I was up and showered when I found Margaret was also up. She had been rung at about 1am to be told the baby (Lochlan) had been born by emergency caesarian just after midnight. Margaret was trying to ring the various relatives as it was about 6pm in NZ by then. We had a bowl of cereal, loaded up the car, made our farewells and set off for Heathrow. Our flight was due to leave at 11.30 am and Margaret had said if we wanted to be at the airport at 8am or at 9am we should leave about 7.15am – which would probably give us time to spare but the traffic is unpredictable.

We had a relatively easy run and were at the Hertz Depot before 8am . We had been told to return the car relatively empty and they would refill at a better rate than we cold buy for. This nearly caused us issues as we had run the petrol down then got caught in slow traffic yesterday. We had then put in some extra which had been worth it as we were able to take Don to the station and get ourselves to the airport without worries.

Hertz shuttle ran us to the terminal and then the hassles started. We tried to do a check in for Virgin Atlantic using the machine but it wouldn't read John’s passport. So we looked to do a check in with a person to be told that it is no longer possible. A woman came to help and this time my passport wouldn’t read. Eventually she got both to work and we did the rest. We pressed the button to get our boarding pass to instead get a note saying we had to get documents from the bag drop.

The queues for the bag drop were short but the people in front of us had issues so we had a bi of a wait. The nice checkin man then confirmed we had checked in properly which we had. Then he told us we could only have 1 bag each. He was very nice about it and said the rules had changed in January. He looked at the total weight to see if he could charge for 1 bag only but no. So the charge would be 40 pound each for the 2 extra bags. We had light carry on bags and did consider briefly repacking but decided to pay and complain later as we had been told definitely that we were entitled to 2 bags each.

We were sent over to the payment area and here we had the longest wait. There was only one person working and although we were at the front of the queue the people she was dealing with took ages. We were then told to go to the service person. We said we wanted to query the charge but would pay if we had to. She said the rules had changed in November and we said we thought our booking was in October. She then looked up our details and tore up the charge information. Not because of the booking time but because she could see we were on a 'NZ to NZ’ ticket and hence entitled to 2 bags. So we were so pleased we hadn’t repacked.

After this things went smoothly. I was chosen for an extra security check but it consisted of running a sort of swab over the outside of my handbag and carry on bag. The flight loaded up very soon after we got to the gate and we had 3 out of the 4 seats in our row occupied so that made up for the very small leg room. The flight was ages in the queue at Heathrow but was basically smooth. We had a nice lunch soon into the flight and then 2 servings of snacks – wraps then sandwiches. The attendants came through regularly with extra drinks and were all very pleasant. Except for the leg room, we can recommend Virgin Atlantic based on this flight.

Unfortunately the hassles resumed at San Francisco airport but for all non Americans now. The computers were down so no online visas could be used and we all had to fill in the old green forms and this slowed things considerably. It was about an hour before we got through. The shuttle soon arrived and we were in the last group to be dropped off so that gave us a short tour of the city.

The Hotel Carlton is the hotel we stayed in on our only other visit here and we had some vague memories of it and the area. The check in staff were great and we had maps, details about buses and especially a ‘not advised to go there’ area marked. It is the Tenderloin area and even on our last visit we were advised not to walk in this direction but it was made even more clear today. Our room was bigger than I remembered and even has a sort of dressing room as well as a bath in the bathroom. The hotel prides itself on being eco friendly and slightly European in style.

At 5.30pm we went down for the complementary wine half hour. We had a glass each and the man serving was surprised when we didn’t have a top up. The wine was not great but was perfectly fine and it was nice to have a fire and a man playing music in the lobby as well.

We then walked about 6 blocks to Union Square, looking out for cafes on the way. In the end we had a nice meal near the Square with a very helpful waitress. We also discovered that tips re now 15 to 20% rather than the 10-15% we had remembered from our previous trip. We then had a 10-15 minutes walk back to get to bed early and try to sleep.