Monday to Wednesday were really quiet. I relaxed, I wrote blogs, and I let my arm recover.
On Thursday it was time to head off to visit Doris and some of Manjas family who live in the same area nearby.
It was a great tea and a good coffee!
Manja and I had been turning into a frequent traveler duo, so we felt well prepared – Get to the airport after work on Thursday, fly over to Köln, pick up a rental car and head to a central Airbnb. From there we’d visit everyone. So we met up and bussed it to the airport, wizzing through security, only to find an unusually large crowd with a lot of delayed flights.
Not to worry, say we, and have a coffee and a tea while we wait….
A few announcements later the plane is delayed further and we’d be leaving 2-3 hours late, then without an announcement the screens change to this:
Wait, what? That would throw a spanner in the works! So we head to the counter at the gate, which is obviously the SAME idea EVERYONE else on the (fully booked!) flight had. The attendant there was on the phone while desperately trying to answer questions from all sides. Honestly, that kid deserved a medal – he managed to remain calm while about 150 irritated passengers wanted his attention RIGHT NOW.
We pushed around the back to hear his responses to other people – which was basically “First: I’m not easyJet. I’m a check-in clerk, I can’t change your bookings. Only the person at the counter can do this, and I’m pretty sure she’s already gone home. Use the App, with the flight canceled you can rebook your flight and get hotel accommodation for tonight”
He was right – the person at the counter had left before the onslaught of upset passengers – three flights were canceled! Manja checked the app and noticed that the flight hadn’t been canceled on the app. The clerk made more calls and it eventually showed up as canceled. So we booked a hotel… which was on the other side of Berlin. Nowhere near the airport. Also there was a problem with the booking, so the app told us to call their Helpdesk. So I did and after 10 minutes on the phone was greeted by a very friendly lady who basically told us that we have to talk to the lady at the counter to fix the problem…. Remember the one who had gone home? Yeah that one. I explained the impossibility of that request in painstaking detail. She then advised us to fix it “Through the app”… which was telling us to call her. But she insisted she couldn’t do anything for us at all, as her system did not have access. I asked who did and the said the lady at the counter. As I was about to blow a gasket, she also offered “Perhaps you can settle it with the hotel directly?” which I passed on to Manja who told me to stay calm and try it. So I (reluctantly) hung up and called the hotel. They were amazing and we were booked in not 5 minutes later. We were also supposed to take a non-existent shuttle bus to the hotel, so we took a taxi for the 40 minute trip.
When we got there I have to say that the experience at the hotel was simply amazing. No issues checking in, dinner vouchers were ready for us and the room was fantastic. We even managed to book ourselves onto the first flight the next day and pre-book a taxi and a take-along breakfast box, all charged to the airline. We canceled the Airbnb and let the car rental place know we’d be coming in the morning instead, both were fine about it, and we’d get the money back from the airline anyway.
And really: We got this awesome dinner for free too!
About the only problem was that we were going to have to get up at 4 am to make the 6am flight: Because we were so far away from the airport. None the less we went to sleep feeling quite happy with the fortune of a nice hotel and dinner.
Listening to…
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