First time I’ve done a trip report, so hope some find it interesting. We didn’t do too much this trip, it was all about rest and relaxation, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I can be a bit wordy, so apologies in advance.
We left on Thursday 22nd, having booked for a couple of days’ stay in Philadelphia before flying on to Fort Myers for two weeks on Captiva. There are 6 of us - me, Alison, Conor (19), Ben (16), Theo (12), Annabel (8).
It started reasonably well. The car arrived to take us to Manchester on time at 6 am. As the flight wasn’t due to go until mid-morning, we had plenty of time to spare, but needed to go reasonably early as I hadn’t been able to get us checked in online the day before, despite many attempts. On arrival about 7.30, the check in desk was open and there were only a couple of people ahead of us, so it looked good.
However, when we went to join the queue, we were told the flight still hadn’t left Philadelphia and couldn’t check in until it had. A very quick mental calculation basically said we were now looking at about a 7 hr delay. This was a real pain on a number of fronts. There are few things worse than being stuck in an airport for this length of time, but the real nuisance was that it was Theo’s birthday and we had booked a restaurant in Philadelphia that night for his birthday dinner which we would now probably miss. Also, we would be exhausted by the time we arrived and it severely cut into our already short stay in the City.
What to do when you’re stuck for 8 hours in Manchester airport? Nothing. When you’ve lingered over breakfast as long as you can and then lingered again over lunch, it took a bottle of champagne to cheer us up. We bought one of those Bose noise reduction headsets and sunglasses for Conor and me. Stocked up on some cigars for essential late night poolside relaxation.
Anyway, we eventually took off about 4 pm (US Airways) and had an uneventful flight. Seat width is tight on this flight, but the entertainment system is better than Virgin’s. Immigration at PHL was surprisingly quick, but not particularly pleasant, with a monosyllabic and surly handler. We were really exhausted by this stage and just wanted to get to the hotel. Baggage claim, however, took almost 2 hours and put paid to any thoughts that we might make the dinner reservation after all. We were all now exhausted and cross, the champagne effect had long since gone.
Two yellow cabs to the hotel. I swear these cab drivers are some kind of different species. I sent Alison, Conor and Annabel off in theirs and went to the next one in the line. The driver got out and looked at me. I looked back and said The Rittenhouse Hotel please, Rittenhouse Square. He kept looking at me, his mouth open and didn’t respond or move. I repeated it twice more with the same blank response. I gave up and headed to the next cab, at which point he opened the boot and said “in here”. “What, me or the bags”? I asked. No response, more vacant, open mouthed staring. But we got in the cab anyway and off we went. Filthy, hot, sticky and uncomfortable was, we discovered, the standard for cabs in Philly. The air conditioning was a plastic drainpipe with holes drilled in it, nailed (I kid you not, nailed) to the interior roof of the cab with a vacuum hose leading to it, attached by duct tape to the air vent beside the driver.
It didn’t work in any case, and Philadelphia was hot, hot, hot. It’s a shortish journey to the city, about 30 minutes or less and we were pleased to arrive at the hotel in one piece. I think the genius behind the air conditioning system had also been at work on the shock absorbers and replaced them with an iron girder or something.
Anyway, we got to the hotel, which was great. It’s part of a small chain of independent hotels which I use often and so far they’ve all been good. I stay regularly at the Baglioni in London which is one of the group and they had recommended it to me, I must remember to thank them when I’m there later this week. It was now just before 8pm or so and we couldn
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