As most of you know by now, in our lives, or at least my life we live it by the expectation if something can go wrong it will. Sean and I have seen this pattern repeated so often in our marriage that it seems to be the rule not the exception. Heck, the day that we were married our limos did not show up! I decided to drink (actually guzzle or chug) champagne while someone else figured out what to do (and I have pictures to prove it). When bad things do not happen we are always happily surprised and grateful.
So, we decided to go to Rome for the kids half term. The doctor determined that three weeks before we left Youngest Son had strep with scarlet fever. Everyone else seemed fine until the Tuesday before we were to leave and Second Son started with a fever. Sure enough, it was strep and scarlet fever, despite the Dr telling me that there was no way he could get it because he was "too old". We got him on antibiotics and crossed our fingers that no one else would get sick. Youngest Son ended up missing two days of school with a low grade fever probably some minor virus, and was back in school Friday.
Friday, Super Handsome had a flat tire both in the morning and at night. His car, The Tank, is our family car and therefore very important for the trip to the airport. To compound this issue, he has no spare but he does have an automatic tire pump that he was using to re-inflate the tire. Saturday morning he filled the tire and put in something to help seal the unseen hole in it. He had checked the tire thoroughly to see if he could find a nail or screw, but he could not find any reason that the tire would continue to go flat. So, he put in the tire sealing stuff and after a quick chat with the dog sitter we headed off to the airport.
Mind you that I live two miles from one of the three major London airports, Stansted. Did we go out of Stansted airport? Of course not! The airfares were double the price and not worth it, even with what we had to pay in the long term parking at Gatewick. So, to Gatwick we went! Gatewick is about an hour and 15 minutes away from our home.
It has snowed Friday night for the second time in a week and we were a little nervous about being able to get anywhere Saturday morning, they are a bit crazy here when it snows and Super Handsome's car does not handle well on a lot of snow. We flew one of the many budget airlines and our flight was not until something like 2pm. But, since we did not know that airport, we got there very early. The budget airline did not allow me to get seat assignments either, so we wanted to make sure that we at the airport in plenty of time to get our seats together. We arrived at the airport by 11:30am, plenty early. We grabbed McDonalds for lunch and waited for out gate to be posted. As soon as it was, we rushed to the gate and we were rewarded as being first in line. Hooray! Right? Not so fast...
We waited and they delayed our flight, not just once, but many times. The flight was full, very full with over 150 people on board and part of it was a group of students! Great. Since we were first in line Super Handsome got to hear what the staff was saying about the situation. He found out that Rome had been getting snow that day. It rarely snows in Rome, the last time it snowed was 30 years ago. The airports do not have equipment to deal with the white stuff or even ice. So, the airport we flew into, Fiumicino (Rome has three airports) asked the airlines to cancel 50% of their flights going into the city. As each delay grew longer and longer people came up to the desk showing the staff their computers and to prove that at that time there was no snow falling in Rome. Super Handsome listened to the staff talking about how the airline really wanted this plane to end up back at Gatewick that day and it seemed a major concern that they would not be able to get the plane back. I think that the staff at the desk were a bit intimidated because they asked the airline captain to come and speak to us. So, yep, we were canceled!
I spent time on the phone with our booking agent and we kind of followed the que of people around the airport. Some people went home with the urging of the staff to contact the airline, we continued to hang around. At one point though, I was told by the booking agent on the phone that the next flight was not until TUESDAY. Um, yeah, I don't think so buddy. I am so glad that we hung around and waited. They ended up rebooking the flight for the next day, but because I had booked through an agent I had to get them back on the phone before the airline staff would rebook us. Seriously! Once we were on the rebooked flight, we also got vouchers for a hotel and the promise of food!
I had to cancel the night tour of Rome that I had reserved for Saturday evening. The booking agent also canceled Saturday night at the hotel for me. We ended up extending our trip to Sunday the 18th so that we could stay the full week that we had planned.
We arrived at the hotel, the Copthorne and checked into two rooms. The family suites were all taken by the time we arrived, go figure. The hotel seemed to be a nice one, it even had a pool, too bad we could not enjoy it as we neglected to bring swim suits. Dinner, well, was just not so hot. We were envisioning food vouchers, so Super Handsome and my older sons were planning to have steak! The hotel basically a buffet and provided penne noodles in a spicy red sauce or a choice of chicken with gravy, rice, fresh steamed veggies and potatoes. We did not get served any other drinks except for water. The hotel was definitely over extended for the evening as at least one of the front desk staff was pouring water into glasses for fellow diners.
We headed to bed with the expectation that we needed to be on the shuttle bus to the airport bright and early. We had to meet the shuttle bus by 6:05am and we wanted to be sure to be on that bus as the next one was an hour later we felt it was cutting our time to close. We were also worried that one bus would not be enough for everyone and we wanted to get on the first bus out. The early leaving time also meant that we missed the breakfast that the hotel was serving, not that we were really bothered after the dinner disappointment.
We got to the airport and we were sent to the fast ticketing area! Yeah! We saw the many now familiar faces of the people that we had seen for the last 12 hours. We were also given breakfast vouchers so we headed to the food area to grab something for breakfast. We all got our things to eat and then waited again. They posted our gate and we headed over to prepare to board and depart.
Thankfully, all went well and we managed to get to Rome on the 9am flight our of Gatewick. But seriously, what next? <Grins>, you will have to read more to find out!
So, we decided to go to Rome for the kids half term. The doctor determined that three weeks before we left Youngest Son had strep with scarlet fever. Everyone else seemed fine until the Tuesday before we were to leave and Second Son started with a fever. Sure enough, it was strep and scarlet fever, despite the Dr telling me that there was no way he could get it because he was "too old". We got him on antibiotics and crossed our fingers that no one else would get sick. Youngest Son ended up missing two days of school with a low grade fever probably some minor virus, and was back in school Friday.
Friday, Super Handsome had a flat tire both in the morning and at night. His car, The Tank, is our family car and therefore very important for the trip to the airport. To compound this issue, he has no spare but he does have an automatic tire pump that he was using to re-inflate the tire. Saturday morning he filled the tire and put in something to help seal the unseen hole in it. He had checked the tire thoroughly to see if he could find a nail or screw, but he could not find any reason that the tire would continue to go flat. So, he put in the tire sealing stuff and after a quick chat with the dog sitter we headed off to the airport.
Mind you that I live two miles from one of the three major London airports, Stansted. Did we go out of Stansted airport? Of course not! The airfares were double the price and not worth it, even with what we had to pay in the long term parking at Gatewick. So, to Gatwick we went! Gatewick is about an hour and 15 minutes away from our home.
It has snowed Friday night for the second time in a week and we were a little nervous about being able to get anywhere Saturday morning, they are a bit crazy here when it snows and Super Handsome's car does not handle well on a lot of snow. We flew one of the many budget airlines and our flight was not until something like 2pm. But, since we did not know that airport, we got there very early. The budget airline did not allow me to get seat assignments either, so we wanted to make sure that we at the airport in plenty of time to get our seats together. We arrived at the airport by 11:30am, plenty early. We grabbed McDonalds for lunch and waited for out gate to be posted. As soon as it was, we rushed to the gate and we were rewarded as being first in line. Hooray! Right? Not so fast...
We waited and they delayed our flight, not just once, but many times. The flight was full, very full with over 150 people on board and part of it was a group of students! Great. Since we were first in line Super Handsome got to hear what the staff was saying about the situation. He found out that Rome had been getting snow that day. It rarely snows in Rome, the last time it snowed was 30 years ago. The airports do not have equipment to deal with the white stuff or even ice. So, the airport we flew into, Fiumicino (Rome has three airports) asked the airlines to cancel 50% of their flights going into the city. As each delay grew longer and longer people came up to the desk showing the staff their computers and to prove that at that time there was no snow falling in Rome. Super Handsome listened to the staff talking about how the airline really wanted this plane to end up back at Gatewick that day and it seemed a major concern that they would not be able to get the plane back. I think that the staff at the desk were a bit intimidated because they asked the airline captain to come and speak to us. So, yep, we were canceled!
I spent time on the phone with our booking agent and we kind of followed the que of people around the airport. Some people went home with the urging of the staff to contact the airline, we continued to hang around. At one point though, I was told by the booking agent on the phone that the next flight was not until TUESDAY. Um, yeah, I don't think so buddy. I am so glad that we hung around and waited. They ended up rebooking the flight for the next day, but because I had booked through an agent I had to get them back on the phone before the airline staff would rebook us. Seriously! Once we were on the rebooked flight, we also got vouchers for a hotel and the promise of food!
I had to cancel the night tour of Rome that I had reserved for Saturday evening. The booking agent also canceled Saturday night at the hotel for me. We ended up extending our trip to Sunday the 18th so that we could stay the full week that we had planned.
We arrived at the hotel, the Copthorne and checked into two rooms. The family suites were all taken by the time we arrived, go figure. The hotel seemed to be a nice one, it even had a pool, too bad we could not enjoy it as we neglected to bring swim suits. Dinner, well, was just not so hot. We were envisioning food vouchers, so Super Handsome and my older sons were planning to have steak! The hotel basically a buffet and provided penne noodles in a spicy red sauce or a choice of chicken with gravy, rice, fresh steamed veggies and potatoes. We did not get served any other drinks except for water. The hotel was definitely over extended for the evening as at least one of the front desk staff was pouring water into glasses for fellow diners.
We headed to bed with the expectation that we needed to be on the shuttle bus to the airport bright and early. We had to meet the shuttle bus by 6:05am and we wanted to be sure to be on that bus as the next one was an hour later we felt it was cutting our time to close. We were also worried that one bus would not be enough for everyone and we wanted to get on the first bus out. The early leaving time also meant that we missed the breakfast that the hotel was serving, not that we were really bothered after the dinner disappointment.
We got to the airport and we were sent to the fast ticketing area! Yeah! We saw the many now familiar faces of the people that we had seen for the last 12 hours. We were also given breakfast vouchers so we headed to the food area to grab something for breakfast. We all got our things to eat and then waited again. They posted our gate and we headed over to prepare to board and depart.
Thankfully, all went well and we managed to get to Rome on the 9am flight our of Gatewick. But seriously, what next? <Grins>, you will have to read more to find out!
And we KNOW that there will be something bound to happen! :)
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