2023
British Airways
Please remind me never to book with British Airways ever again, if I can help it, thank you.
On the 8th of June, I booked return flights from Inverness to Los Angeles. The price had already gone up a little since I first started looking, but still a good deal for the journey.
Awesome.
Trip isn’t until February 2024, but glad to have the flights booked and not have to think about that aspect of things anymore.
18th of July rolls around, however and I get an email from British Airways letting me know that there has been a schedule change and the return flight from Heathrow to Inverness instead of taking off at 14:20, it will not take off at 09:35.
At first, I didn’t think too much about it. I’ve had a bunch of schedule changes happen, none of which really changed anything about the journey, beyond maybe a little extra time waiting in the airport, but the fact that the flight was now so much earlier got me curious. So I got my booking reference and logged in to the BA site. Sure enough, the new flight lands in Inverness at 11:20 but the flight from Los Angeles doesn’t even get to London until around noon. So it would be physically impossible for me to make the connection, as I’d still be somewhere over the Atlantic when the Inverness bound flight was taking off.
So I messaged BA on Facebook. The people I talked to, to give them their due, were friendly and helpful and got me booked on a later flight from Heathrow to Inverness, now scheduled to depart Heathrow at 19:15. An extremely long day of travel, given that we would have left Los Angeles at around 2am UK time, but a physically possible one that would result in us getting back to Inverness.
Cool. Can go back to not worrying about the flights again.
22nd of July, another email.
This time letting me know that the return flight hadn’t been rescheduled, but instead had been cancelled. But not to worry, they booked me on the next available flight. The morning flight. Which I physically cannot catch, due to being somewhere over the Atlantic. Ideal.
I headed back to Facebook to message BA again, to see what could be done. While typing up my message to them, I pulled up the booking reference again, to check the times (in order to give them an accurate account of how impossible this was going to be), only to find that it wasn’t just one flight that had been cancelled, but two! – Yet at this point, I’d only received email notice of one.
Shortly after, another email arrived.
So now both outbound and inbound Inverness/Heathrow flights are cancelled/rescheduled and both reschedules make it impossible to catch the original connecting flight.
I was able to re-book the outbound journey to a later time, with a flight leaving for Los Angeles later, and of course, arriving later. That first day was always going to be a travel day with nothing substantial planned, so arriving later isn’t a big deal.
But we’re back to square one with the return flight. The later flight is cancelled and I am unable to catch the morning one. I’ve message them again to see what can be done. I don’t particularly want to cancel the entire booking, because the cost of flights will have only gone up further, but I’d also like to get home, preferably at no extra cost (I’d be able to book an alternate flight from London to Inverness with easyJet relatively easily, but it would require 1. paying the cost of that flight and 2. switching airports).
So, in summary, I don’t want to have to deal with refunding/rebooking with another airline, but nor do I ever want to have to deal with BA ever again.
Thank you.
SSSS
The first time I received the dreaded ‘SSSS’ on my boarding pass was in September 2010, when I was flying to Florida for the first time. I had been to America once before, four years earlier in 2006 and while that trip wasn’t without it’s mishaps, security was not the issue.
In 2010, I was flying through Amsterdam on my way to the US and at gate security the woman at the desk scribbled SSSS on my boarding pass and told me that I had been selected for “Extra Special Security Attention” – she didn’t (and wouldn’t explain anymore than that and directed me to the full body scanner. I got patted down, but beyond that, it didn’t seem to be anything more thorough than normal. Though, at the time, I was left wondering if it would mean something more when I landed state side.
Travelling alone, any little hiccup can set in motion a series of “what if’s”, that aren’t particularly enjoyable.
However, I got there and nothing else happened. The ‘SSSS’ was, as far as I was aware, just a weird anomaly, certainly not something I’d need to think about again.
Since 2010, I have returned to the US on four separate occasions – 2013 (New York), 2014 (Florida), 2019 (Florida) & 2020 (Florida). I do not recall receiving the ‘SSSS’ treatment on either the 2013 or 2014 trips, however, 2019 was a different story.
Travelling to Florida, this time with friends, we’d booked a trip for two weeks to Walt Disney World, staying off-property in a villa, we were all set. All the planning and prepping had gone smoothly, until it came to checking in online. The other three members of the group were able to check in online without any issue, however, the system wouldn’t let me check in online and instead directed me to approach a check-in desk at the airport. Why?
At the check-in desk, the person scanned my passport and printed out a boarding pass for me, with very little questions asked. The reason I couldn’t check-in online though? ‘SSSS’.
Secondary Security Screening Selection to give it it’s officially title is, for most people supposedly a random thing, but on this occasion, despite it only happening once before to my recollection, I was starting to have doubts about that.
This time was different, too, because I wasn’t travelling alone, I was with people. Main security was fine, but when it came time to board the plane, I was shuffled off to a holding area with some other people, while everyone else got to board the plane. I hadn’t been treated so… ‘other’ before, thankfully, I’m a relatively calm person who mostly goes with the flow and certainly not a nervous traveller. However, other people waiting with me were not so fortunate and matters only made worse for them by the fact that when they asked what was happening, they were given zero answers. Families being separated, a mother being held without her children, etc.
If they took the time to explain what ‘SSSS’ meant and why they were holding people (even if it was a general and vague “it’s random selection for security purposes” bullshit explanation, it’d be a lot better and go a lot further than the silence they opted for instead.
One by one we were taken out of the little corral they had us in and over to a little security station by the gate. Shoes off. Bag searched. Everything swabbed and tested. Patted down. It was all a lot more thorough than the previous time in Amsterdam. Of course, nothing found. Allowed to board. Off we go.
Knowing the others were waiting for me on the plane, not knowing what was happening (or if I’d get to board), I sent a little message to the group chat we had for the trip, while waiting to board, after the check was over:
In 2020, Stuart (who I’d travelled with in 2019) and I made a return trip to Florida/Walt Disney World. Stuart was returning for the RunDisney events, I was returning not for those reasons.
Again, I wasn’t able to check in online and of course, again, received the ‘SSSS’ on my boarding pass. Knowing the deal this time, when we got to the gate, I approached the security person and asked if they could just search my bag there and then, save the time later on – I was travelling with only hand luggage and I didn’t want to have to unpack everything and repack as I was meant to be boarding, if I could get it out of the way there and then, it’d be a lot easier for me (and everyone else involved).
Their answer? No.
Cool.
They actually weren’t as thorough as they had been the previous year, for whatever reason, but it was still annoying.
And that’s just it. It’s not massively inconvenient, it doesn’t cause any issues when you land in the US, it’s just annoying and frustrating having to jump through this extra hoop of already over the top security to board a plane. Especially when there’s seemingly no rhyme nor reason as to why you might have been selected for this secondary security screening in the first place.
I joined TikTok in 2020, during lockdown, along with seemingly everyone else and one day a video popped up on my ‘for you page’ from user @LAXtoLuxury, and in it she detailed the process of obtaining a ‘redress’ number from the Department of Homeland Security.
Essentially, you can go to their Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) website and fill in your details, letting them know about the previous times you have received the ‘SSSS’ designation and the circumstances surrounding those occasions. They’ll look at your case and if you haven’t been stopped for a specific reason, you’ll be issued with a ‘redress’ number that you can then add to any future bookings which, in theory, should stop you receiving the ‘SSSS’ again – though they are quick to point out that this method is not a guarantee and anyone can be ‘randomly selected’.
With an upcoming trip to California in the planning stages, I figured I’d get a head start on things and try for the redress. After filling everything in, it told me it could take up to six weeks for any sort of response and that obviously, nothing was guaranteed.
Just a few days later though, I received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security letting me know that they had closed my case and issued me with a redress number.
California Dreamin’
Earlier this year, I was looking at Google Flights as I’m wont to do from time to time and I found that flights from Inverness (my closest airport) to Los Angeles were, while perhaps not ‘super cheap’, a lot cheaper than I expected them to be.
I’ve never been to Los Angeles (or California) before, bar a quick trip through LAX for a connecting flight and perhaps most importantly, I’ve never been to Disneyland. If I could figure out a way to keep it all relatively cheap, it’d be worth doing, right?
Having successfully turned Connor into a Disney Adult, I priced up a trip for two people to California/Los Angeles for a little over a week. Comprising of flights, hotels and park tickets for both Disney and Universal and in total it came out to just over £1000 each – though that’s with the addition of Tesco Clubcard hotel vouchers which brings the cost of one of the hotels (if used on only one) down to next to nothing, which is handy!
The hotel I chose for Disney, for pricing at least, nothing’s final. Was the Clarion Hotel Anaheim. It’s listed as one of Disney’s “Good Neighbor Hotels”, which sounds great, but seemingly means next to nothing, besides the fact that it’s relatively close by. To me, on the map, it looked to be within walking distance, but in the year of our lord, twenty-twenty-three, I wanted to see what it was like on the inside, from people that have actually been, so off to YouTube I went.
The first video I found was from The Disneyland Beat, their video was about ‘A Disneyland Hotel Guide’, they mostly mentioned the hotels across the street from Disneyland, with the hotel I was looking at mentioned toward the end, but being dismissed by them as ‘too far to walk’.
Too far?!
The next video I watched was from a small channel called Carson’s World, he and his family had actually stayed at the hotel I was looking at and in one of his videos, after taking transport to Disney from the hotel, he had to go back to the hotel to drop something off and opted to walk it. Timing himself, he was able to walk from Disney security, to the hotel, go to his room (which was up on one of the top floors), drop off what he needed to drop off, leave the hotel, realise he’d forgotten something, go back and get it and get back to Disney within 40 minutes, which without the forgetting of items, brings it to realistically, a 15 minute walk each way.
And yet, in his comments? – Someone saying that it would be too far to walk…
It got me curious. Both times Connor and I have been to Disneyland Paris, we have stayed at Hotel Cheyenne. One of the cheaper Disney owned Hotels on property. While there is a bus provided and we have used it, most of the time we opted to walk to the parks and back again at the end of the day. How far was that walk?
As you can see, the distance in Paris is actually longer than the distance in Anaheim. Not by a huge amount, but still. And yet, when in Paris, we didn’t give it a second thought to walking to the parks in the morning or back at night.
One argument that could be made is that in Paris, you’re in the Disney bubble. The walk is entirely within Disney property and as such, you’re going to feel safer there than you might in Anaheim where your walk is along a busy road in the middle of a city (even if Disneyland Resort is right next to you the whole time, it’s not technically Disney property).
But then I found this video from Chris Roode, who cycles from the hotel next door to the Clarion and follows the route presented above, and while there is a busy road you have to cross (via a crosswalk), the majority of the path is pretty nice and tree-lined. So it’s not like you’re walking down crack alley to get to your destination either.
The main conclusion of this ‘research’? – Americans are lazy as fuck.
And in my day-to-day life, I’m certainly in no position to judge anyone on their levels of laziness. But if the choice is waiting 10-15mins for a bus to show up to take me a half mile down the road, or walk that half mile? I’m walking it. Even after a day at Disney, with sore feet, I’d rather walk the extra distance instead of standing around waiting. The pain is less when moving!
Disneyland Paris
One Last Time
The final day and we were both awake stupidly early (having gone to bed stupidly early). Got showered and packed up everything, then headed to Starbucks for breakfast and to drop off our bags at the luggage storage.
Decided to start off the day at Studios again, got there just after 8am to find a tiny queue compared to that of two days previous. One thought was that Hyperspace Mountain was open for the first time in a few days and people might be aiming for that as a first ride of the day.
Not us though! – We were the first people in line for Tower of Terror.
The rest of the day consisted of final rides on the big hitters, as well as taking on Hyperspace Mountain for the first time this trip, and Orbitron for the first time ever.
We also went to see Mickey’s PhilharMagic – a show I’ve only seen once before in Florida. Supposed to be a 4D experience, the show was in 2D and there was very little of the 4th D going on either. In the Florida version (and seemingly, from a quick google every other version), the show ends with Donald being chucked from the screen to the back of the theatre, ending up stuck in the wall. This doesn’t happen in Paris.
We ate at Colonel Hathi’s Pizza Outpost – which was average at best.
After that, headed back to Studios to round out the ‘one last time’ rides and finished the day with some more macaroni at Stark Factory… Which, this time, left us both feeling ill. Not an ideal end to the day in the parks, but hey-ho.
After grabbing our bags from the hotel, we went to the station and attempted to buy the tickets for the TGV to the airport. The only issue? – The tickets didn’t print. It gave a reference code, which I tried to redeem on another machine – which didn’t work either. In the end, I had to go to the desk and get someone to print them out in person.
From there, we ended up in the wrong queue to get down to the wrong platform, before being directed to the correct one.
After that, everything with the return journey to Scotland went fine. A long wait in the airport, some high winds and rain, but fine.
Connor started off the drive home, making it as far as Dalwhinnie before we switched. The roads up until that point had been alright, despite the snow falling. The SatNav (which we’d had going since the airport to help with the motorway bit of the journey) wanted us to turn in after Aviemore and go home that way. I had turned in just before Aviemore and gone through the town.
There was a lot of surface water on the roads and even just straight up flooding in places. Up until that point, the A9 had been clear and so I figured it’d be a safer bet to re-join the A9, where there was other traffic and gritters.
That was probably a mistake.
Just after Aviemore, the A9 got… Worse. Speeds slowed down to like 30mph at best almost all the way to Inverness. There was a big accident after Inverness, near the ‘cloud factory’, with multiple fire engines, ambulances and police in attendance and not a single one of the crew in place attempting to direct the traffic, despite the fact that there was no way to see what was coming toward us beyond the emergency vehicles.
After waiting for a while to be told when to go, I started creeping forward and a guy in a fire engine motioned that it was safe to go.
Thankfully, there were no further incidents on the way home and having left Edinburgh airport just after 9pm, I arrived home at around 1:20am.
Until next time, Disney.
Drugs
Another earlier than desired start today, but still, a better sleep than the previous night.
From the other room, I heard Connor’s cough. He’d had a cough of some sort for a few days, but it sounded extra loud and gross this morning. I checked my phone and there was a text from him saying he needed painkillers.
In the US parks, I’m pretty sure the hotel shops stock general painkillers (paracetamol/ibuprofen), so I felt sure that that would be the case here, too. After some googling on opening times, etc. We found that no, the shop wouldn’t stock them, as seemingly all medications in France are only sold at a pharmacy. The resorts first aid centres could, perhaps, provide you with something, but they wouldn’t be open until the parks were open at 9:30 (or later in the case of the village location).
I went to the Hotel’s reception to confirm and the woman at the desk told me that the only option would be the pharmacy. Which is in Val d’Europe. A few minutes away by train.
Went back to the room, via Starbucks again (this time, Pain au chocolat was the order for breakfast) and waited until the pharmacy would be open to head to Val d’Europe – thankfully, the pharmacy is like a 2 minute walk from the RER station and I knew exactly where it was. I got the meds and headed to the little monoprix to get some juice and snacks.
RER trains always have a delightfully unique gross smell of having been used as a toilet in the recent past.
Once Connor was drugged up, we headed to the parks. This time the plan was to hit up the crappy Fantasyland rides in the main park. Storybook Boats, Casey Jr, Pinocchio & Dumbo.
After that, we headed over to Studios and Avengers Campus to eat at Stark Factory. Set up like a canteen, there are pasta and pizza options as well as salads, etc. The portion sizes were surprisingly generous, we both had the macaroni which we both enjoyed and a slice of pizza. Which I ended up eating most of (and enjoyed).
Coming out of Stark Factory, we encountered Iron Man riding on the back of the Avengers car – I’m aware it was a big selling point of Avengers Campus, but having the characters out and interacting with people – we saw Groot, Ant-Man, Wasp, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Captain Marvel and Sam Wilson/Captain America in the times we visited that area of the park – it all really adds to the immersion.
Heading out of Studios, we also saw Lightning McQueen driving around.
Back in the main park, we headed to Frontierland, jumped on Phantom Manor again, before boarding the Molly Brown to sail around the Rivers of America – another first for me. It was pretty cool and I imagine would be even nicer on a nicer day.
Back on dry land, we hopped on to the wildest ride in the wilderness before heading to see The Lion King: Rhythms of the Pridelands show. Again, something I hadn’t seen/done before. The show was well done, but squeezing the story of the Lion King down into a 30min show certainly takes away some of the nuance of the story.
From there, we ended up going back to the hotel, via the hotel shop (for snacks).
At the end of each day, I’ve had a bath. Something which has definitely helped with the general aches of theme park life. Tonight was no different. I then went for a ‘nap’ at like 6pm and more or less slept right through til morning.
Oops.
Premier Access Ultimate
The first full day and we were both awake early. For me, it was because I’d been awake every two hours since going to sleep and just chose to give up around 4:30am.
During our stay, we had the ‘extra magic hour’ each morning, which started at 8:30, with the parks opening for regular guests at 9:30. We got ourselves ready and headed to the Starbucks at the hotel for breakfast, before heading to the parks – opting to start with Walt Disney Studios.
DLP offer an ‘Ultimate’ version of their Premier Access pass, which bundles “all” the passes together, for a set price and enables you to ride each ride included once at a time of your choosing (when buying individually, you’re pass is limited to a set time window). It’s not the cheapest option, working out at approximately €90 each, but individually (in theory) the passes bought individually add up to more than that.
Premier Access lines don’t open until after extra magic is finished (and probably aren’t required either). We headed to Tower of Terror first and then after, we did Ratatouille and Crush’s Coaster – using our first Premier Access pass of the day.
Premier Access is a game changer for Crush. The ride is fun, but it is in no way worth the wait for stand by and due to the design of the shells (4 seats each), single rider can be just as long (as it’s rare that people are queuing in stand by alone, meaning it’s rare that single riders are needed). Waiting what is usually over an hour in stand by, for a ride that lasts 1 minute, 55 seconds is nothing but a recipe for disappointment. Premier Access lets you bypass that queue and enjoy the ride for what it is.
Once we’d rode the EAC all the way to Sydney, we headed out of the park and to the village and more specifically, Annette’s, for breakfast. The food was fine, a severe lack of servers on roller-skates though – only saw one guy.
After breakfast, we headed into the main Disneyland Park. We hit up the usual suspects of Phantom Manor, Pirates, Big Thunder, Disneyland Railroad, Peter Pan, Tea Cups, Star Tours and Autopia.
I’d never been on any version of Autopia before. Mostly because I’m not that interested in cars, and the fumes the Florida one gives off has never enticed me in. How it hasn’t been ripped out and replaced by something before now is a mystery to me. It’s such a lame ride (though, I understand it’s probably a people eater), that takes up such a large plot of land. It could be used for something so much better.
We then attempted to do Orbitron. It has a Premier Access line, and so with our ‘Ultimate’ pass, we went to scan it in.
Nope.
For some reason (and I couldn’t find an answer in the 5 second google I did at the time), Orbitron is not included in the Ultimate pass and it seems to be the only Premier Access pass not included in the Ultimate bundle. BUT WHY?!
After that (extremely minor) disappointment, we headed back to the Studios park and to Avenger’s Campus, to experience it all at night. Which, wasn’t as cool as I thought it’d be. I enjoyed the Campus in general, but thought it’d look cooler at night.
I won at Spider-man again though, so that was good.
One of the biggest issues with going to the parks at this time of year, during the quiet season, is that they close too early. You’re forced to spend all day in the parks to get the most out of your trip, but if you go back to the hotel to rest at all, it’s pretty much pointless going back out, as the parks will be closing shortly after. There is, of course, the balance of them being quieter and queues being less busy, but I don’t know if the trade-off is worth it. Especially when you’re buying the premier access passes any way.
Edimbourg
Started off the journey to Paris at the quiz, where we did as well as we ever do. Then we hit the road, stopping off at Tesco in Inverness for road snacks.
The plan had been for Connor to drive the whole way, it being his car an’ all, but I could see and he could feel his eyes getting heavier as tike went on, culminating in us stopping in a layby just after Blair Atholl and switching over.
We got to the airport way too early, as is tradition. Only, it turns out, Edinburgh Airport totally shuts down overnight and any opening times they may list on their website are a fantasy.
3am seemed to be the earliest things post security were listed as being open before we left, and so, it would stand to reason that security would be open 3am at the latest, right? Right?!
The security gates didn’t open until 3:35/3:40am.
All good, the Weatherspoons we were aiming for for breakfast opened (according to the site) at 3:30am, so we can go straight there and get food.
It didnt open until just after 4am.
Like, it’s all good, we got our food and other things we needed to get post-security and still had loads of time before our flight, but accurate opening times would have been nice…
The flight to and travel from CDG to Disneyland went extremely smoothly (once we found the ticket machines for the TGV-we were both sure they used to be yellow?). Arriving at Disney, the hotel’s computer system was down, so everything was having to be handwritten. Still, again, all went seemingly smoothly and we got our magic passes, dropped off our bags and entered the parks.
Within the main park, we managed to knock out Phantom, Indy and pirates before stopping off for a snack and then heading to Studios, where we did Tower of Terror, Spidey, Flight Force, Road Trip and Crush.
After we got off Crush, it was almost 3pm and the hotel had said we’d get a text by 3pm to say our room was ready. We had had no text, but opted to walk back to the hotel anyway and see if we could get in.
Their system was still down, but our rooms were ready. We got the room numbers, grabbed our bags and headed to the rooms.
Connor opened his door and went in… My key didn’t work. I left my bags with Connor and headed back to reception, which was now a lot busier than when we had last been. The guy at reception reset my key and sent me back with a phone number to call if it still didn’t work, so I didn’t have to go all the way back to reception.
It still didn’t work.
I found the phone and called up, the woman on the other end suggested that I come to reception again. After explaining that I’d just been to reception and was told to call if it happened again, she told me she’d send someone.
I hung up, and realised she hadn’t asked for my room number, but I didn’t know if that was on purpose or not. Like, would the person coming just come to the area where the call was made from and is take them to my room?
The phone rang. I answered. It was the same woman on the other end “Hi, sorry, I forgot to get your room number!”
That question answered, I waited for them to arrive at my door. They had to reset the lock but I got in.
Connor went for a nap, with the idea we’d go back out to the parks after.
Reader, we did not go out to the parks after. An extremely early night followed. I had a bath, and was in bed at 8pm.
Twenty Twenty Three
Hello. Happy new year.
Deciding to be creative this year isn’t exactly a new year’s resolution, and it’s definitely not the first time I’ve said to myself that ‘this year, I want to create more stuff’, but another year and I’m saying the same thing, will I be successful this time?
The first thing I’m doing is my daily insta posts, paired with a mini-blog over on @hellomks_ (yes, it’d be better if there wasn’t an underscore at the end of it, but what can you do).
Planning on writing some more blog content here, travel blog and vlogs, perhaps. And continuing my northern lights bullshit both in pictures and time-lapse.
Last year, maybe even into 2020 as well, I started writing ‘care home stories’, little posts of stories from my time working in the care home, there are a few written already, sat on here, set to private. I may post them and write more when something comes to mind.
Stuart’s Stag/Taskmaster videos are still to be finished, I started a page for those and will hopefully get the rest of the videos done soon and uploaded. Unsure if the page will be made entirely public though – will need to ask the others how they feel about that. Would be good to share though, as the videos are genuinely some of my favourite things I’ve made – which given that I wasn’t sure they’d be any good (through no fault of the contestants) at all, is a great outcome to have.
Only really have one major travel thing planned so far this year, and that is heading back to Disneyland Paris on the 11th of January for a few days. When we went last year, Avengers Campus wasn’t open yet so it gave an excuse to go back, which it was decided we would, at the airport while we waited for our flight home – even going as far as to book the holiday there and then.
I would also like to get to Europa Park or Phantasialand this year, as well. Time will tell if that happens though. I could, perhaps, also be persuaded to go back to Disneyland Paris for their Halloween event(s), as video from that last year looked fun and slightly more ‘scary’ than Mickey’s Not-So-Scary events in Florida.
I’ve seen a lot of people crying out about how bad their 2022s were, I can’t say mine was awful. It, perhaps, wasn’t amazing. But nothing to cry about. If 2023 matches it, I’ll be happy enough, if it surpasses it, even better.
To conclude, I wanna create more and get better at paddle-boarding – which wasn’t mentioned previously, but is definitely something that needs to happen. Losing weight would also be nice, but I’ll almost certainly fail at that, like I do every other time I actually attempt it, so I won’t put pressure on myself for that one.
K, bye.
