Flying to America usually means one thing for me, HEATHROW! No, not this time, away from the norm, we decided (well had to!) to fly from London Gatwick, the UK’s second largest airport or epicentre as I like to call it. I had previously heard negative things about Gatwick so was a little weary of the whole experience, however, I was pleasantly surprised.
The guy came down during check-in to take the usual dimensions etc of Superbunny (my electric wheelchair if you are wondering) then proceeded through security without a hitch. One thing to note about the airside part of the terminal is that not every toilet has a disabled cubicle but luckily the toilets are not that far apart from each other.
We flew with Norwegian Air which, over the past few years, has been dubbed ‘the worlds low cost long-haul airline’ so I wasn’t expecting anything fancy, especially as I decided to fly Economy class! Again, I was pleasantly amazed to discover a Dreamliner aircraft at the end of the airway. Now, if you don’t know what a Dreamliner is, it’s the latest invention by Boeing and is definitely a far cry from the 747’s of this world with features such as windows fitted with dimmer switches etc. As usual, JKF airport took their time to come and fetch us from the aircraft and then escorted me in one of their own wheelchairs through immigration to the baggage hall where there was no sign of Superbunny. I recalled from last time that there was a disabled toilet nearby but no, it has been turned into a janitors office (what is it with toilets today!!!).
At this point, I was dying for the toilet (as you can imagine after a 7 hour flight!) so it was fortunate that there was a wheelchair accessible yellow taxi waiting outside the terminal so it was a quick transfer to the hotel. It needs to be said that, unlike last time, the driver was quite sensible in his driving manner so no kittens were made!
It’s a early start for us tomorrow as we head over the road to Penn station to catch the high-speed Acela Express down to Philadelphia 🙂