We refuelled, dropped off the rental car and caught the transfer bus to the Airport. We arrived in the terminal to discover that our flight had been changed and that we had missed it. We were in luck though as there was a later flight that would get us to Heathrow in enough time for our international flight. We waited in the airport for a couple of hours before boarding our plane.
Will slept for most of the journey down to London and woke shortly before we landed. The transfer through Heathrow was incredibly efficient and we arrived at the gate for our next plane with plenty of time to spare. The flight to LAX was to take a good 12 hours so we didn’t know what to expect from Will but fortunately he responded well and had a good five hour sleep. Will’s friend on the plane, Alex, wasn’t so fortunate and his Mum deserved a medal for what she went through...
We stayed awake as long as we could and watched a few of the in-flight movies. I watched Hot Fuzz, Shrek the Third and Apocalypto while Lou watched Blades of Glory, Waitress and Shrek the Third. It was an Air New Zealand plane so the entertainment was very good. Will particularly enjoyed the Winnie the Pooh games but wasn’t interested in much else.
We arrived at LAX and things were a bit quicker as we had checked our bags all the way through to Tahiti. Strangely enough we still had to collect our bags at the carousel and transport them about 50 metres to the Tahiti carousel! We jumped in the Air Tahiti Nui queue for people with no baggage which was considerably shorter than the other queue and it looked like we would be through in no time. Alas, LAX again lived up to its name and things moved incredibly slowly. We made our way through to the gate and even though we were really hungry, we decided not to eat the expensive plastic-looking food. We sat waiting at the gate for about an hour before being let on to our plane just before midnight.