Tuesday August 27
Last morning in Windsor.
Breakfast, and then load up the car for the last time. Heathrow is only a few minutes away, and we need to fill the tank before we drop it off.
I must say that dealing with Rentalcars.com has been very positive so far. Don’t know if I mentioned this; when I picked up the car, they offered, instead of dropping it off full, to prepay a tankful at a cheaper rate, and drop it off empty. Sounds like a good deal.
But...,
This process relies on the tank being empty when I drop it off. For any number of reasons, there is no way that I can assure that it will be that low. You don’t want to leave money in the tank, because you’ve already paid for it. You also don’t want to run out of gas a mile away from the drop off. Unless you do this all the time, and know exactly what you’ll need, you would have to be a mug to take the deal. I think that’s just another opportunity to take your money. The house always wins.
So we fill up, and drive into the Dollar/Thrifty depot, located at the Sheraton hotel, near terminal five. Signage is good enough to find the drop off park. There’s a guy in the area, and he comes over. He’s got an iPad, and a list of expected arrivals. He takes a minute to find Gladys.
We unload the bags, and while I’m talking to him at the front of the car, Sarah is wiping down the back seat with a damp cloth. Because we have been carrying two big suitcases, they both wouldn’t fit in the boot. So every time we change address, I manhandle one bag onto the back seat. Over the days I’ve been doing this, there have been some scuff marks on the seat. No damage, just transferred dust from wheeling it to the car.
So the guy looks around the car, notes the damage on file from before my rental, and sees nothing new. I apologised for all of the Scottish and Welsh bugs on the grill. He says he’s seen worse.
He gets me to sign the iPad with my finger, he does too, and we’re done. I don’t need to find their desk inside. A great system. On pickup, they do their thing on the iPad, show me where that damage was (on the iPad), and sign me off. They don’t leave the office. At drop off, it’s the reverse, and they don’t leave the car park. Everything happens on the iPad. Always nice to se technology finding a place to add value.
Just as I finished with the assessor, the shuttle for terminal five turns up. Just like clockwork. At the terminal we follow the (well signposted) directions to the train.
After taking advice from a local, we find that the vending machines down here also dispense brand new Oyster cards, and we can choose how much to put on. And there is the train.
Sarah had been stressing about getting all of our luggage onto and off of the train. She wanted us to hire a cab to take us all.
For clarity, the two pieces of luggage that we had carted around on the bus tour, and then on the Gladys tour, last night gave birth to a fully functioning midsized bag. I knew going in that there would be shopping. I also knew that the tour only allowed one bag each. So I Russian dolled it. I put all of my clothes into the midsized bag, and then put that bag inside the larger bag. Every night when I opened my bag, I would open the big bag, then unzip and open the small one, without taking it out.
By last night, we had two big bags, original hand luggage, and quite a few shopping bags. They had just been loaded into the car at source, and all unloaded last night. As luck would have it, the once empty big bag, now isn’t. In fact, it’s in danger of being overweight. May need to buy one of those luggage scales this week.
As advertised, the train takes only 15 minutes to Paddington. By a mad stroke of luck, Paddington is exactly where our hotel is.
A little tip, gentlemen. If you are traveling with one of the fairer sex, there will be luggage. Whether it was stuff she couldn’t leave at home, or stuff she couldn’t leave on the shelves, there will be luggage. There was a time when the best type of luggage to buy was what the crews used, because it would be guaranteed sturdy. Using that guide, most of us would have bought the Oyster (not the travel card) from Samsonite. This thing would survive nuclear holocaust. Two sturdy wheels almost flush with the body of the suitcase, for its own protection. There was a lever handle at the other end, so just pull up the end of the bag by the handle and walk away. The two wheels would transfer all the weight to them, and you could carry obscene weight with barely a grunt
And then there was ‘traveling with my wife’. Suddenly a bag each just won’t cut it. So here’s what you do. Get suitcases of similar size, and the both must have 4 wheels. Pull up the handles, align the cases back to back, and you can roll them on a smooth surface with one hand. That leaves you other hand to drag your Samsonite. Your only alternative is to pay for a vehicle big enough to take you and all of her bags in one trip. It was a gamble. The stakes were high, but I got lucky and my plan worked. For a change.
Last morning in Windsor.
Breakfast, and then load up the car for the last time. Heathrow is only a few minutes away, and we need to fill the tank before we drop it off.
I must say that dealing with Rentalcars.com has been very positive so far. Don’t know if I mentioned this; when I picked up the car, they offered, instead of dropping it off full, to prepay a tankful at a cheaper rate, and drop it off empty. Sounds like a good deal.
But...,
This process relies on the tank being empty when I drop it off. For any number of reasons, there is no way that I can assure that it will be that low. You don’t want to leave money in the tank, because you’ve already paid for it. You also don’t want to run out of gas a mile away from the drop off. Unless you do this all the time, and know exactly what you’ll need, you would have to be a mug to take the deal. I think that’s just another opportunity to take your money. The house always wins.
So we fill up, and drive into the Dollar/Thrifty depot, located at the Sheraton hotel, near terminal five. Signage is good enough to find the drop off park. There’s a guy in the area, and he comes over. He’s got an iPad, and a list of expected arrivals. He takes a minute to find Gladys.
We unload the bags, and while I’m talking to him at the front of the car, Sarah is wiping down the back seat with a damp cloth. Because we have been carrying two big suitcases, they both wouldn’t fit in the boot. So every time we change address, I manhandle one bag onto the back seat. Over the days I’ve been doing this, there have been some scuff marks on the seat. No damage, just transferred dust from wheeling it to the car.
So the guy looks around the car, notes the damage on file from before my rental, and sees nothing new. I apologised for all of the Scottish and Welsh bugs on the grill. He says he’s seen worse.
He gets me to sign the iPad with my finger, he does too, and we’re done. I don’t need to find their desk inside. A great system. On pickup, they do their thing on the iPad, show me where that damage was (on the iPad), and sign me off. They don’t leave the office. At drop off, it’s the reverse, and they don’t leave the car park. Everything happens on the iPad. Always nice to se technology finding a place to add value.
Just as I finished with the assessor, the shuttle for terminal five turns up. Just like clockwork. At the terminal we follow the (well signposted) directions to the train.
After taking advice from a local, we find that the vending machines down here also dispense brand new Oyster cards, and we can choose how much to put on. And there is the train.
Sarah had been stressing about getting all of our luggage onto and off of the train. She wanted us to hire a cab to take us all.
For clarity, the two pieces of luggage that we had carted around on the bus tour, and then on the Gladys tour, last night gave birth to a fully functioning midsized bag. I knew going in that there would be shopping. I also knew that the tour only allowed one bag each. So I Russian dolled it. I put all of my clothes into the midsized bag, and then put that bag inside the larger bag. Every night when I opened my bag, I would open the big bag, then unzip and open the small one, without taking it out.
By last night, we had two big bags, original hand luggage, and quite a few shopping bags. They had just been loaded into the car at source, and all unloaded last night. As luck would have it, the once empty big bag, now isn’t. In fact, it’s in danger of being overweight. May need to buy one of those luggage scales this week.
As advertised, the train takes only 15 minutes to Paddington. By a mad stroke of luck, Paddington is exactly where our hotel is.
A little tip, gentlemen. If you are traveling with one of the fairer sex, there will be luggage. Whether it was stuff she couldn’t leave at home, or stuff she couldn’t leave on the shelves, there will be luggage. There was a time when the best type of luggage to buy was what the crews used, because it would be guaranteed sturdy. Using that guide, most of us would have bought the Oyster (not the travel card) from Samsonite. This thing would survive nuclear holocaust. Two sturdy wheels almost flush with the body of the suitcase, for its own protection. There was a lever handle at the other end, so just pull up the end of the bag by the handle and walk away. The two wheels would transfer all the weight to them, and you could carry obscene weight with barely a grunt
And then there was ‘traveling with my wife’. Suddenly a bag each just won’t cut it. So here’s what you do. Get suitcases of similar size, and the both must have 4 wheels. Pull up the handles, align the cases back to back, and you can roll them on a smooth surface with one hand. That leaves you other hand to drag your Samsonite. Your only alternative is to pay for a vehicle big enough to take you and all of her bags in one trip. It was a gamble. The stakes were high, but I got lucky and my plan worked. For a change.
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| The newborn even though they are 2 sizes, the handles are the same, so you can hold them both with one hand |
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