Getting Ready to Travel to the UK During Covid

We started planning our 2021 United Kingdom adventure in August of 2020 thinking that by that time the Covid restriction nightmare would be over. Well as we all know that was not the case. I had booked places to stay that went out of business or were not opening for the season because of all of the Covid issues. Then as time got closer found out that we would have to quarantine for ten days once we arrived in London. So then I had to cancel five of the places we would have been staying at plus a much anticipated tour of Highclere Castle and book a home we could quarantine in for the whole 10 days. We also had to book Covid tests in England to take on day 2 and on day 8 before we left. The research that went into that took a lot of time because when I thought I found one I would then look up their reviews and would decide against them. I finally went with Screen4 self testing. I contacted Elliott the owner of the home that I had booked to let him know that they would be coming. We also had to get Covid tested within 3 days of our flight. I had watched a vlog that Magenta Otter Travels posted and decided to scheduled a test for CVS just like she had done. Then later panicked when I saw that it could take longer to process so I booked the tests through Quest Diagnostics which was actually done at a Walmart Drive through. Living through the stress of worrying if the results were going to get back in time was real. We took the tests Tuesday morning for our Friday morning flight. Wednesday night when we still didn't have our test results back I was checking to see if there was a rapid test that would be accepted by the UK government for us to fly with if we didn't get the results by Thursday afternoon. I found that at the Dallas Airport they had one so I thought Ok if worse comes to worse we could test there as we had a 3 1/2 hour layover before flying to London, so I stopped worrying as much about the test. I started working on our Public Health Passenger Locator Form's which had to be filled out within the 48 hours of flying to London. I can not tell you how many times I was checking MyQuest through the night to see if my test results were in. Well Thursday morning I still did not have my results back as American Airlines sent me a message that it was time to check in for our flight. I got online to check-in and they wouldn't let us check in until we had got on the Verifly app through American Airlines and filled out all of the information and been cleared. One of the things we had to do was upload a picture of our negative Covid test result. So that meant that we would not be able to board the plane in Fresno until we had our negative test so we could not wait until we reached DFW to test. I immediately texted everyone to see if they had gotten their test results back and they all responded yes. If you don't think that sent me into a panic you can think again. I was the only one that didn't have my results back even though I had tested at the same time as Roger and before Charleen and Ben. I ended up calling Quest to see if they had my test results. The person that I talked to tried to reassure me by letting me know that my test was received the previous morning and that I should receive my results anytime. So I started working on getting Roger's paperwork in order. Just as we were finishing his required paperwork my tests finally came through. The wave of relief I felt at that moment was real. For the first time in months I finally felt that we were really going to get to go.

We weren't sure if we would even go to bed that night as we needed to be up by 3:00 to head to the airport the next morning. At midnight with everything situated for us to leave we did end up heading to bed with our watch alarms set his at 3:00 mine at 2:30 and the bedside alarm set at 3:00. Just as Roger climbed into bed he jumped out again. Our puppy decided that this was the night to pee in the bed. Luckily, if you can call it lucky he only peed on the duvet and top sheet and not the bottom sheet. So we stripped the affected items and tried to get some sleep. All I can say is it is a good thing I set the actual alarm clock because I slept right through my watch alarm. I jumped from bed and started running. I needed to get dressed and throw away anything else that was left in the fridge and get the garbage out of the house & load up the dogs while Roger got ready and locked the front door. We headed to Amanda's house to drop the dogs off and picked her up so that she could drive our car back from the airport.

Since we booked our flights so far in advance we got a good deal on flying business class which made it really nice when we got to the airport and there was a pretty long line to check in. We were able use the priority check in line which no one was in, so we walked right up to check-in our bags and show all of our paperwork (negative covid test and the Public Health Passenger locator form. Then we headed to the security line which again was long but because we have TSA pre-check we were able to again walk right up to the TSA agent that checks your boarding pass and id. We then did have to go into the normal line but it went rather quickly. Because of the pre-check we didn't have to pull our liquids or electronics out of our bags or take our shoes off or go through the body scan. We just walked through the metal detector. All was good until they scanned my bag and I had forgotten to dump my water out of my water bottle. The agent was like you either need to throw the bottle away or go back out and dump the water and come back through security again. I told her I can go out and come through security since I had pre-check. She then escorted me and my bottle out the exit, at least I could leave everything else with Roger. Coming back through security I again was able to walk right up to the TSA agent show my boarding pass and passport but this time they had actually opened up the pre-check lane so I was able to walk right up put my bottle in the bin to go through the scanner and walked through the metal detector and of course this time I was selected for extra screening which, all that happened was they wiped my cell phone to see if there was some chemical on it, which was done by the agent that had escorted me out. As we were talking she said she was surprised that more people do not get Global Entry to save themselves time going through security. I of course am glad that more people do not have it otherwise the lines would be the same as the other security line. We met Charleen and Ben at the gate and didn't have a long wait before it was time to board our flight to Dallas.

For the flight from Fresno to Dallas we sat across from Ben & Charleen.

I hope the beautiful sunrise is a good omen for the day ahead as we are pushed back from the terminal.

Breakfast on board

Once we landed in Dallas we had to make our way from terminal C to terminal D where we were able to access the American lounge. We all took advantage of the buffet where they had some snacks, salad, pasta & soup bar. Roger was disappointed when what he thought was a chocolate chip cookie turned out to be an oatmeal raisin cookie. We then went down to look at the duty free shop before going to the gate. When we got to the gate we had less than a half our until boarding. Not sure why it took them so long to get the plane ready to board but we started boarding 15 minutes late.

Roger getting his last text messages in before take-off

We were in the middle seats of row three. The nice thing about this area is the only seats in front of us were first class so didn't need to worry about anyone from that area coming back through our section so the only people that walked by were the stewards. I wasn't to sure how these seats were really going to be to sleep in since they didn't seem too wide while sitting in them. As soon as dinner service was done and I had finished the movie I was watching I laid the seat flat and was so comfortable that I was able to fall right to sleep. I was able to sleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up I started watching another movie and then they came around with a scrambled egg benedict breakfast tray. This flight literally flew by because the next thing I knew we were preparing to land.

We have been through the London passport control many times but this is the first time that we were able to pretty much walk right through. I would gladly do the passenger locator form before flying to be able to just walk up and scan my passport and have my face scanned then walk through the gate. We were at baggage claim well before any luggage from our flight was on the carousel. We grabbed our bags and headed out. We stopped at an ATM for some GBP's and the sim store to get cards for Ben and Charleen before picking up our rental car, just a half hour after landing. After just a tiny detour we were on our way to Wolverhampton were we will be quarantining.