Today was a long day spent flying from Madrid to Honolulu via Amsterdam and Los Angeles.
Madrid to Amsterdam.
I woke up before my alarm went off this morning and was showering at 3:30 am. Once I had showered and dressed, I struggled down the stairs of the hostel with my case, checked out, and waited outside for a taxi to arrive to take me to Madrid airport. My taxi arrived on time, and I was soon at the airport and on my way to the check-in desk.
My flight from Madrid to Amsterdam was supposed to be with KLM but had been transferred to their partner company, Privilege Style. Checking in was easy, and I was taken in a wheelchair to the plane. I had pre-arranged a wheelchair at every airport because I knew some transfers were to different terminals and had to be done quickly. I was pleased I had kept my upgraded seat with extra legroom on the new plane. The flight took off on time and about 2 hours later, we were landing in Amsterdam. The food and service on the plane was very good.
Amsterdam to Los Angeles.
My transfer to the next plane in Amsterdam did not go as easily. No wheelchair was waiting for me, and there was no direction for where I should go. I only had a limited time to get to my next gate and get through immigration. There were huge queues at immigration but as I tried to get through, I was taken to one side when someone saw me struggling with my walking stick and led through a disabled line to get through more easily. Once through, I found out which gate I was supposed to be at for my KLM flight to Los Angeles and began to walk towards it. As I walked along, a lady in a buggy stopped and offered me a lift to the gate. I got in, and she got me there just in time to board my next flight.
The KLM plane was very nice, and I had a nice seat with extra legroom because I had paid for an upgrade. The food on the flight was fantastic, as were the crew. All drinks were included, and the air hostess constantly checked on me to see if I wanted another beer or anything else. As usual, I could not sleep on the plane and watched many films on the 13.5-hour flight. Just before we began our descent into Los Angeles, an air hostess informed me that there would be a wheelchair waiting for me at the plane door to take me through immigration in America and to the next terminal and gate for my flight to Honolulu.
Los Angeles to Honolulu.
I dislike Los Angeles LAX airport immensely, and true to form, this is where things started to get complicated. When the plane landed, a wheelchair was at the door, and I was taken towards the gate. This didn't go as planned as the woman pushing me collided with a bump in the ramp, and I was nearly sent flying through the air onto the floor before I caught the arm of the wheelchair. She apologised, and we continued to the gate. At the gate, I had to get out of the wheelchair to sit in a normal chair and wait for an electric buggy to transfer me and a couple of others. When the buggy arrived, it was very cramped, and the lady driving it bashed my leg with the door before she drove us closer to immigration.
As we approached immigration, we stopped and were asked to get out of the buggy into wheelchairs. I waited in the new wheelchair until I was pushed around 20 feet to immigration. I was then asked to get out of this wheelchair, sit in a normal chair, and wait to take the short trip through immigration in a different wheelchair. At this point, lots of Chinese people started to arrive, and after arriving on foot, they all claimed to be disabled. Immigration set up a new line for them, but none seemed to need assistance. They just wanted to join a shorter queue. Immigration realised this quite quickly, and although they didn't make them join the normal queue, they did make them wait for the people who did need assistance to go through first.
I was soon asked to get in a new wheelchair and was pushed to the immigration desk where I was quickly processed and through to a new queue. After travelling about 10 feet in the new wheelchair, I was asked to transfer to another wheelchair and joined another queue to be taken to claim my luggage at baggage claim. I didn't need to collect my luggage, just claim it before going through customs.
After waiting for nearly all the bags to have been collected by their owners, the person taking me onto the next flight asked baggage claim about my bags and where they were. Baggage handlers quickly told her my luggage had not been put on the plane I arrived on and had not left Amsterdam. I was told that it would be on another flight and would catch up quickly. I could do nothing about this, and I accepted this without complaint. The lady who had taken me to baggage claim then told me I had to transfer to yet another wheelchair, and I was then taken through customs to the next terminal by another lady.
When we arrived at the next terminal, I was asked to transfer to yet another wheelchair just inside the departures terminal, and I was left in front of the disabled services desk with around 14 other people, all in wheelchairs and all waiting to be transported to our gates, planes and onward flights. No one appeared to know what was going on. The disabled access desk was unmanned, and one lady stood behind us who was supposed to be organising us all and getting us to our planes. I say supposed to because she seemed disinterested in all of us and made no attempt to help anyone. After about 20 minutes, another man appeared with a radio and made a few calls on the radio before heading off again without helping anyone. By now, one woman had already missed her flight and a couple of other people were panicking about getting to their flights.
Over the next three hours, one person took people to various gates and returned to get the next person in the queue. We had no chance to get anything to drink or eat or even to use the toilet. One woman rang her son, who arrived at the airport and took her to the gate she required himself. At no stage were we told what was happening, and more and more people were joining the queue to be taken to a gate. We couldn't even wheel the wheelchairs to where we needed to go because we could not find which gates we should be at. The wheelchairs had locks that prevented them from being moved by people sitting in them, and they could only be moved by people pushing them and holding down the locked break on them.
I was eventually taken to the terminal and gate I needed to be at, and again, I transferred from the wheelchair to a normal seat. When the gate opened, I was asked to join a queue for disabled people to transfer to the plane and was soon onboard. Unfortunately, the plane I should have been on had been switched to a different type of plane run by Delta, not KLM. The seat I had booked with extra legroom wasn't available.
Before take off I asked the lady sitting next to me on the plane if she would switch her aisle seat for my window seat, but she wouldn't swap. I settled down for the next leg of my trip. It soon became apparent why the lady didn't want to move. She was inebriated when she got on the plane, and the first thing she did when we were in the air was to order a double vodka and tonic, shortly followed by another. She then went to the bathroom before sitting back down and ordering more drinks. This pattern continued for the entire 5.5-hour flight, and I was glad I didn't have to keep getting up every time she went to the bathroom. I again couldn't sleep on the plane and spent the entire flight binge-watching an American TV series.
We were given a bit of cake on the flight, but it wasn't very good. I asked for a beer and was surprised that I had to pay for it, on the two previous flights it was free. A small can of beer cost me the equivalent of €8.36, it would be the only one I had.
Honolulu.
When we arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, I was getting off the plane when I was pulled aside by a man who was waiting for me with a wheelchair. He started to push me towards the baggage claim hall, and I stopped him to tell him that my luggage had been left in Amsterdam. He immediately took me to the lost luggage desk and waited while a very helpful lady filled in a lost luggage form and asked me where I would be staying. I told her I would be on a cruise ship and gave her my itinerary. She took a copy of everything, filled the form in and told me what to do when I boarded the ship.
While waiting for the lady to complete the form, I saw the lady I had been sitting next to on the plane. She looked distressed, and I could hear her talking on the phone. It appeared that the man she had been expecting to meet at the airport wouldn't be coming. I cant say I blame him if she drinks like she had on the plane all the time.
After all the paperwork had been done, the lady at Lost Luggage instructed the man waiting to take me to my courtesy bus just outside the airport arrivals hall to ensure a bus arrived. He took me to the bus terminal and checked that a bus would arrive for me before leaving me at the terminal. About 15 minutes later, a bus arrived, and I was helped into a front seat with more legroom.
When I left the airport to head to the Waikiki Beach Hotel, where I would stay overnight, the sun was going down. We drove through a bustling area with lots of roadworks and it took a while to get there. When we arrived, we were dropped at a bus terminal at the back of the hotel and had to walk through the complex to find the check in desk. This was difficult as it was not signposted, and the towers of the hotel complex were confusing. I eventually found the check-in and was seen very quickly.
Video of the view from my hotel balcony the night I arrived in Honolulu.
The man at check-in took my details, and when he saw I had no luggage, he asked what had happened. When I told him it had been lost on the journey, he upgraded my room to a huge room on the 16th floor of one of the towers. When I tried to get a lift up to my floor, I couldn't work out how to call it. A lady saw me struggling and showed me how to call a lift from a computer screen on a kiosk next to the lifts. When I got to the room, it had a big balcony overlooking the hotel garden, lagoon and marina. It would have been a great room if I had been staying longer than one night. I rested my legs for about 20 minutes, and at 10 pm, I walked down to a hotel restaurant and bar.
When I arrived, I sat down, and after waiting for about 15 minutes, I asked for a beer and a menu. The girl went to get my beer, and I saw her talking to the bar manager, who came to see me. She apologised and told me the restaurant was shut and everything shut at 10 pm. I asked if there was anywhere to eat, and she told me that everything in the resort shut at 10 pm, but the pizza restaurant might still be open and told me how to find it. I headed toward the pizza restaurant. When I found it, the door was shut, and a man was cleaning up inside. I pretended not to see the closed sign and walked in and asked if I could get a pizza to take away. I must have looked sad and hungry as he took my order for a small pizza. I sat outside, and when it was made, he brought it out, and I paid for it. The small pizza cost me $24.95, three times the price a large one would have cost in Los Alcazares, Spain.
I took the pizza back to my room and ate it. I had already decided not to risk going to Pearl Harbour in the morning to see the USS Arizona because of the road work and the time it would take to return. I had travelled through 12 time zones, flown over 9000 miles and been awake for around 36 hours. I set the alarm on the bedside table for 9 am and soon fell asleep.