Dating tales: Ash cloud crazy

This is an oldie as you can tell from the ash cloud reference but a friend persuaded me to post it on to my blog so here goes…

I met this guy online and he seemed a well-balanced, well-travelled individual so I thought we’d get on well. 

We discussed a mutual love of travel and the recent ash cloud disruption.  The chaos that ensued meant I missed a planned birthday trip to Barcelona – as the trip was only for 2 days we opted for a refund rather than waste time hanging round the airport in the hope of catching a later flight and then only actually getting a day if lucky in the city.  Really not worth the stress and I preferred to spend my birthday relaxing in a nice restaurant in Manchester!

My date then explained that he was supposed to have a weekend in Amsterdam and they also arrived at Manchester to be told airspace had closed.  They were instructed by airline to travel down to Heathrow instead or have a refund.  However he decided they would instead book to fly Easyjet from Liverpool so he paid online for more flights and they caught a taxi over to Liverpool airport only to discover Liverpool airspace was closed too.  I explained that the entire North West airspace would have been closed – wouldn’t it? He admitted that maybe they should have checked Liverpool was open before booking Easyjet flights and before paying for a taxi there too – it had closed when Manchester had!

You would have thought this story would have ended here with them also opting for a refund but no… They then decided to travel down to Heathrow to discover on arrival that the air space closure had spread south and all flights to Amsterdam were in fact cancelled from there too.  Still they didn’t give up.  They managed to book seats on Eurostar for next day and stayed in a swanky hotel in Mayfair that cost twice as much because of the high demand from other stranded passengers.

They arrived in Amsterdam a day later than planned but got to spend a whole day and night there before they were due to travel home.  As it turned out the ash cloud still hadn’t lifted meaning they were now stranded in the Netherlands; he persuaded a friend to help him to buy 2 walk on overnight ferry tickets back to Hull.  That was followed by a taxi journey to Newcastle, a train back to Manchester and another taxi home.  The weekend away turned into 5 days away and ended up costing over £3,000 extra.

He laughed saying maybe it wasn’t really worth the extra money considering they spent a lot of the trip stressed and waiting around in various stations/airports etc.  I asked was he not tempted to give up and simply get a refund at any stage?  He said that no once he starts something he never gives up.  He thought it proved how determined and driven he was.  It seems we have differing opinions here as I think it proves how stupid and deluded he is.  Or maybe I give up too easily?  I certainly gave up on this date..

Photo 1 by Noomhh and their portfolio is:http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=3827

Other photos courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.