train as early as possible, and making the most efficient tube transfers that we could.

We hustled through Gatwick. Our bags took a bit to come out, but overall it wasn’t too bad, especially compared with the guy stood next to me who had been waiting for his bags for an hour.
We even made a slightly earlier train, whereupon I frantically scrolled Citymapper on my phone to work out the fastest route out of Central London into Heathrow.

Whatever I tried, it all shaped up to be about an hour. We were going to make it to check-in with half an hour before they closed, but that was okay. As long as we got there beforehand I could stand being scolded by an admonishing gate agent.

The train delivered us to London Victoria, which was also hustled across to get to the tube. It felt very odd to arrive in London – a city I hadn’t been in for over two years and which I’d really missed – and run hell-for-leather to try and get out of it again.
Having our huge heavy cases meant that we had to use the lifts. They got us where we needed to go, but my goodness it was a torturous route. We had to take the Victoria Line to Green Park, then transfer to the Piccadilly Line and go out to Heathrow Terminal 5.
Caseless this would have been the matter of a few stairs and escalators, but laded with luggage as we were, we were constantly rushing through endless tubes and out to far flung corners of each level of each station to get in the next elevator.

Regardless of that we made it, bundling sweatily onto a Piccadilly Line train and taking off for Heathrow – exactly one and a half hours away from check-in closing.

The tube ride was uneventful and we arrived at the huge T5 check-in concourse with 35 minutes left. The check-in machines were frustrating – they didn’t work – but we were sent to actual humans further down the concourse who would help us out. We quickly filled in Covid attestation forms online and showed our negative tests, and finally – with about 25 minutes left – got in front of a gate agent.

“Where are you headed?” she asked.
“Boston,” I replied, handing over my passport.
“Hmm, that’s odd,” she said, “I don’t see your booking. Can I have your passport please?” gesturing to AJ.

After scanning AJ’s passport the other shoe dropped. Our booking had been cancelled. We had woken up at the crack of dawn, rushed through Venice and Gatwick and Central London and probably sweated several pounds of ourselves, all to come to a dead stop.
We had no flight home.

You see it turns out that if you have a multi-leg journey and you miss one of those legs, your entire onward itinerary gets cancelled. So sayeth British Airways.
Did you know that? Did you? What about you, sir? No? Madam … madam, over there in the back with the big ginger cat. Did you know about that?

Like fuck. Our gate agent later admitted that if she hadn’t worked for BA then she wouldn’t have known it either. Supposedly it’s in the small print, but it’s not in the small print of anything that got sent to us from Iberia, American, BA or anybody else that had anything to do with this cursed set of flights.

Thus began the most frustrating three hours of our lives.

The gate agent got on the phone immediately to her ticketing team to explain what had happened and find out how they could help us. There were plenty of seats on the plane, we were told, so it was just a matter of getting the ticket re-issued.
“No can do” paraphrased the ticketing team. Because Iberia owned the booking they were the ones that had to resolve the issue.
Our gate agent headed off to Iberia, then returned with no news. We then accompanied her back to the Iberia check-in desks and watched our agent ask one of their agents to see if they could help.

The Iberia agent immediately said no.
“You literally just said no, you didn’t even look” complained our agent.
“I know what the answer is going to be” said the Iberia agent, looking at us and clearly conveying that she gave Zero Fucks about our plight.
We then followed our agent to an office at the back of the concourse, where apparently one of the Iberia managers was. He refused to even come out and talk to us, but repeated the ‘nothing I can do’ message we’d received.

Apparently Iberia are happy to take your money, but fuck you if you have a problem that needs fixing.

As we were heading back to the check-in desk, we bumped into someone else from BA who our agent rapidly filled in on the problem and who suggested calling a particular number.
“I already called Ticketing” our agent protested.
“But did you call this number?” the BA employee insisted. To me it sounded like that number called Ticketing, but I was also thinking ‘We don’t have any time, just call the fucking number’.
When our agent tried to engage the other employee for further help, she recoiled. “Oh no I’m operations now honey, I’m just giving you some advice, good luck.”

With that we hurried off back to the gate. Our agent called the number, got the same ‘Nothing we can do, talk to Iberia’ message, and decided to escalate to a floor manager.

These two guys were just lounging near (and in one case on) some benches, and we spoke to one of them. Our agent filled him in on the details, and he immediately blamed us, telling us unhelpfully that this whole ‘flight gets cancelled if you miss a leg’ is in the small print and we’ll most likely have to buy new tickets.
Our agent pushed the matter saying that there were plenty of seats on the plane, we had paid for them after all, and we just needed help getting the blockage cleared and the tickets re-issued.
Manager gave her a phone number to call. It was the same number we’d just heard her call. When she protested, his suggestions started and stopped at “keep trying them” and he washed his hands of the matter.

I really wish I had gotten his name to submit a proper complaint, but one of the lasting feelings we got from this mess is that the gate agents are supported terribly by the BA floor managers. It’s hard to see what they even did.

At this point, we missed our flight. Our beleaguered agent roped in another of her – slightly more senior- colleagues and they both began making calls to try and help us. Around and around we went. BA said ‘Iberia own the ticket, they have to release it to us’, and Iberia said ‘This is a BA flight, there’s nothing we can do’.
It was shocking to me that nobody except the agents in front of us seemed to give a shit about the problem, particularly given how much money was sitting in Iberia’s bank account on my behalf.

Time ticked on. Eventually the agents tapped out – both were well overdue their break, and had exhausted every opportunity. They gave me some references and said I’d have to try calling Iberia myself to get things moving, and they’d be able to get us on the 8pm flight back to Boston that night.
We were also advised that booking a flight with BA now would cost us upwards of $3000.

Just before I did that, one of the other agents that ours had been telling our story of woe to, stepped in.
“Let me see what I can do,” she said quietly, “And if I can’t pull any strings you can call them.”
Away she went, and we continued waiting. Eventually she came back and asked us to move to another area where at least they had some seats for our weary bodies to rest on.

Finally, three hours after we’d arrived, we were motioned over to a check-in desk.

“We’ve had them for three hours,” our new guardian angel said to the agent, “Give them your best treatment.”

And just like that, she was off, back to her regular job. The agent behind the desk took all our details, and showed us our available seats. Right at the back of the plane.
This was the second time around I’d lost the damn premium seats that I’d paid for, but at this point I just wanted to be home, so we picked two seats together at the very back and headed for security.

Apparently British Airways’ “best treatment” didn’t extend to putting us in any of the many, many, empty first and premium seats that we walked past on our way to the back of the plane, but I was too tired to argue the point.

The plane was nice – an A350 tricked out with all the new tech (including USB-C charging, nice) – and we whiled away the hours watching stuff on their well-appointed in-flight entertainment system. It was light years ahead of the ancient 747s I used to fly on this route a few years ago!

We arrived back in Boston at 11:00 that night. Immigration was a breeze and we collected our bags quickly. We were home just before midnight, collapsing into bed and sighing with relief that we had made it.

I was worried about feeling sad and morose to be home after such a magical vacation, but after the day we’d had it was a blessed relief to be back.