How I Got Stranded in Dublin

I’m not sure how many people know this about the trip my brother Jacob and I took to London, but we actually got stranded in Dublin, Ireland! Our flight home was scheduled to land back in the United States late at night the day before Thanksgiving. However, our plans had to be changed…

The morning started out early at Heathrow Airport in London. We woke up that morning about 5:30 am so we could take the Tube to Heathrow and get through security in time for our flight which was at 9:30 am.

Our flight was a was a small one hour trip on British Airways to Dublin Airport. Really it wasn’t a big deal, and the whole thing went smoothly. But we didn’t know that our day would end differently than we had originally planned.

Taking off and seeing England and Ireland from above was amazing! I loved watching the scenery zoom by us as we flew over the two countries! Aren’t they both beautiful?

Once we landed at the Dublin Airport, we went through security again and waited at the terminal our next flight was scheduled to take off from. This was the seven hour flight that was supposed to take us home just in time for Thanksgiving the next day.

We were just about to board our plane when all of a sudden the boarding stopped. We were told there was a minor issue that the airline had to look into and we would learn more in about a half hour. But deep within all of us we knew this was the beginning of the end. My brother and I just took a seat in the terminal and looked at each other. We both had the same gut feeling that we wouldn’t be making it home for Thanksgiving.

This is when “panicking Sarah” began to show. She started worrying about what would happen if the flight was cancelled. Keep in mind that this was not only my first trip overseas, but also my first trip flying anywhere. So I had never experienced flight delays or cancelations before. It made me nervous to not know when we would be back in the United States or where we would stay if our flight was cancelled that night. 

As the time went on, we waited for four hours before the airline finally cancelled the flight. We were instructed that we would be collecting our luggage, rescheduling our flight free of charge for one of the two flights that would leave for Chicago the next day (Thanksgiving), and then we would be booking a hotel room that the airline would be providing.

Thank goodness for us, we were one of the first people to get our luggage at baggage claim! This allowed my brother and I to quickly get in line for rescheduling our flight, hoping that we could get tickets on the earliest flight the next day. Luckily for us (as the Irish would have it! ;)) we got the last two seats on the earliest flight to Chicago the next day! Everyone else would have to be booked on the afternoon flight. We then made our way over to another counter to schedule a hotel room for that evening.

There were shuttles that took people from the airport to the hotel we were scheduled to stay at and the shuttles ran about every ten minutes or so. The name of the place we stayed at for the night was The Clayton Hotel.

The Clayton Hotel was lovely! Especially since we were visiting around the holiday season! The decorations were my favorite part, and the lobby always had good music playing (an important quality in hotels ya know ;)) so I was pretty happy. Plus, we were getting a free night in Ireland, this just added an unexpected extension and a great story to our trip! As far as I was concerned the idea of getting to experience a little bit of Ireland sounded pretty good to me!

Our flight was scheduled to take off at 10:30 am the next morning so my brother and I had to get up bright and early if we wanted to beat the crowds to security and customs. It was nice that the United States had pre-clearance so we didn’t need to worry about going through that once we landed in Chicago.

For as much fun as we had both in London and Dublin, it was exciting to finally be heading home! We were ready to eat some American McDonald’s again, and to not be living out of a suitcase anymore. Maybe someday we will make a scheduled trip to Ireland and see the sights and sounds there, but until then I will treasure this unexpected visit we had trying to get back home.

Much Love,

Sarah