Showing posts with label Honeymoon SNAFU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honeymoon SNAFU. Show all posts

Monday, February 27, 2012

I Will Finish The SNAFU Honeymoon Story...

5 COOOOOOMMENTS! Now you speak up!
I think a part of me just doesn't want to concede that by telling the last of the story, the entire wedding/honeymoon process is officially over and I have to go back to real life.

For those not in the know or in the loop, please find the previous (horrific by my oh-so-pathetic,  middle-class standards) here:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

The final installment will be here shortly. I promise. I'll even provide real photos of the Maldives. You know, pre-uprising and presidential dethroning.

The New Husband, dining on a chocolate bar as we waited during the final hours at Heathrow Airport. ROMANTIC!


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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Honeymoon Travel From Hell - Part 3

10 COOOOOOMMENTS! Now you speak up!
So... if you are new to the blog, or need a refresher, you can find Post #1 here, and then Post #2 here.

The way it was supposed to be:
- Plane #1 Toronto - Heathrow, London, England (Day 1)
- Plane #2 Heathrow - Columbo, Sri Lanka (Day 1-2)
- Plane #3 Columbo, Sri Lanka - Male, Maldives (Day 2)
- Plane #4 Male, Maldives - Maldivian Resort (sea plane ride) (Day 2)

We arrived at Heathrow in London on AC848 (Plane #1, but not actually the plane we were supposed to be on), hungry and having slept a few hours of that light-annoying-I-can-still-hear-the-people-around-me kind of way. I think it was 8:25am in London, but who are we kidding? My body knew it was really 3:25am REALITY (Ontario) TIME.

I was exhausted, and we had yet to figure out what, if any connections we had ahead of us, and which flights we had to try to book then and there in Heathrow.

We took the very, very long walk to the train to get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 (where the Sri Lankan air desk was located). After a 13 minute wait for the train to arrive, we trained it for 11 minutes to Terminal 3, where, at the Sri Lankan desk, there was not a soul to be found.

We had never considered that flights with a hub in Columbo, Sri Lanka, might not typically depart around 8am. F_ck. So, no help there.

We tried calling Canadian 800 numbers for assistance. Those bitches were sleeping at 3am, yo.
We tried calling some effed up numbers in Sri Lanka, and we couldn't get any of the calls to work, no matter the country code options.

When we got one to work, the person couldn't understand a goddamn word we said.

We tried the useless as f_ck airport information desk, who also tried dialling the same calls, with the same results. She then advised us to come back about an hour before the next Sri Lankan Air flight was set to depart.

"When would that be?" we asked, trying to be polite, feeling cranky as hell, and hoping the response would be in the range of "now" to "soon".

"Well, I don't know, check the boards" she grunted.

If any of you have ever been in an airport, you might notice they have a shit-ton of flights coming and going. And due to that fact, they only show outbound flights over the course of the next few hours on the monitors.

There was not a single Sri Lankan flight.

We took the long, long trek back down to the train, and returned (via an 11 minute train ride, while hauling our luggage) to Terminal 3. Why? Because there was a Star Alliance "arrivals" lounge, thank the gods, so we could access the bloody internet and attempt to figure out what was going on.

In the Star Alliance Arrivals Lounge:

In all fairness, the British women at the Air Canada Arrivals Lounge were absolutely kind and helpful. They helped us find alternate contact numbers for Sri Lankan Air, and were patient with us when The New Husband AKA the Former Feyoncé™ had to use their phone for TWO HOURS to try to get us on Sri Lankan air flights that would get us into Male, Maldives, you know, IDEALLY BEFORE THE END of our honeymoon.

They told us that our entire itinerary was visible on screen to Air Canada agents, including the flights that never connected. Turns out the assholes back in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at Pearson airport just didn't want to take the time to help us out, explain there was a problem, and prevent the mass confusion we endured over the next 20+ hours while trying to rebook.

I ate some wheat and some dairy out of desperation. I had a can of coke. It was about 6am Canada time.

We tried calling our insurance policy, purchased through Expedia.ca, to find out if they would reimburse costs to us for the rebookings. Their response?

"NONE OF IT IS COVERED."

What about the night we are missing at our non-refundable, pre-paid, expensive fancy-pants honeymoon resort in the Maldives?

"NOTHING PRE-PAID IS INCLUDED. See the limitations and exclusion clause at the end of your policy."

WHAT THE F_CK!?!??! We had both reviewed the travel insurance policy, purchased through Expedia.ca and provided by Mondial Assistance, but lo and behold we had missed this imperative clause below:

Um, kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?

So then The New Husband AKA the Former Feyoncé™ tried calling his out of country travel insurance through his work to ask for help.Guess what the person's response was on the phone?

"Didn't you just call me about this? I already told you it's not covered".

NO.WORD.OF.A.F_CKING.LIE.
SAME.FREAKIN'.GUY

Turns out his work coverage is completely identical to the shitty Expedia travel insurance plan, right down to the ONE GUY who answers the phone in the early morn, somewhere in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Unless your travelling companion dies, or some crazy-ass weird shit goes down, or one of you loses a limb under certain conditions only, expect nothing from MONDIAL ASSISTANCE.

It gets confusing here, and I have probably already lost most of you, but the bottom line is that after the The New Husband AKA the Former Feyoncé™ spent hours on the phone in the lounge, and after Sri Lankan hung up on him twice, we were put on a flight departing Heathrow to go to Columbo (Sri Lanka) 3.5 hours later than planned.  This was NOT our final stop, remember, and we had two more connecting flights.

With this new set-up, we were set to take plane #2 and ARRIVE in Sri Lanka at 1:00pm the following day.

The problem?

Despite all our calls and efforts, the next leg of our journey, AKA plane #3, AKA our "connecting" flight, DEPARTED the following day at 11:20am for Male.

See the problem there?

Seems that Sri Lankan Air has not yet grasped the definition of "connecting flight".



We were booked on an impossible connection, unless of course someone had purchased us those time-travelling spacesuits from our wedding registry last minute.

Turns out no one did.

Sadly, the arrivals lounge had to close at 1:00pm, and kick our tired, sorry asses out.
Remember now, we've been awake for about 24 hours at this point. We couldn't check our luggage because there was no one at the counter of our next, uncertain flight.

So we began the 4 hour wait before the Sri Lankan air counter opened up, to find out if the idiots on the phone had actually at least booked us some way to get to destination #2 out of 4.

And there's more....

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Friday, December 9, 2011

Do you want to hear the rest of the honeymoon travel bullshizz?

12 COOOOOOMMENTS! Now you speak up!
The thought of writing it out is already making me feel tired and rage-y.

In one sentence, our honeymoon travel was hell.

You can read about PART ONE here, and, if you haven't yet fallen asleep, PART TWO is here.

Just wondering if anyone gives a shit if I finish the story. If you do, I'll write it, if no one comments, I won't bother.

:)


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Monday, November 21, 2011

Honeymoon SNAFU FUBAR Travel From Hell

16 COOOOOOMMENTS! Now you speak up!
In April, I purchased two tickets for a round trip from YYZ (Toronto, ON) to Male, Maldives (MLE) for our honeymoon in October.

The first leg of the flight was scheduled on Lufthansa (LH5337) which was a codeshare actually operated by Air Canada (AC858).

The round trip flight booked was:

  • YYZ to London LHR on Tuesday (LH5337 / AC858) Departing 11:20pm, arriving Wednesday morning.
  • LHR to Colombo, Sri Lanka CMB on Wednesday (UL512) Departing 6:15pm & Arriving 9:30am Thursday.
  • CMB to Male, Maldives Thursday (UL509) Departing 11:20am & Arriving 12:15pm Thursday.
  • Seaplane transfer by Maldivian Air Taxi on Thursday afternoon (departing no later than 4:30pm due to daylight/safety reasons).

I called Air Canada in mid-July to confirm that there were no issues with our booking, and everything was confirmed.

On the day of departure, The New Husband checked the online status of AC858, which showed it was delayed. No biggie.

We went about our errands, picked up some wedding gift stuff from the Bay, and made dinner. We knew my parents were coming to take us to the airport for around 8:30pm.

Around 5:00pm, as we started to scarf down dinner, The New Husband re-checked the flight.

He got this strange look on his face, and said the following words:

"I think we might be f_cked."

Please note, he hardly EVER swears, and he knows I go from "my normal" to
ohmygodfreakingoutpanic13onascaleof1to10
in about 5 seconds, so I knew this was, to quote a sheep, "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"d.

The flight disappeared, and he asked me to get on the horn with Lufthansa, while he called Air Canada on his cell.

We needed to find out what the f_ck had happened, because the airport stops flying out at a certain time, and if we lost a day and had to catch the same flight the next night, not only would it screw up all our connecting flights, BUT, there was an impending Air Canada flight attendant strike set to begin 40 minutes after the departure time the next night.

If that flight was even 40 minutes late, we could potentially be ROYALLY F_CKED and lose our entire honeymoon.

Lufthansa said they had no idea why the flight was cancelled, and to call Air Canada. Thanks, Lufthansa. Not sure how to say "screw you" in German, but wish I could.

Air Canada had a MAJORhuge call wait time (due to their impending flight attendant strike). The Air Canada employee couldn't figure out why AC858 had seemingly disappeared. (Hmm, I wondered, had they accidentally crossed into the Bermuda triangle?... Oh who am I kidding... I was so upset at that point I was in no position to be joking and/or have a sense of humour and/or maintain control of my bowels and/or... you get the idea. I was barely holding back tears as I started to thrash about the closet in desperate search of a bathing suit.)

The Air Canada employee eventually discovered that AC858 had been removed from the schedule some time ago for that day. However, we were never informed of this and never booked on another Air Canada flight to London.

Ours was to be the last flight of the day, so we couldn't get a later flight, as taking a flight the next day would mean missing our UL512 connection. The only option was to get on AC848,
which left at 8:40pm.

At this point, after the clusterf_ck of all things Lufthansa and Air Canada, and waiting on hold,
it was about 6:00pm.

Now... factor in:
- Packing
- Driving to the airport (no time for my parents to get to our house in time, obviously)
- Finding parking
- Getting through Pearson airport security (which had intentionally "slowed down", I believe, to show support to the impending Air Canada flight attendant strike.)

Cue:
- Stephanie's tears
- Stephanie's irritable bowels
- Oh, shit... um... packing a suitcase in 15 minutes or less. (Good luck with that)

We had not packed yet, and had a 40 minute drive to the airport ahead of us, basically giving 15 minutes to pack for our honeymoon in order to get to the airport in time.

And so our honeymoon began... and this was only the beginning.

It.Got.Worse.

57.5 hours worse.



To Be Continued...



*SNAFU = situation normal all fucked up.
*FUBAR = fucked up beyond all recognition.

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