Adventures in Travel...

I thought I'd start a thread where we can vent about the crazy situations that come up during travel (planes, trains, automobiles, buses, tubes/subways, lorry, rickshaw, whatever! Ok to vent here   )

I am happy the Gatwick fire alarm today lasted all of 15 minutes.  Got on my flight OK.

UKY participants got an earful of me on the IA thread regarding crazy Christmas/New Year's Eve flights thanks to tons of snow and now, thanks to the volcano, more fun stories.

Thunderstorms last July threw the plane around when we were landing and it was really scary (and I'm on a plane all the time and have seen it all!)

Flybe's baggage allowance and carry on luggage size drives me mental.  

I loathe the stupid Gatwick-Heathrow hop I am constantly doing.  In fact, I just loathe Gatwick airport.  

But my biggest vent for today is why does this crazy stuff happen to me when I'm flying on my own personal money - but never when I'm traveling for work, with huge coffers behing me and gazillions of travel resources available to me to make it right?  

 

Thank goodness you are home now, pb!  And you did get to meet Jamie Oliver once while travelling, right?    Not that it makes up for all of your travel troubles since then.

I had a crazy travel experience coming back from my first visit to my then boyfriend (now hubby).  Because of the times of my flight (long story--had to fly Manchester to Shannon first, then Shannon to NYC) I spent the night on a bench in Shannon airport.  I was cold and uncomfortable and didn't sleep. 

In the morning an announcement was made that any travellers from my flight please report to the info desk.  Because I had spent the night and it was very early, I was the only one from my flight there.  I was told there were mechanical problems and the flight would be cancelled.  However, they put me on an earlier flight since there was a bit of room left.  "Cool!"  I thought.  Well it was better than cool!  When I got on the plane I was directed to the left instead of the usual right side of the plane.....I was in first class!!  I was stunned and amazed.  But I was so tired I couldn't really enjoy it, I fell asleep immediately.  At least I got some fresh squeezed OJ and had lots of room to spread out when I fell asleep.

My worst trip ever was flying with Mr MLG from Vancouver via, I think it was Chicago, to Heathrow.

We had to go through American security before boarding the plane and his allergy creams set off the sniffer dogs. Our bags were searched without any care for the contents and the guy was about to open a carefully wrapped painting I was bringing back to the UK from out of storage, when the guy with the dog asked about meds, which, when shown to security, made the dog go berserk! We then had to run to our terminal, as we barely made last call and Mr MLG got shoe checked for security reasons.

That is the last time we ever flew via the US back to the UK to save money. Now we only buy direct flight tickets. 

We had flights booked to go to Serbia for a music festival on 7/7/05, the day London was bombed!

I was supposed to meet my boyfriend (now fiance) at Liverpool Street Station and get the Stansted Express, but everything was closed and the mobile networks were jammed so he just walked up to my house on Hackney Road and turned up at the front door. We rang the airline (on the landline) to confirm our flight was still happening, so we wouldn't get any compensation if we missed it, even though all public transport to the airport and half the streets in London were closed!!

So we walked with our baggage, from Hackney Road, down Whitechapel High Street (past the hospital where all the Aldgate East victims were taken), past the giant mosque, past Aldgate East, tons of tv cameras, tons of police with helicoptors circling overhead. We made it to Fenchurch Street Station which was still open because it doesn't have a tube station in it (all tube stations were closed) and got one of the last trains out of London, getting out at Upminster to my boyfriend's parents house, where we had to borrow their car to drive to Stansted, and we made it to the checkin desk with a mere 5 minutes to spare!! Only to be told the flight was now delayed for an hour. ha.

We flew to Budapest just fine, and got the midnight train to Serbia, and were chatting to the Serbian people our age in our carriage - one of the girls said "oh why would you ever want to visit our bombed-out country?" then stopped herself, looked horrified considering London was just bombed and turned beet red! It really broke the ice and we had a brilliant holiday, all told, and followed the events in London on the hotel tv.