It's quite a long journey down to Cape Town. If a crow was able to read my Blog, then it would have to fly a total distance of 9,892 kms assuming no diversions for bad weather. For the older readers out there, in old money, it comes to 6,148 miles. For Linda and I, it entailed a journey via Leeds Bradford airport, London Heathrow and Johannesburg before reaching our final destination. Connecting flights, luggage and immigration all come into play but with a little luck and a following wind, we felt that this year it would be a breeze because we had confirmed flights all the way to Cape Town.
We avoided, just, the fog and ensuing cancellations at Heathrow and despite a slightly late departure from London, BA were able to get us to Johannesberg absolutely on time, allowing us to clear immigration in plenty of time for our connecting flight...or so we thought!
Baggage collected, head for BA check in with booking reference and copy of receipt for tickets purchased. Simples. Actually, no! No record of my booking could be found by the check-in agent despite lengthy interrogation of the British Airways computer system. "This is rubbish" I say with frustration building as every minute passes and the chance of making our 0920 flight to Cape Town diminish. Further concerted efforts by more than one BA staff member but nothing!
Eventually, I was able to retrieve the actual ticket numbers. At this juncture, those of you who can remember Les Dennis and Family Fortunes, just imagine the wrong answer sound effect. For those who don't, go to You Tube! All suddenly became clear as the mist lifted. I had booked our flights to Cape Town for 30th January 2017!! Bright, intelligent and on the ball? A description impossible to ascribe to me. Despite my pleadings and with the sands of time about to run out, the only way that we could make that flight was by paying an additional £300. But I'm a Yorkshireman and paying extra for anything is anathema. Shortly after, we saw flight BA6416 head down the runway and into the wide blue yonder without either us or our luggage on board!
We were very fortunate to be able to get hold of Sarah who immediately took control and booked tickets which enabled us to make the next flight to our ultimate destination. One and a half hours later than planned but Ann and Paul had experienced their own delay and were themselves running two hours late into Cape Town.
Back on track and only the hire car to collect from favoured provider, Avis. Obviously favoured by many other customers as well because as we turned the corner to their offices, we were greeted by a hundred foot queue to collect our Ford Figo, a bag of spanners if ever there was one!
We did eventually arrive at our lovely rented home in Somerset West, much more stressed than when we began the journey on Thursday morning but happy in the knowledge that we were home safe and nothing further was going to trouble us on this holiday...Yeh, right!!
We avoided, just, the fog and ensuing cancellations at Heathrow and despite a slightly late departure from London, BA were able to get us to Johannesberg absolutely on time, allowing us to clear immigration in plenty of time for our connecting flight...or so we thought!
Baggage collected, head for BA check in with booking reference and copy of receipt for tickets purchased. Simples. Actually, no! No record of my booking could be found by the check-in agent despite lengthy interrogation of the British Airways computer system. "This is rubbish" I say with frustration building as every minute passes and the chance of making our 0920 flight to Cape Town diminish. Further concerted efforts by more than one BA staff member but nothing!
Eventually, I was able to retrieve the actual ticket numbers. At this juncture, those of you who can remember Les Dennis and Family Fortunes, just imagine the wrong answer sound effect. For those who don't, go to You Tube! All suddenly became clear as the mist lifted. I had booked our flights to Cape Town for 30th January 2017!! Bright, intelligent and on the ball? A description impossible to ascribe to me. Despite my pleadings and with the sands of time about to run out, the only way that we could make that flight was by paying an additional £300. But I'm a Yorkshireman and paying extra for anything is anathema. Shortly after, we saw flight BA6416 head down the runway and into the wide blue yonder without either us or our luggage on board!
We were very fortunate to be able to get hold of Sarah who immediately took control and booked tickets which enabled us to make the next flight to our ultimate destination. One and a half hours later than planned but Ann and Paul had experienced their own delay and were themselves running two hours late into Cape Town.
Back on track and only the hire car to collect from favoured provider, Avis. Obviously favoured by many other customers as well because as we turned the corner to their offices, we were greeted by a hundred foot queue to collect our Ford Figo, a bag of spanners if ever there was one!
We did eventually arrive at our lovely rented home in Somerset West, much more stressed than when we began the journey on Thursday morning but happy in the knowledge that we were home safe and nothing further was going to trouble us on this holiday...Yeh, right!!
À tight Yorkshireman. I thought that was a fallacy, obviously not!
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