Journey to India begins....

Here comes June 5th morning...
We all got ready and set to leave for the airport for our 11:55 am flight. Excited and really happy and just counting down the hours now. We reached the airport around 9:05 am and since 3 of us were going to India, we had 6 BIG bags and 2 hand bags, plus 2 purses (I know what you're thinking..). One of the portars helped us get our bags near the counter and we standed in line for our turn.

BTW, we were flying with United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles (IAD) airport and IAD to London and then flying with Jet airways from london to mumbai and mumbai to ahmedabad. If you don't know, United airlines and Jet airways have through check-in partnership which means that you get all your boarding passes at the first airport and your bags are through checked to the final destination BUT surprisingly United airlines doesn't know this themselves....continue reading, you'll know what I mean.

We got our turn for check-in at 9:35 am and an agent tells us that the machine doesn't recognize us and since it's international ticket we need to stand in another line (Great!!!). We get to another line. Just to be sure I asked the UA agent that we will get all our boarding passes from denver, right? and she replies saying ..."No...you will get to check in with jet airways at london to get your boarding passes for onward journey"....BOOM...I get in PANIC MODE. I called Jet right away and talked to thier agent and he said that we should get all the boarding passes at denver since they don't issue boarding pass at london within security limits...BOOM BOOM...another SHOCK!!! The lady behind the counter said let's see what prints out and when she started printing, luckily it printed all our boarding passes through the final destination....PHEWWWW (what a relief!!). Things started to calm down, they checked our bags through the final destination. It was about 10:25 when we headed for security and guess what? We've got another huge crowd in front of us but surprisingly the crowd moved faster and we got through security in short time :). We got to our gate and relaxed there until we boarded the plane and the plane departed around 12:20 pm.

The journey has just begun...We were supposed to reach Washington dulles airport at 5:25 pm and catch the flight to london from there at 6:05 pm. The plane arrived at the gate at 5:25 pm but here is the next challenge...the plane wasn't taxied properly at the gate and the pilot said we have to wait 10 minutes to get off. It was 5:30/35/45 and still no sign of plane moving toward the gate...and I get really worried because we didn't have much time to get to the next gate (panic mode again!!!). As soon as the line started moving, we ran to the next gate and phew made it on time. Here comes the trip to London..........

United Airlines Experience on long flight:
We had economy plus seats for this flight so it was nice to get some more leg room. I got to my seat and relaxed for a bit. The plane soon took off and I fell asleep due to the morning stress. I woke up after few minutes and it turns out that we're still on the ground and it was 6:50 pm. Our plane was in the line for our turn to take off...I guess we must have waited an hour on the runway for our turn to take off. Well the plane took off and they served beverages. They had many selection of the movies as well; among them were fool's gold (didn't want to watch it), Horton hears a who, 27 dresses (nice movie), 10,000 B.C (couldn't stand it a minute), Vantage point (nice movie...bit different from usuall action/suspence movies), Penelope, Jumper and couple others. Now let's talk about the FOOOOOOD...since it was United Airlines, I wasn't sure how the meal would be since we asked for hindu meal and surely the food was good. They served rice and 2 vegetables (chana & califlower) in one bowl, yogurt, salad, and one small paratha (which was straight from the fridge; cold). Also they gave one paratha with strawberry yogurt for breakfast (odd combination but whatever) one hour prior to the arrival @ london heathrow airport.

London Heathrow Airport Experience:
The plane landed @ 6:35 am. We landed at Terminal 3 and we had to catch another flight with Jet airways from Terminal 3 itself which was really nice. Once we landed, we followed the "flight connections" signs which was 10-15 minutes walk :(...then comes the security check which was very smooth and we were through the security in no time.
So I had my digital camera (with its Li-on battery and memory card), its cables, ipod, my phone, all with me in my purse and we were through the security check in less than a minute since we put all this through scanning. No Problems at all!!!
Then we got to the departures lounge and Jet gave us new boarding passes for flighs from London-mumbai and mumbai-ahmedabad. Getting to the gate was another 10-15 minutes walk. My advice to all would be that if your parents can't walk a lot, definitely assign them wheelchairs because there's a lot of walking at london heathrow airport. Overall, if you're connecting @ london heathrow, wear tennis shoes and keep plenty of time for walking :). Once we're at the gate, we get some relaxing time before our next flight.

Jet airways experience:
Seats - good, nice small screen tv in front of every seat, good food and great selection of movies. I couldn't decide what to watch, hollywood or bollywood, drama or comedy shows, I like that about jet that you can manage your own video screens rather than fix time table of movies.

Arrive in India (Mumbai):
When we arrive in Mumbai, we're welcomed by the thunderstorms and heavy rain, however that's the usual condition of mumbai when it rains. It turns out that due to the weather conditions, we landed an hour later than we should have. We had our next flight to ahmedabad from mumbai at 2:45 am, so we had plenty of time but I was wrong. We had 4 hours gap for our ahm. flight but we lost an hour since we arrived one hour late. Then comes the baggage claim, where all our bags arrived 1 hour late and WET...so we already lost 2-2.5 hours. The customs was a joke. We put our bags through scanning (not the handbags) and take the bags from the other side of the scanner. No one asked anything about any bags neither they checked our handbags. We handed our baggage to Jet staff and it was 2:00 am already. Since we had to catch the flight from mumbai domestic airport, we had to take the coach but due to heavy rain, the coach service was late and we were told that we might miss our flight (SHOCK!! SHOCK!!). We couldn't even find taxis that early morning. Being so close to home, trouble was all over the place. Luckily there were 5-6 families with us who needed to go on that flight so they made sure that the flight wouldn't leave without us. We get to the mumbai domestic and then take the plane to ahmedabad. Again the food was great (ragda petis) for mumbai to ahmedabad flight.

FINALLY.......we get to ahmedabad...we are transported to the airport baggage claim area by bus from the plane. AND I see my masa/masi/mama and cousins.....couldn't believe it. They all looked different after so many years, just wanted to go and hug them but still had to wait for our bags to arrive. GUESS WHAT???? We only got 2 of our bags out of 6. It turns out that baggage of half of the passengers hadn't arrived. Honestly, I didn't care much at that point for the bags as I knew they'll come in the next flight. The agent took down our information and promised that the bags would come by 12 o'clock . We rushed outside the airport and hugged our family....awwww it was joyful moment.

Well, I wanted to give you detailed info so it can help you in any way for your travel. I never found the info that I was looking for so that's why here you have a long post info in my words, hope this helps. More to come....