Woke up this morning feeling a mixture of excitement, anticipation and a touch of anxiety. The reason? We were due to set off, once again, on our travels, and today would see a series of airports and flights as we journeyed on our way to Lima, Peru.
Yes! We are ultimately going on a cruise in the South Pacific, starting in Lima. We had had this holiday booked since April 2024, and now this day had come at last. We would be cruising on the Azamara Onward, one of the four Azamara R-class vessels, lovely little ships that only carry 670 passengers. We have already cruised on the other three ships, the Journey, the Quest and the Pursuit, so we knew what to expect.
We left the house at 2.00pm for the half-hour drive to Newcastle Airport. On arrival, we drove around to the long-stay car park, found a space, and parked our Corsa. Then we hefted our rucksacks onto our backs and happily trundled our cases around to the airport main entrance to check in for our 16:50 BA flight to London Heathrow.
There were no queues at the British Airways check-in desk; in fact, it was the quietest we had ever seen Newcastle Airport, as most of their holiday destination flights leave in the morning. We were able to check our suitcases all the way through to Lima, and as we had already checked in online and printed our boarding passes, it wasn’t long at all until we were making our way through security and into the departure lounge. 🙂
We decided to have a couple of drinks in “Bar 11”, which has huge plate glass windows looking out onto the runway at the aircraft taking off and landing. We enjoyed a pint of Guinness each while looking at the departures board and awaiting the arrival of our aircraft, whose progress I checked on the FlightRadar 24 app.
When the app showed that the ‘plane was coming in to land any second, we looked up in time to see the landing lights as the aircraft glided smoothly down onto the runway, and taxied around to the departure gate.
Soon the information board announced that flight BA1335 for London Heathrow was boarding, so we made our way to the gate and onto the aircraft. Stashing our rucksacks in the overhead lockers, we took our seats and clicked our seatbelts shut prior to take-off.
The sun had already set once we were airborne, but we were still able to experience a fantastic orange and red sky once we were above the clouds. It only took 50 minutes to fly to Heathrow, and during that time the cabin crew came round with cookies and bottles of water for everyone.
Once we landed at Heathrow, we had around an hour until our connection to Madrid and, ultimately, our onward connection to Lima. We made our way to the departure gate for the Madrid flight; it wasn’t long before boarding commenced for Iberia flight IB724, a flight that would take approximately two and a half hours.
The aircraft was pretty full, and Trevor and I settled into our seats on the starboard side of the plane; Trevor had the aisle seat while I had the middle one. We always ensure at least one of us has an aisle seat so that we can get up and stretch our legs without having to disturb anyone else.
The flight was smooth and quiet, and we each enjoyed a drink; I had a Grey Goose vodka with cola and lots of ice, while Trevor had a whisky and cola. We shared a small canister of Pringles between us as we knew we’d get a more substantial meal on our long-haul flight to Lima.
Soon the captain announced the words “cabin crew prepare for landing” and everyone took their place amidst the sounds of clicking seatbelts and the aircraft wheels coming down. We landed smoothly and sped along the runway towards our arrival gate; it was 10.30pm local time.
As our flight to Lima was due to depart at 00:10 hours, we decided just to go along to the departure gate as it looked as if most of the shops, bars and restaurants were closing or were already closed this time of night. We had to take a train from terminal 4S which was a “satellite” terminal adjacent to the main airport building.
We made our way to departures and showed our boarding passes to a lady standing at the gate. She looked carefully at our flight number, IB123 MAD to LIM and she uttered the words that made my heart plummet to my boots. “That flight is cancelled.” WHAT !!?? 🙁
The lady then directed us to another desk where a taciturn gentleman took our boarding passes without a word and started tapping away at a keyboard while looking at his screen. He then passed two new boarding passes to us, for an alternative flight to Peru tomorrow afternoon!
Instead of arriving in Lima at 06:10 tomorrow morning, we would now not arrive until 19:10 hours tomorrow night – 13 hours late!
We were SO pleased we were not actually joining the ship until the afternoon of Wednesday 21st. Imagine if we’d actually been sailing tomorrow – we would have missed our ship!!! Thank goodness we always allow loads of time for any contingency such as delayed or cancelled flights. As it was, it meant that we would really lose a day exploring in Lima, but as we’ve been to Peru before (in 2014) it wasn’t as much as a disappointment as it would have been for a first-time visitor.
In the meantime, the guy at the desk had advised us that there would be a coach taking us to a nearby hotel for the night, and we had to proceed to Level 2 and look for Gate 8 to join the coach. We had to leave our suitcases at the airport to be loaded onto the new aircraft. It meant we only had the clothes we were standing up in, and we had no washbags or even a toothbrush! 🙁
Off we went, feeling really despondent. We wandered around in the airport, going up in lifts, down on the escalators, then up in a lift again in our quest for Level 2. None of the levels were marked, and even asking staff which level we were on elicited a “Qué?” and a shrug of the shoulders. It seemed that no-one knew what level they were actually working on!
Eventually, as we wandered around looking for a clue as to where we were or anything that looked remotely like Gate 8 or waiting coaches, an English-speaking lady advised us that we were in the multi-storey car park adjacent to the main airport building, and she showed us where we had to go. With relief, we soon spotted Gate 8 which had coaches lined up outside and, as we walked towards them, someone with a clipboard approached, ticked off our names and said “Lima?” to which we nodded. She then pointed towards our coach and we climbed on board, dragging our feet.
It took about half an hour to reach the Madrid Suites Airport Hotel which, despite its impressive-sounding name, was just like a glorified Travel Lodge. As we left the coach, shouldered our rucksacks, and made our way into the hotel foyer we were confronted with a huge queue! After all, they had a plane load of people to accommodate at short notice!
As we stood in the queue I noticed that my phone was only down to 20% and I was pleased I had my charger in my rucksack. Looking at the British 3-pin plug, we realised with dismay that our adapters were in the suitcase!!
Luckily, we spotted a vending machine that was selling earbuds, cables etc and – thankfully – USB-C to European plug adapters. It cost nearly 10 euros but it was money well spent if it meant we could charge our phones.
As the queue slowly diminished, a guy came around dishing out brown bags containing our meals for the evening; a chicken and cheese sandwich, a bag of Lay’s crisps, an apple, a carton of yoghurt and a bottle of water. We were so hungry we dived into the crisps straight away, and ate them while standing in the queue.
Soon another coach load of stranded passengers arrived and the massive queue became even longer, with people standing all the way back the complete width of the hotel and then doubling back again. By the time we were checked in and allocated our room it was 1:20am – I would imagine the people at the back of the queue would not have got to bed before 3:00am. As we had been advised that a coach would be coming at 7.30am to take us back to the airport, it meant we wouldn’t get much sleep at all, even if sleep were possible.
Our room had clearly not been occupied for some time, as it was very cold. The first thing I did was plug in my phone to charge. As we had no pyjamas with us, I just crawled into bed fully clothed. We were exhausted, disappointed and anxious – instead of being airborne and en route to Lima, here we were stuck in a dingy hotel in Madrid.
Neither of us slept particularly well. 🙁