Summer 2026 Graduation Celebration: Edinburgh, London, Disneyland Paris, Paris - Day 1 Edinburgh

 May 27 and 28 - travel to Edinburgh 

We didn’t have the smoothest travel to Europe. When originally booking our tickets, we had multiple options to get to Edinburgh and one of those was the direct flight from Austin to Heathrow that runs every day. However, Heathrow is not super fun so we decided to book Austin to Philadelphia and then Philadelphia to Edinburgh. We had a pretty lengthy connection in Philadelphia so I wasn’t too concerned. We got to the airport around 10:30 AM for our 12:15 PM flight and while waiting for our flight, got a notification that it was delayed until 2 PM and the new time would put us in past the departure time for our flight to Edinburgh. So I got in the insane line at the gate and while waiting I called American. The phone agent left us on the same (delayed) flight to Philadelphia and then rebooked us on a flight from Philadelphia to Heathrow and then connecting to Edinburgh. Great. Exactly what we tried to avoid, but there weren’t really any other options. 

So we waited. Then I got a notification that the flight was further delayed. It was still okay, but I called again anyway just in case they could get us on the earlier flight to Philadelphia at 2:10 PM that some other people who waited in line got booked on. It was full. Then the flight got delayed again to 6:00 PM which would have us missing the flight to Heathrow so I had to call again. There was another flight at 4:30 PM out of Austin, thankfully. I ran to the newsstand and bought some overpriced snacks to hold us over until “dinner” on our 10:10 PM flight to Heathrow because we wouldn’t have time to get anything in Philadelphia since now we only had right at an hour to change planes in Philadelphia. As long as that flight wouldn’t be delayed, we would be fine. Well…yep, you guessed it! Delayed again. Thankfully in the air they were able to make up some time and the flight attendant asked all passengers without connections to wait for a bit so everyone connecting could get off. We HOOFED it through the airport from one side to the other (literally it was over a quarter of a mile - I was curious and measured it).

While we had been en route to Philadelphia, I got a notification that our seats had changed. When I looked at the change, it looked like we had been upgraded! We got to the gate and they were already boarding so we were able to get right on and settle into our seats in business class! Oh yah! The first right thing to happen all day. So we’re sitting and waiting for our 10:10 PM flight to Heathrow and we get a notification that, you guessed it, delayed! The catering wasn’t delivered. It wasn’t even ready and they told us they had to make it and then bring it and it was over 20 minutes drive away. We finally left Philadelphia a little after 11:30 PM. What was originally over 2 hours layover in Heathrow was suddenly going to be around an hour, which is almost not doable to transfer in Heathrow because you have to go back through security after going through customs and passport control.

Business class is amazing and I slept better than I ever have on any transatlantic flight, even though it still wasn’t enough time. How can I go back? I’m going to have to because it’s just too much money. How did we get upgraded? No clue. Maybe they felt bad for us. Thanks for the ice cream sundaes, American. 

They made up a bit of time in the air and we got into Heathrow with 90 minutes to make our connection, which was just enough time to grab some breakfast items (even though we sort of had “breakfast” on the plane). But then, you’re never going to guess what happened next. Yes, delayed. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering about that original flight to Philly that was delayed multiple times, it eventually was cancelled.) We finally arrived in Edinburgh 8 hours after our originally scheduled time and collected our baggage. By this time we had missed our reservation for lunch and our entry into Edinburgh castle. I emailed to ask if we could move it and was told it was full for the rest of the time we were there so we missed that attraction.

When we collected our bags, one of our suitcases was missing a wheel so Roger was pulling it tilted on the two opposite wheels. We took the tram into town and while walking to our hotel (Premier Inn City Central - Lauriston Place) another wheel popped off (must have been hanging by a thread) so then he pulled it on its narrow side on the two remaining wheels. We got checked in and they thoughtfully refunded our early 11 AM check-in fee I had paid for since originally we were supposed to get in at 7:30 AM. After we freshened up we then headed out to dinner. I was able to rebook our lunch spot, Bertie’s Famous Fish and Chips, for dinner. It was pretty meh. It was in a really touristy area on Victoria Street, and I should have known better, but it had good reviews online so maybe the tourists have really low standards. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. Lesson learned! 

After dinner we explored Victoria Street and Princes Street and checked out the Scott Monument. We had hoped to visit Princes Street Gardens but it closes earlier than expected (I hadn’t checked the closing time since originally we would be there so much earlier in the day) so we weren’t able to do that. Then Emmaline did a little shopping at Primark, a favorite of hers, and we looked for a suitable suitcase replacement but didn’t find anything we liked overly much. Then we tried to find something for dessert but the first place we tried was closed and we ended up splitting a sundae that was a little bit too sweet. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed into bed.