Day 17: Sunday, September 17th: Travel Day

OK, we awaken to our last day and hope that everything goes well for our long trip home. We shower and head downstairs for our free breakfast. We return to the room and pack our luggage. We are hopeful that we can carry on both our suitcases. The main reason is that we can land and go through Customs and then straight out of the terminal rather than waiting for our bags at the luggage carousel. 

My priority before we need to leave our room is to post all the pictures from yesterday and get started on the text. Tina and Adrian send their pictures and I won't have a lot left to complete at the airport lounge. Our AC direct flight is scheduled to depart from Heathrow Terminal 2 at 15:55. Lana makes our logistics plan for getting to Heathrow Terminal 2 with lots of time before our plane departs. She always leaves a buffer in case security is a challenge or other unexpected delays to occur.

At 10:50 we leave the hotel and walk a short distance to Waterloo Tube Station. We catch the Northern Line in the Underground to Tottenham Court Road. We then switch to the Elizabeth Line to catch the train to Heathrow T2/T3. It will be about a 17 minute walk to T2 according to her calculations. Everything works as planned and in fact we get to the Air Canada lounge pretty early so we have about four hours before our plane departs.

You always think that on a travel day there won't be much opportunity for a lot of steps or exertion. That is usually wrong on a travel day as there can be a lot of walking involved to a terminal/trains and then within the terminal and then exiting your plane and through Security. As I sit here in the AC lounge in the B area we have already done almost 6,000 steps and 5 floors up. When I arrived at the lounge I was sweating although mostly from lugging our luggage up various stairwells as there are places with no escalators. 

AC861 is scheduled to depart from Gate B39. Lots of pretty decent choices for hot and cold food in the lounge. The WIFI is free and reasonably fast. I check outside and it is raining. We are usually pretty lucky when we vacation and this trip has been good with the weather. Before we lifted off the runway the sun was trying to come out.

Our plane left on time and we fairly uneventful. Lana got an upgrade to First Class and I sat in Economy. It was a long flight, but we landed a little early at YVR around 17:20. We had carry-on luggage so after clearing customs quickly with our Nexus passes we were in the taxi queue. New taxi driver who went pretty quickly. Set rate of $31 for the drive home. We arrived about 18:05 so that was quick with getting off the plane and then home. 

Another awesome holiday which was really three separate experiences. The first being the incredible natural beauty of Iceland followed by the bucolic Cotswolds and hiking with getting to the big city of London and enjoying the city vibe. Our Visa bill for this month should be interesting.

Thanks for reading our blog. The main focus for our blog is to be our best memories. We arrived home healthy and safe. 

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