Imagine being 5 months pregnant and stuck in a room with no water fountain, no toilet and no air conditioning with the weather outside in the 90's. And staff who don't give a damn and won't do anything about it. Yes, all this happened to me at Newark airport!!

The international arrivals terminal at Newark is huge and built to accommodate a large influx of tourists. And the passport control was fast and efficient and the officers very friendly. Also the baggage came quickly and there were loads of staff to help lift cases off of the conveyor belt. But please note what I am about to tell you in case you ever find yourself at Newark with an onward connecting flight. There are toilets right by the baggage claim area. USE THEM. Because you won't get the chance again.

Obviously with the airport closure there were lots of flights arriving where people had missed their onward flights and were having to queue to rebook them. And with it being so late many people had to wait until the next day and see if they could obtain a hotel room from the airline. Mistake # 1 was that the staff required to administer this operation was hopelessly inadequate. About 4 or 5 people at the desk administering to several hundred passengers. So the line didn't move at all. But mistake # 2 was that the designers of this area had never forseen that anyone would spend any amount of time in this area. With the inevitable consequences.

With everyone having to queue for several hours to even speak to an airport official, it took an overwhelming amount of pushing, shouting and rudeness for my husband to bring my plight (and that of a disabled woman) to the attention of an official. By this time I had nearly fainted several times from the heat. They refused to let us out to go to the toilet or to bring any water. When my husband demanded to see someone more senior he was told 'They are all upstairs in the office and can see what is going on on the monitor. They don't need to come down here'.

A woman in the baggage office finally suggested that if I went and spoke to a security guard he might be able to get a female security guard to accompany me outside to the terminal to go to the toilet and return me back again, on condition I carried no luggage or bags of any description. The lady who accompanied me, Lorretta, told me she usually does this quite a lot but only if passengers insist on it. There are no signs or anything else to suggest what can be done if a passenger desperately needs the toilet. As with many things in New York, it seems that only the people who shout the loudest get things done.

When we finally reached our final destination in Cincinnati (on Sunday, having set out from Glasgow on Friday), we discovered that our luggage had been sent somewhere else, in fact it was tagged with someone else's baggage label as we discovered when we finally got it back.

What I can tell you is that if I was an American I would be looking to sue someone. As a Brit I guess I must just cross my legs and warn anyone else likely to arrive at Newark in the near future to bring a bottle of water, a portable fan, something to read and your own seat/bed/megaphone if you want to be sure to get anything done. Oh, and don't forget to use the toilets in the naggage reclaim area before you leave!!