Gone are the glamorous days of travel!
Friday 28 June
Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Today started off with such promise, Stella, Chloe and I are off to Barcelona for a week, and we were all so excited as we got the taxi to Fiumicino Airport for our 1pm flight on my (un)favourite airline, Ryanair. All checked in, we waited at the gate, the flight was slightly late, but other than that everything was going swimmingly…….until we went to board the aircraft. Stella and Chloe travelling on their Italian ID cards and me with my passport…..not possible we were told, Chloe is under 14 years and needs a police letter giving her parents’ permission for me to take her out of the country if she is travelling on an ID card – no problem if she is travelling on her passport, which is British. I wasn’t sure about them using their ID cards as opposed to their passports, so I checked on the Schengen site last night and yes, it was fine for them to fly from Italy to Spain. However, we now know that certain countries, Italy being one of them, require this police letter. So that was that - no go for us. I had checked in baggage and the Ryanair girl at the gate was not best pleased about hearing this as it’s all about them making money from keeping their planes in the air and they now were not only already slightly delayed, but had to find our bags and offload them. Have to say I took a little bit of pleasure from that at least!
So, it was back to reclaim our bags and whilst waiting for them I sat in the baggage area, got my laptop out and found us three seats on the Vueling flight to Barcelona leaving at 7.25pm tonight and Clari had confirmed that she would be able to get a friend to drive her to the airport and give us the girls’ passports. Clari arrived at 5.30pm and off we went to the Vueling check in – all done and boarding cards in hand we made our way to the Gate for our 6.45pm boarding.
And yes, when things go wrong, they usually continue to go wrong……we were standing in the queue, for the second time today, and there was no sign of a plane. Next minute, an announcement….our flight is delayed due to Air Traffic Control problems across Europe, and we will now be boarding at 11.45pm for a take off time at 12.30am and an arrival in Barcelona at 2.15am, and to our hotel at 3.15am.
What a day, by the time we take off, we will have been here for 13 ½ hours – for a 1 hour 45-minute flight! Not only that, but it also cost me $1560 dollars for the three new flights (and of course, nothing refunded from Ryanair as it wasn’t their fault)!!!!
I never thought when I got up this morning that I would be “enjoying” breakfast, lunch and dinner at Fiumicino Airport today!
We got to bed at 4.00am!
