We made it to 2012, and therefore won’t appear on a future episode of Air Crash Investigation. Hoorah!
So onward immediately with the story you’ve all been waiting for, the Christmas Tale.
Let’s start right at the beginning,
those of you who follow me on Facebook will know that I posted a couple
of messages saying we were having ‘issues’. That’s a little
understatement!
We booked the flights & seats in
May, due to the stupid online check-in regs we, unlike the vast majority
of the passengers weren’t able to check-in 24 hours ahead of the
flight. So we arrive 4 hours early for our flight. To be told our seats
don’t exist.... United had changed the plane, and so our nice bulkhead
seats with child’s sleeping cot were now taken by someone who had
checked in online. Great. Next step was to give us seats, 35E &
45D... er yeah, 18month old child and we’re sat 10 rows apart... I don’t
think that’s acceptable either!
We paid for an upgrade... basically
because we really didn’t feel we had a choice. We ended up with a row
of 3 seats, so Ryan slept on the seat in between us, laying flat, and
with me staying awake to ensure he didn’t roll off onto the floor. I’ve
jumped ahead just to give you the full story... allow me to return to
the next chronological event.
We got on the plane, Ryan was
knackered, but restless, he dived off the seat and bounced on the floor,
this made him cry a lot.... but as he was being held he quickly fell
asleep. Evil Dad noted that fact for reference and pointed out we could
always bounce him off the floor anytime if it proved a working
solution!
The flight was due off at 10pm..... it
didn’t leave.... we got a message that the anti-icer was jammed.... 4
times they tried to get going. No luck! Eventually at midnight, we
were told to leave the plane, go to another gate where another plane was
ready. The moving woke Ryan up... now he wanted to play! Then we were
told that the 2nd plane would leave at 1.15am, but if it didn’t, we’d
probably need a new crew! So we all rushed on, and finally left IAD.
When we landed at LHR it was a quick
exercise to go through, Jessica & Ryan scammed in the UK entry with
me (Result!) and then we had to find the car.... when we got the Hertz
shuttle bus we saw the nice shiny Hertz HQ... and the HQ of the company
we had hired the car from was basically a porta-shack. Brilliant! Even
more brilliant was them saying “oh, your reservation isn’t with us, and
besides we have no cars for hire! Try Hertz”. Thanks Orbitz, you
incompetent monkeys! Fortunately Hertz was the right place and by 4.30
we were buzzing back to my parents house.
To be continued in the next entry......
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