Delays, delays, delays!

Right now, I'm sat in an armchair in our room in the Crowne Plaza Heathrow hotel. We've got ITV news on the TV, Meryn is led under the covers about to have a nap, and Tom is laughing because he's lounging around in his boxers and he thinks it's hilarious.

If everything yesterday had gone to plan, instead of being sat here watching an advert about cat food, we would have been sat in the airport in Manila waiting for our connecting flight to Melbourne. In fact, by the time I finish writing this I think our flight will have actually taken off! With us still here in the UK, what a great start!

Our flight last night was delayed due to a "technical fault". We were getting updates every 15/20 minutes that were pretty much just us being told we would have to wait another 15 minutes for an update. Eventually, at half 11 (40 minutes after our original take-off time) we were told that our flight had been cancelled and was being rescheduled for the following day. They also said that they were going to organise hotel rooms and transfers for all of us.

What followed must have been an absolute nightmare for the poor air crew. I think there was about 300 of us? And they had to organise us into groups of certain numbers to fit in with the numbers the hotels had given, and organise us into coaches to get us there. Add to that the fact that to leave the airport we had to be escorted outside, and we had to go back through passport control, it was 00:30 before we were sat on a coach outside the terminal.

They brought us here where we all queued for rooms and by about 1:30am the 3 of us were all very glad to be tucked up in bed! We have a double double-bed room, we've had free breakfast (full English!) and a free lunch (buffet style, it was lovely!), and we're all enjoying feeling clean and refreshed with somewhere comfortable to wait!

The only downside is that the airline have kept our luggage meaning we only have what we've got in our hand luggage. Somehow I'm the only one that didn't put spare clothes in my hand luggage?! I even remember thinking I should put a change of clothes and underwear in there, just in case but apparently I decided that wasn't needed. Thankfully Meryn had new, unused underwear that I could borrow, and a t-shirt I could sleep in so that I didn't have to sleep in my travelling top but really, how did my organisational skills fail me there?!

We've been updated on our flight status and we have to check out of our rooms at 4pm, and be in the reception by 4:10pm the latest because we're being picked up and taken to the airport at half past. We'll find out the details of our new flight once we're there (I'll text you the deets Mum don't worry!) and we'll find out about our new connecting flight as well. We're definitely all glad that our connecting flight is with Philippine Airlines as well because it means they're rearranging that one for us as well. So that's one less worry for us!

For now we're all making full use of the many plugs we have in here, to make sure everything is charged up and ready to go. We're also going to shower again before we leave - prolong the feeling of being clean for as long as possible!

Hopefully my next update here will be from Melbourne, or Auckland. We're all excited and ready to go!