Edinburgh

Our hotel, Cheval Old Town Chambers, was in the middle of the Royal Mile connecting Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. When you walked out the front door, you were in the middle of the Scottish Bourbon Street!

From one end to the other of the Royal Mile were shops, restaurants, street performers, medieval landmarks, everything!

We started our time there with a great walking tour by John Mowbray. It was tailored just for us particularly considering the 2 girls and the several senior citizens. We covered some of the Royal Mile near our hotel and then proceeded down the hill to the Old Town.

Grassmarket has a open air market and more shops and restaurants. John shared all the backstories on the sites along the way, e.g. The Last Drop and Maggie Dickson. Then to Victoria Street.

One of the most interesting sites was Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetery). There were several graves there related to the Harry Potter story and "Greyfriars Bobby." Bobby was a dog who sat guard at his owner's grave for 14 years.

We weren't able to visit Holyrood Palace as there was a royal in residence and visitors weren't allowed. Maybe next time.

From our hotel, Edinburgh Castle is UPHILL to get there and then more UPHILL inside.

The one thing I wanted to see in the castle was the Coronation Stone. My first viewing of it was under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey in 1990. In 1996, the British Government returned the stone to Scotland. It was taken to Edinburgh Castle where it is now kept with the Scottish Crown Jewels. Then when I visited Westminster Abbey in 2003, it was no longer under the Coronation Chair. So I wanted to close the circle and see the Coronation Stone in its new home.

I checked that box. Unfortunately you couldn't take photos there so you'll have to take my word for it.

Around the corner and down the hill from Old Town Chambers is Cockburn Street. There are pharmacies (drug stores), pubs, and best of all gelato shops. We spent a lot of time on Cockburn Street.

There's WAY more information on my daughter's post.

Slide Show

Cheval Old Town Chambers

So much of our trip was a semi-repeat of previous trips to Ireland that we wanted to add another country. Why not Scotland? After all, it's nearby.

Pretty much knowing nothing of Scotland we decided to just focus on Edinburgh.

John Mowbray met us at the Edinburgh airport and transported us to Cheval Old Town Chambers. Talk about being in the MIDDLE of everything. We were at the mid-point of the Royal Mile. If we could have just put a pin in a map as to where we wanted to stay, that would have been it.

As noted earlier, we had started planning this trip in 2018 for 2019. From 2018 to 2022, the Old Town Chambers has changed hands but the staff and facility were unchanged. Oh, it had been renovated so it was very fresh and up to date.

Old Town Chambers is a collection of buildings with walkways between them. These walkways traverse welcoming open areas, one with a nice restaurant/bar. The interior hallways wander up and down and around inside the buildings. My son-in-law said that being the architect for those buildings would either be fun or a nightmare.

We had two 2-bedroom suites each with 2 baths, a den, and a laundry area. They were just across the hall from one another. They were incredible accommodations with a staff to match.

You can tell from this photo of the elevator panel that that part of Edinburgh is quite hilly.

Slide Show

John Mowbray Executive Travel & Tours

With all the golf tournaments in Scotland during the time we visited Edinburgh, we had trouble arranging airport transfers and tours. John Mowbray Executive Travel & Tours bent over backwards to serve us. He met our group of 7 at the airport and had a van large enough for our American-sized luggage! He had even tracked our flight and realized that we were going to be late arriving.

The next morning he met us at nearby Deacon Brodies Tavern for a walking tour. When he saw our group included 2 children he immediately changed his agenda to include more Harry Potter sites. Miraculously, he organized the walk to be mostly downhill! Seriously, he arranged the steep steps to be taken downhill and the uphill stretches to be on gentle slopes.

The anecdotes he shared during the visit to Greyfriars Kirkyard cemetery kept both the young and old entertained.

Off to Scotland

After a couple of nights at Ashford Castle, we took all the tires that would hold air and headed back to Dublin.

We had pre-paid for fuel and coasted into the Dublin airport with about 1 liter remaining. The Transport used diesel and the typical cost in Ireland was $8.26 per gallon.

Enterprise didn't blink at what was left of the Transport and even reimbursed us for the replacement tire.

We took Ryanair from Dublin to Edinburgh. For all the hoops that Ryanair imposes on you to buy a ticket, the airport experience was typical airline. Their check-in area was well staffed and moved quickly. Of course, the flight was late but every flight we took was late.

Seven of us flew from Dublin to Edinburgh for a fraction of what we paid per person for Memphis to Dublin.

The Irish airport security (think US TSA) was disorganized and the only difficult clearance we had on the trip.

In spite of the UK's leaving the EU, there was no security, immigration, nor customs for our Ireland to Scotland flight upon our arrival in Edinburgh.

Remember the Suburban

If you've watched any news recently you've certainly seen the bedlam over travel in the summer of 2022.

Our outbound flights on Delta were relatively uneventful except for a leaking lavatory on the ATL-DUB segment. This delayed us for 1 1/2 hours but didn't really impact our travel as we were driving from Dublin to County Cork upon arrival.

Later, we flew RyanAir DUB-EDI. That flight was about 1 hour late but again didn't really impact us. The service providing us transfer from the airport to the hotel was watching our flight and was there when we arrived.

The inbound flights on Delta were a whole different situation.

Our itinerary for our return was EDI-BOS-ATL-MEM. I was so pessimistic that I had reserved a Suburban in Atlanta so we could drive home.

Our EDI-BOS flight was scheduled to depart at 11:55AM. At 5:59AM I got the following text message.

What the ^&*( was DL 1644? The Fly Delta app wasn't any help. Actually it was confusing as it didn't show any flight for the ATL-MEM leg. Remember the Suburban.

On the app, there was a big red "Accept" button. I didn't dare push that.

Our son-in-law is a Delta Diamond Medalion so he could get someone on the phone. Delta thought that with the delay of the EDI-BOS flight that we didn't have time to make the BOS-ATL connection so they wanted to move us to DL 1644. The problem was that the connection time between that flight and the ATL-MEM flight was also too tight. Remember the Suburban.

If we had accepted the changes, we would have surrendered our confirmed seats on the BOS-ATL flight and been waitlisted on DL 1644. Remember the Suburban.

We rolled the dice and didn't accept the changes.

The EDI-BOS flight was even later departing and they made up a few minutes in flight but from touch down to the BOS-ATL scheduled departure was around 40 minutes.

In that 40 minutes, we had to clear US immigration, reclaim our bags, clear US customs, recheck our bags, change terminals (walking through a parking garage), clear US security, make it to our gate, check in, and board. Remember the Suburban.

We did have a few things on our side. Our son-in-law is CLEAR, the entire party is Global Entry, the BOS-ATL flight was late departing, and we had a teen-ager with us.

Global Entry pays for itself every time we use it. We entered the immigration hall at Boston and it looked like Disney World. The lines zigged and zagged all over. I asked a flight crew where the Global Entry kiosks were. He pointed to the far end of the hall and off we went.

The previous time we had used Global Entry, you had to scan your passport, put your full hand on a sensor, and look into a camera. This time all we had to do was put our face in a circle on a screen and we got the magic ticket.

Off we went to reclaim our bags. Customs was a non-event with Global Entry so we slung our bags back on the luggage belt and headed through a parking garage to the domestic terminal.

Once inside the terminal we had to pass through TSA security.

With CLEAR, our son-in-law whisked through security and headed to the gate where the BOS-ATL flight was already boarding.

Even though Global Entry gave all of us TSA Pre✔, the rest of us struggled with security, especially the grandparents. One of us ran the entire way in their sock feet.

Our son-in-law made it to the gate with the teen-ager not far behind. The gate agent was trying to close the door. The teen-ager leaned back into the terminal and said "I can see them coming." She will have to spend some time in confession for that.

We all made it onboard and made our connection in Atlanta. The Suburban got to stay in Atlanta.

We arrived back in Memphis with no incident and on time. I can't say the same for our luggage. It didn't make the connection in Boston.

We went home and went to bed after 15 hours of traveling.

The next morning the Fly Delta app said most of our luggage was still on a flight to Minneapolis. That should have arrived in Minneapolis late the night before.

I called the Delta customer service number and was told that the hold time was 2+ hours. The interactive voice response offered to use Delta's messaging app so I tried that.

Long wait there as well.

"Kindly use the same online resource we access to track checked baggage." What good are they?

Or "reach out directly to our Baggage team at 800-325-8224..." That rolled over to general customer support service with a 2+ hour hold time. In retrospect, that probably was the best alternative.

So I insisted to be connected to Delta's Baggage Service Center using messaging.

After an hour or so of no response, I headed to the airport. All of our bags except one were sitting in the baggage area. The Fly Delta app now showed that remaining bag was arriving from Atlanta. I looked out on the baggage carousel and there it was! All bags present and accounted for.

But I hadn't terminated the messaging dialog with Delta's Baggage Service Center. I kept it active just to see what they knew.

They finally responded 36 hours later.

And we never needed the Suburban.