Major travel FAIL

[talllikejerryhall]

I am not in Greece right now, nursing a glass of rose while my daughter frolics on the beach. I am sat in slightly chilly hotel room, ten minutes from Gatwick airport, gradually recovering from the horror of this morning.

We were on time. All was well. We’d gone to pret, had some porridge, it was 430am, but who cares, we were off to GREECE, baby!

I have a little pootle around the shops, come back and DH says he’s gonna pop to WH Smith with DD. I’m like yeah, cool.

Then, I wait. Then wait some more. I’m beginning to feel alarmed as it’s 530 and our flight’s at 5.55.

Can’t see em. I call his various phones (man’s got more phones than a drug dealer) and can’t get through (though not a good one).

Then, I see them like distant specks in the flow of airport humanity.

I’m like WTF dude, we are gonna be late!

Look at the board with alarm to see our destinations isn’t there 🤔

Grab some guy with a lanyard and beg him to tell me which gate to go to - he’s nice, starts fiddling with his phone (probably a little frightened). His internet won’t connect.

A cold sweat is beginning to form - we run to the information kiosk where an overweight blonde lady is asking a making an inquiry about the vegan options on her flight.

She can see by the crazed look on my face that now is a good time to step aside.

The easyJet lady gives it to me straight: you’ve missed the flight - the gate closed five minutes ago.

But she gives me the gate number! 🙌

And I live in a beautiful place called Triumphant Denial - so I shout DH and jog heavily, lugging DD in ever more uncomfortable positions. Out of my way folks, we have a plane to catch 🙋🏻‍♀️

We finally get there and i see the EasyJet lady and I beg - implore her - to let us on the flight, tears filling my eyes.

She has no idea what the hell im talking about - she just got here and she’s opening the gate for the next flight.

The penny is dropping through the air... and thud. We have missed the goddamn flight. I look at DH all ready to lose my shit, but you know what - losing my shit isn’t going to magically transport us to Thessaloniki. My rage is an awesome thing, but it doesn’t propel me though the sky - I KNOW THIS.

So we trudge back up to the information kiosk and EasyJet lady is sat there looking at us with a mixture of mild derision and pity - the pity was the WORST. We sit there waiting to be taking back through security, looking like the most miserable, unhappy, opposite-of-holiday-makers gang you could imagine. Like, hmmm I don’t think I wanna get on a plane with those weirdos, they literally look suicidal.

We are joined the other idiots who somehow managed to miss their flights WHILE IN THE AIRPORT. No one’s making eye contact.

We rebook our flights for tomorrow and agree that waking up at 2am in woodford is too ground hog day for words and besides we are TIRED.

So here I am, listening to DD gently snore and recording the tale of our epic idiocy, trying to get DH to pore through the travel insurance to see if here is any way we can somehow recoup the £400 we’ve spent on this almighty screw up. He says that there’s no insurance for being an idiot.

But hope springs eternal.

You know what is REALLY annoying about this whole fiasco? He didn’t even BUY the thing he was queuing for, cause he got tired of waiting.

Aaah ,so easily done OP .Especially when you're at the airport at 4/5am .

We nearly missed our Ryanair flight from Stansted to Italy this summer .No tannoy announcements and we have only flown 3 times ( long time ago ) in our lives .

I did also miss a Gatwick flight ( not my fault ,became v unwell in airport ) .Waiting to be moved out of airside with a group of others I rather stupidly said to one elegant women "Oh well ,no one's died "
She replied " My husband has been in a serious accident ......."

Draw a line under it OP ,enjoy your holiday

I have sympathy op. I am early for everything. Have never been late for anything. Have flown loads. But once I was in the departure gate reading. Had assumed that everyone around me was on the same flight so didn’t keep an eye on what was happening at our departure gate. Until dh notice that ours was flashing last call. Everyone else sat around us were on a different flight.

I am not so blasé about boarding now.

Don't like your writing...especially this sentence. Very poor choice of words.

"Like, hmmm I don’t think I wanna get on a plane with those weirdos, they literally look suicidal."

Turned up a day late for my flight to Alicante..
Took the lady a good 10minutes to convince me I was wrong. I was ever so apologetic afterwards.

Also, we queued up for the Isle of Wight ferry instead of our cruise ship to Spain once.. Only realised when we tried to give our ticket in, and then had a tense 10minute drive to the correct dock where we made it with seconds to spare. Could have ruined a fortnight holiday as the ship only sailed once a week.

you're right

there's no insurance for being an idiot

exh had the dcs and was meant to meet me at the airport with all our luggage and the kids and I was going straight from work and due to meet them at T5 Heathrow.

I arrive at the airport, see exh arriving with the dcs. He was hugely disorganised so looked very chuffed with himself. He said see, I'm here on time AND I've remembered the children.

I said that's absolutely wonderful exh, aren't you fucking brilliant, but where's the luggage?

and he had forgotten it all. 2 week holiday to see my family with no clothes. Didn't have time to turn around and go back so we had to go without it all.

I forgot my passport once. In my defence I was only 14 and going away with the Guides. Mum was not impressed. Luckily one leader and I were able to get the next flight instead. Oh the shame.

Aaah ,so easily done OP

It really, really is not easily done. It is super-dumb.

We’re pretty relaxed travellers but we do make sure we’re at the gate for when it opens. Wandering around after that is just a recipe for disaster. The gate time is on your boarding card. EasyJet is absolutely unrelenting on times, I missed the bag drop time for a flight recently (train broke down) and had to check it at the gate even though the flight was delayed. At least now your DH has all the shopping he needs and you can relax at the gate well ahead of time tomorrow.

We nearly missed a flight through

checking in ridiculously early!! After a potter round we were waiting, looking at a departure board and our flight did not come up as go to gate. Thinking that time was getting on we decided to go to the gate any way and, well, we weren't the last there but almost were. It was only once we were on board that we found out that the whole system had gone down so the departure boards weren't being updated - had we checked in later then we would have known.

And then there was a delay as the luggage count didn't match. Not us I hasten to add!!

I agree that the comment re the blonde lady was unnecessary and unkind - I am sorry about this.

I was just sharing the story in the spirit of marvelling at how dopey we'd been - nothing more

Peace ✌️

Oh OP, I feel for you! Hope you have a great holiday when you get there... chalk it up to a lesson learned and well done for taking it in such good humour!

In my late teens I tried to fly to USA with an expired passport (I hadn’t checked)... didn’t get further than the departure gate obvs, and you could hear my hysterical crying from space.

DH went one better... about 12 years ago he flew all the way to India without the required visa because a friend told him he didn’t need one. So he had to fly all the way back to the UK again. Booked cheap non-direct flights so the whole thing took almost a week!

Enjoy your Rose when you get it

I think it could be a LTB situation!

A lot of airports don't do announcements any more so it really is important to be at the gate on time, especially if you're on speedy boarding. Hopefully you will all learn from this mistake.

I was on a Last & Final call recently but i'd sprinted the length of the airport to make my connecting flight!

You’ve upset a lot of overweight mumsnetters!

I am finding it hard to believe you didn’t lose your shit with DH. Are you plotting some sort of Greek revenge?
You will laugh about it in a few months. I’ve never done this but I have booked the wrong date (return leg, realised on the outbound flight) and not allowed enough time to get to the airport.

We almost did it over the summer. DH leaves children and all the hand luggage with me to go and buy something and we arrange to meet at certain place 30 minutes later. 50 minutes later DH still isn't there, he's not answering his phone and the gate has been up for 20 minutes already. Then it flashes to final call.......decide to just go without him, so we all start running through the airport (with the hand luggage) turn up and there is DH standing in the line to board.

Apparently he couldn't find us so thought we'd gone to the gate already and his phone was on silent.

I don't get how any of that happened. How did you not already know your gate number?

Last week my husband and I went to the wrong airport in Brussels. Hadn’t realised we had booked return flights from a different airport to the one we had flown into.
A 6 hour wait and £500 for new flights (the originals had cost £20) later we had definitely learned a lesson.

Oh you poor thing. I hate flying, I am so worried and anxious and have to check everything over and over. Well done on not flying off the handle.

Try to enjoy your hotel and look forward to the rest of the holiday.

Next time sit where you can see the departure board

Suicidal weirdos isn’t very nice either op to be honest.

Not RTFT, but this is exactly why I park my bum at any gate or whatever hours before it actually goes anywhere.
Be it a train or a bus or a plane.
Seriously, hate being late for anything or have the fear of missing connections etc.
Not kidding, MIL gives me anxiety when I go anywhere with her, as she is the exact opposite and fannies around in shops, duty free,needs the bog etc pootling round like there's all the time in the world and in reality there's literally a 5 minute window so get a fkn move on already!!!

I'm sorry you missed your flight, but your attempts to come across as funny have fallen foul overweight blonde and suicidal looking plane passengers is just not funny. (I am not being sensitive - I am not overweight).

By the way, your husband is a nob for going off shopping when you should have all been making your way to the gate.

Friends of mine missed their flight because one of them misread/misheard the Gate Number. So they were at Gate 50, say, when they should have been at Gate 7. No time to get to the proper gate so they missed the flight and had to wait around to see if they could get booked onto the next one.

You won't be the first or the last to do it. I'm surprised you didn't kill your DH!

My DH forgot that the flight times for our flight back from hols this year had changed - only info was an update email and he only looked at the original booking email. Fortunately it was several hours later rather than earlier. But we were all up, ready to go and get an early breakfast before leaving, only to discover our flight wasn't until 5pm.

I was meant to go o holiday with a friend a few years ago, we were in our early 20's. It was the first time for her to travel abroad. When we arrived to the check-in desk, turns out her ID card (spanish) had expired. She didn't have a passport. She couldn't take the flight, so I traveled on my own. That was my first trip to London, it was lovely . I now have been living here for nearly 13 years

Another one...a friend of mine got through security and to board what he thought it was his flight. Once on the plane someone else arrives with his same seat number. It turns out, his flight was for the day after, he went one day before and somehow he went through all the checks without anyone realising it was for the wrong date...the flight attendant told him she will talk to the first officer and he may allow him to travel on that flight (there were spare seats), but the first officer said no, he had to leave the plane and come back the day after.

You’ve upset a lot of overweight mumsnetters!

Why do you assume everyone who thought it was rude is overweight?

OP I genuinely don't understand - did you DP not know the time of the flight? What was his excuse?