We leave this afternoon to fly home. The forecast for the holiday weekend in London is warm and sunny – a continuation of the great weather we’ve had the last several days. Our weather forecast at home – rain! We completed our packing and walked down the street to Chez Bob Diner for a traditional English breakfast.
We took one more short walk to enjoy the nice weather and budding trees before heading back to Pax to check out. I’d scheduled an Uber to the airport the night before anticipating that it might be busy for the holiday.
As we were gathering our things to meet our Uber, I inadvertently tipped over my handbag; it was unzipped and all my contents spilled out on the bed, or so I thought. I quickly scooped everything up, concerned that our Uber would time out.
Traffic to Heathrow was terrible – not only because of the holiday but due to a radical climate change group that was purposely disrupting traffic to draw attention to its cause. About 10 mins from the airport, I was surprised to get a local call – it was the receptionist at Pax. The maid had found my passport wedged between the mattress and bed frame in my room as she was changing the linen. I was stunned – I thought my passport was in my zipped wallet so did not specifically check for it when my purse dumped.
Now what to do???? If I went back for my passport, I would miss my plane. Yet, without a passport, how could I board the plane and enter the U.S.? The best solution was to get the passport to me at the airport. The receptionist at Pax agreed to have someone jump in a cab and meet me at Heathrow. Still anxious that the traffic would delay an on-time delivery, I enlisted help from the Delta security agent. She was amazing and jumped into action – fortunately, I had an on-line boarding pass (although for a short period of time the Delta app went down which made me crazy!), my passport info is in my Delta profile and I had carry on luggage. She contacted the U.S. homeland security agent assigned to Heathrow who didn’t care to see the picture of my passport I carry on my phone, asked me a few questions and ok’d me to board the plane and enter the U.S. without my physical passport. The Delta agent held the gate open for me an extra 15 mins and kept my colleague who was at the gate abreast of my situation. Once we determined that the passport would not arrive via cab on time, I raced to the gate, was warmly greeted by name by both security and gate agent, met my colleague who was allowed to wait outside the gate till I arrived and escorted on the plane. Talk about amazing customer service!!!
Getting back into the U.S. was relatively easy. Without a passport, I could not use a customs kiosk so was escorted to an agent. I spoke with four different customs officials who seemed more interested in how I was able to board an international flight without a passport, than verifying my identity. I passed through security so quickly that I caught up with my colleague who used the normal entry procedure.
I wish I could say my passport drama ended once I got home but I had another three anxious weeks. The receptionist at Pax Lodge agreed to send my passport back via registered express mail immediately after the Easter holiday. I need my passport as I have a business trip to Romania in three weeks. All went well initially – I was able to track the package and could see that it traveled from London to a postal distribution center in Chicago within three days. Then everything stopped and day after day for the next two weeks I got the same message – ‘your package is on its way to its final destination’. I filed a tracking report with the post office, spent two hours on hold on the phone one morning trying to talk to a real person who could help me, all to no avail – I was told that my package was likely detained in customs. Desperate, I made an emergency appointment with my local passport office two days before my departure to get a replacement. The morning of my appointment, I got an email informing me that my passport had arrived in my home city.
Should I keep my appointment or not? I called my local post office and was told that the package would definitely not arrive today, it was at a suburban distribution center’ but would be delivered within 1-3 days. Too much uncertainty! As I was driving downtown for my passport appointment, I got another email saying that my local carrier had the package and would deliver it today. So I returned home, moved my passport appointment to the next afternoon (the day before my departure, just in case) and anxiously watched for my postal carrier. She was two hours later than usual and when I did not see her approach my door for a signature, flagged down her truck as she was driving away. I asked her to please check to see if she had a piece of registered mail for me; much to my relief, she had put in the box without intending to get my signature. Overjoyed, I ripped open the envelop and found my errant passport. This was 36 hours before my scheduled departure to Romania!
So all ended well. I will be on that plane to Romania, passport in hand, ready to blog about my travel experiences in a first time visit to this country! Stay tuned!