Flying in the time of Corona in 2022

What a weekend. We left our house at 11:45am EST on Friday and arrived into Lisbon at 10pm GMT Saturday (12 hours late).

It all started in Miami. We dropped Mac the pet hotel in Port St Lucie at noon and arrived in to MIA at 3ish. The line for check in was… long. We should have known since the website couldn’t verify our Covid documents 24 hours before flying. We stood in line for about 2 hours and finally got through security only to find out that our flight was further delayed (they had already delayed it because of a late plane and the long ass lines). We grabbed some really yucky Pizza Hut and boarded the plane (boarded????). Then we sat on the plane, at the terminal for 2 more hours. Thankfully we were sitting in premium economy, though not sitting together, and so we got some drinks and a snack.

We took off at 9:45pm, only 4 hours and 30 minutes later than planned. The flight was uneventful once we were off the ground. We had dinner and drinks around midnight and then it seemed like most of the plane fell asleep. I don’t remember dozing off but I woke up somewhere off the coast of Ireland. Nice. We disembarked no problem, with the knowledge we would be re-booked onto another BA flight to Lisbon (since we missed our connecting flight by many hours).

Computer says no.

ALL BA flights were canceled Saturday. We were given a voucher for the shuttle, hotel and food. No ma’am said Liam. We grabbed our luggage, went through customs (nothing to declare here), and immediately booked a flight through TAP Portugal. We gave our luggage over to the check in counter and went to get food. After we ate we had many hours to wait for our flight and so we went to the posh lounge to drink and be merry.

6:30pm GMT. We are in line for our TAP flight to Lisbon. We get to The Man and he immediately says NO WAY JOSE, these very expensive NAAT Sars-19 tests are INVALID, by 5 hours. Now we have to go BACK through Customs, get an airport test (also not cheap) and get onto the VERY last flight out of Heathrow and into Lisbon. When I say we flew through these tasks I am not using hyperbole (oh! and no pun intended). I haven’t moved that fast ever. We got our results in less than 30 minutes, our new tickets in less than 5 and back through security we went. We were finally on a plane at 7:30pm GMT.

We get into Lisbon and go to baggage....... no bags. I swear all I wanted to do was plop down and cry…and that’s what I did. Liam dealt with the lost baggage guy, I grabbed some drinks from the little store in the baggage claim area and off we went, sans bags to get an Uber. We get to our hotel at 11ish, try to breathe a little, take in the darkened view of Lisbon from our balcony, then go to order room service. I guess we breathed too long. We ended up using UberEats for McD’s and I had the bar in the lobby fill my ice container since the ice room was closed as well. Quick showers before our food arrived and into bed.

I ended up washing my delicates in the shower. No pjs, no toothbrush, no nothing. I was up at 8am GMT for hotel breakfast and more ice/water. I fell back to sleep and we eventually woke up and left the hotel around 1pm, with no update on our luggage. We went to the mall.

Malls here are still a huge thing; people shop in them and they have lots of stores. We got our clothing for the next few days, plus the delicates and other needs. Then headed to the grocery for toiletries and drinks. I will need more drinks. No vending machine here. Two shirts of mine didn’t fit but three did, plus the jeans and shoes and unmentionables. Liams clothing all fits (of course, it always goes this way).

We were waiting for our Uber when we got notice that our bags were onboard a new TAP flight and should arrive into Lisbon soon (current time, 5:20pm GMT). I guess we’ll get them tomorrow. Good news too because one of the nice shirts I got doesn’t actually fit so it’s going back to the mall.

We had lunch at the hotel, it was chilly but we sat outside anyway. Tonight we have drinks and dinner with Liams boss, Andy and his family. I’m so nervous I could throw up. Thankfully we have clean clothing and can take a proper shower.

And that’s how we arrived into Lisbon, Portugal.