Long Awaited trip to Rwanda Begins with a bit of a Problem!

 Early Christmas Dance for our Send Off Flights

Mesa to Seattle to Amsterdam to London to Kigali!!!!  Departure on Sunday, 8am, 4 December to arrival at Thursday, 7:30am, 8 December.  Crazy!!!! 

It was only December 1st, so hard to get into the Christmas spirit, but I brought out the blinkies & we gave it a good try.  Had a last minute scare with a possible Covid case at our previous Sunday dance, but YEA....we tested negative twice, so good to go!  Fairly small attendance, but still great fun!

Finished up the dance with a fun after party.  Getting us all ready for a fun month to follow.  

We all met for an early morning flight from Phoenix to Seattle.  All of us were cheery & ready to get the show on the road!!!

Unfortunately, we landed to find snow in Seattle & a delayed flight arrival for our trip to Amsterdam.  

We have access to the Priority Pass Lounges at most airports, so we got to spend the time in a nice quite leisurely manor.  Had a late breakfast & the time passed with not much trouble.

Unfortunately the late take off caused a domino effect for the next portion of the trip.  We were all supposed to have connected with an easy KLM flight on to Kigali, Rwanda.   We arrived in Amsterdam about 2 hours late and the flight was gone.  We worked with an excellent representative & thought things were all set up.   6 of us rushed on to catch a flight to London with connection to a flight with Rwanda Air & on to Kigali.  The remaining 4 would fly on to London a couple of hours later, but we'd all connect for the same flight.  We had email confirmation, but no hard tickets.  Even had seats assigned.  It would put us several hours later for our arrival, but we were all just thrilled that we would soon be flying on.  George & I got the 6 of us into a Priority Lounge at Heathrow & we thought we were all set.

Then things all fell apart.  Something went awry with the computer system for Rwanda Air & 4 of us (Anderson's & Hurd's) somehow got knocked off the flight.  The other 6 all got on the flight, but we were stuck in London.  I was so upset during our 2 night delay in London that I never even got a single picture!!!!  Bottom line was that Davis's, Batcheller's, & Byler's arrived in Kigali and we were stuck in London for my birthday!  They had a drink & sent me a picture to prove they were with us in spirit!  At least we were given a nice hotel room at the airport (Holiday Inn Express) and all our meals were provided.  But we were nervous wrecks & I thought that we would be taking our next flight back to Phoenix instead of on to Kigali!

Finally Finally Finally, we managed to get on a flight from Amsterdam & on to Kigali!  Overnight flight with seats in the center 4 of the airplane, but we made it anyway!!!!!