Over the next few weeks I’m going to share my travel adventures from Marrakech but first I thought I would get rid of the really bad stuff that happened on our city break. So this is what happens when city break weekends go wrong!
I thought you deserved a photo of kittens as this is going to be a bit of ranty blog post! I wish I pinched these little fluff balls…
Silly Flight Times
Unfortunately we didnt have much choice on our flight times as we needed to fly British Airways as G was doing a 160 tier point run to keep his silver membership. Currently the flights depart from Gatwick Airport which for us is a right pain in the bottom as we live north of Luton Airport and the flight left at just before 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. This meant we had to leave Bedfordshire at 10am, get caught up in traffic on the M25 and then we had to try and find the Ibis Hotel at Gatwick Airport so we could park the car; it was almost a 12 hour door to door journey. Hence I will never complain about a red eye flight ever again…as it eliminates the traffic issue or hey why not stay at the airport the night before so you arrive fresh as a daisy to the airport.
Following a Sat Nav
Now as a female I listen to the Sat Nav on most occasions (however we occasionally fall out, possibly as I haven’t updated her since I bought her back in 2008!) but on this occasion it was G and his lack of information. G books the car parking and the hotel (if needed); he gave me a street name but not the number hence we ended up at the wrong end of the road, and it was a pretty long road! G was lucky to survive this 15 minutes of his life, really really lucky – his 160 tier points almost got shoved up his *^()*)!
Shock Horror, it’s Security!
I dont understand why security at an airport is such a shock to people especially the frequent flyers in the fast track lane. If you have one child and both parents are travelling together, for goodness sake, take the kid out of the pram and dismantle the pram just before you get to the front of the queue so you don’t hold every other traveller up behind you. Rant over!
The British Airways Lounge
Firstly I always find the BA lounge lacking when it comes to gluten free food; I’ve written a post about what its like to fly with BA as a gluten free traveller.
But my biggest gripe with the lounge was the inconsistency of their announcements. Some of the flights had announcements saying that gates were open while other flights didn’t. I admit I should have checked the screens myself but with 5 minutes before our flight was due to take off we realised that our flight was closing…..$*(£^(@&$*…..run Forest run!
Running though Gatwick Airport
I seriously don’t recommend running through Gatwick Airport especially when your boobies are not secured snuggly inside a sports bra. But why oh why do other travellers just step in front of you as you run through the terminal – I may have taken out a few grannies!
Flight Closed means Final Call
Yeah this made me angry a lot! Running through the terminal, the screens said Flight Closed however on arriving at the gate (wheezing and almost dying), the screen at the gate said Final Call – honestly!! So until they call my name out over the tannoy in future – the flight isn’t closed!
Heavy Breathing
So after the unexpected bout of exercise and the share panic that I was going to miss my flight (the first time ever I might add!); I got rather breathless. I thought this was hay fever however G tells me it was my asthma – nothing like the plane taking off down the run way when you are still wheezing and have a pounding chest and then realise you don’t have an inhaler with you. I’m pretty sure it was hay fever though…
Hayfever
Yeah so I’m blaming the unexpected bout of exercise for my hay fever or whatever made me sick on the weekend; if I have another blood nose….Grrr
Fighting in Immigration
Seriously Marrakech Airport, you need to sort out your immigration process out – 2 hours to process about 5-7 flights! So an orderly queue was formed and then an internal flight arrived and the locals don’t queue hence pushing started and then fist fights. It was the first time I have ever been afraid for my life in an immigration queue.
But it gets even better; the English wonder why they have a certain reputation as travellers….well here is a pretty good reason; playing rap music loudly with the N word getting bleated out at regular intervals in an immigration queue just isn’t cool.
The airport to hotel transfer
So I decided to book a dodgy transfer via the internet rather than booking a taxi via the hotel (on the advice of one of the dodgy guys at work). I couldn’t find our name on any taxi boards at the airport so on locating the email on my phone I found the company and asked where our driver was – apparently the website hadn’t passed our booking onto the third party that was carrying out our transfer so lucky for us the girl that they were picking up was behind us in the queue otherwise we would have had no transfer.
When hotels go wrong
I took a chance on a hotel and it didn’t pay off on this occasion so we checked out early. I live by a 3 strikes and I check out rule – I will write a full review on the hotel later.
Dubious Check In
Checking into a 5 star hotel you would expect a pretty fabulous check in however at our second hotel the communication was pretty pants. So imagine a very very hungry kiwi traveller waiting to check for almost 1.5 hours in the lobby while my other half enjoys a drink in the bar (I waited patiently until my tummy got the better of me and the grizzly bear appeared!). I joined G in the bar for food and told reception to find me there!
Flight Delays
I went old school and actually wrote this post in my little notebook as some lovely passenger decided that they didn’t want to fly to Marrakech on the inbound flight so they had to locate and unload their bags which then meant the plane got caught up in the hail storm which grounded flights for over 30 minutes hence we arrived into Gatwick at 11.50pm! My first management meeting was 8am the following morning which meant my alarm went off at 4.30am; sugar got me through Wednesday.
Holiday Spamming via Wifi
I’ve experienced the good, the bad and the ugly in Marrakech when it comes to wifi. Such a simple thing that stops you having the ability to spam everyone back at home with your photos of blue skies and lush hotel pools.
So I’m glad that I’ve got that all off my chest now (I have got a rather large chest) and yes this all happened on our weekend in Marrakech.
Once I was fed, the happy traveller returned! And I should point out that I do love Marrakech and this was my third visit to the city.
So what are your horror stories from when City Break weekends go wrong?
xx
If you liked this post on When City Break Weekends Go Wrong then why not come and join me on Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest – I won’t bite!
