Pacific Northwest Aug 2019 - Day 1 Travel to Portland Oregon

[katiebaz]

Apologies for the lack of pictures for today - I always forget to take any on our travel day.

After an overnight stay in the Premier Inn T4 at Heathrow, we woke early, had breakfast and then headed over to T3 via a 10 min walk to Terminal 4 on a covered walkway (thankfully as it is raining outside) followed by internal train. We reached the American Airlines check in and were amused to find out it is all self-service now - from checking yourself in to weighing and tagging your bags – and we all felt a little like we are all on work experience!

Our flight to Portland Oregon had a long of 5 hours in Chicago, which was not ideal. When I originally booked it was only a 3 hour layover, but the onward flight to Portland was changed by AA. However we got the flights at such a bargainous price we were not going to complain. The flight to Chicago was good, and we all watched a couple of films and got fed lots. On arrival in Chicago we took our time getting off the plane and sauntered to Immigration as we knew we had quite a bit of time to kill. Sods law of course was that as we had so much time, it only took us 10 minutes to clear immigration and re-check our luggage! We even had a funny immigration officer who was making jokes and telling us to have a great trip.

To while away some time, we got some dinner as we were all starting to hit the tiredness and ‘hangry’ zone. Daniel had a Chicago pizza (when in Rome….) whilst Steve and I ended up in Wok - which is a bit like Panda Express. We then made our way to the gate and read or snoozed until our flight was called. It was a 4.5 hr flight which we slept most of the way and finally arrived in the pouring rain in Portland at 11pm local time.

We got a bus easily to Alamo and as we had done the online check-in, were able to skip the counter, or so we thought….. As the credit card we booked with had expired we were not able to leave the parking lot, so had to reverse the car in the dark and rain and go back to the counter. Fortunately as it was so late there was no queue and it was all sorted quickly. We set off again to our overnight hotel, which was a couple of minutes’ drive away and went to check in. We were very tired at this point, so when the credit card got declined, we started to lose our sense of humour! Thankfully another card we had worked and we were soon in our room and all crashed out.

[anji]

Oooh! Looking forward to this report Love this area and may/may not be going again in September. Thanks for doing it. Arriving in the rain and dark isn't ideal but you're there!

[katiebaz]

Originally Posted by anji

Oooh! Looking forward to this report Love this area and may/may not be going again in September. Thanks for doing it. Arriving in the rain and dark isn't ideal but you're there!

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We absolutely loved our trip and would definitely go back. I really enjoyed reading your report before we went so hope you enjoy this one.

[CrispyA]

Ooh, reversing in the dark to sort out credit card sounds stressful, glad you got it sorted. Look forward to reading the rest

[katiebaz]

Originally Posted by CrispyA

Ooh, reversing in the dark to sort out credit card sounds stressful, glad you got it sorted. Look forward to reading the rest

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Not we needed after a long flight but thankfully got it sorted quickly

[smithlane]

Wow a long travel day but glad you got there in one piece

[katiebaz]

Originally Posted by smithlane

Wow a long travel day but glad you got there in one piece

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Yes it seemed a hugely long day but worth it