USA 2011 - Shake, Rattler & Roll Day 1 - Saturday 4th June 2011 Trip Report from the Airport & Flight

Day 1 of the Shake, Rattler & Roll trip started with us all making our way to Terminal 5 at Heathrow where we were all given our packs containing our booking reference for the flight so we could check-in. Luckily for me I had already checked in at Newcastle so I helped other members print their boarding passes. Checking in done and bags dropped off it was through Security to the departure lounge. A few of us headed over to Huxley's for a cooked breakfast and a pint or two, some did some duty free shopping. Shortly after 10AM our gate number was displayed so it was off to Gate C65 via the shuttle from the main terminal. When we arrived at our gate Ryan started to get nervous as he doesn't like flying as our Boeing 747 was sitting there waiting for us to board. Time soon arrived for boarding so we got on board and waited, and waited, and waited.

Turns out one of the passengers had become ill and British Airways had to phone their medical experts in the states for advice, and as a result recommended this passenger doesn't fly. As a result they had to remove his baggage from the hold and it was red hot in the cabin while we were sat at the terminal. When they finally sorted the baggage issue there was a problem over Irish airspace delaying us even further. An hour after our scheduled departure time we finally took off, the trip was now underway. There was a lot of turbulence en-route this year, but we are getting ready to ride The Rattler so we were already getting Shaken & Rattled! After landing we headed over to immigration and our first major queue of the trip. Some of us had filled in the wrong customs forms so we had to quickly fill these in again on the correct sheet. Through immigration we collected our cases to be presented with another long queue, the queue through customs. After this it was a quick walk to the exit to meet Wobbly Bob and put our cases on the coach and get our seat for the next 2 weeks.

Our first surprise on tour hit us when we boarded the coach. Sat on the drivers seat was Colin "DEATH" Blanchard. I know he was on the original room list but we all thought it was a joke! Eventually everyone arrived and we were off on the short drive to our first hotel. Nev welcomed everyone to the USA and read out the usual rules for the trip and then added a warning. This year there have been several deadly Tornado's popping up from nowhere and in places not normally used to having Tornado's. So the advice, as received during a Touchdown we experienced in Oaklahoma City during a previous trip was to jump in the bath and put the matress over you. Hopefully we'll avoid these on this trip. Next we checked into our hotel and 5 minutes later we were next door in the local bar to chill out, have a few drinks and something to eat. When the bar closed which was 11PM we headed back over to the hotel and got our heads down ready for our first day in a theme park.