The sun shone every day from the moment we got up, the skies were blue, and it was scorching hot - perfect weather for a spot of golf on the Saturday morning (yes, I know I've never picked up a golf bat / racket / club before in my life) and a private cruise down the River Stour in the afternoon with strawberries and champagne, followed by lunch at the Beach House on Mudeford sandbank, at the end of Christchurch Bay....
Then out in the evening for a curry and some drinks - the perfect end to a perfect day!
I came second in the overall golf challenge (a score of 37 against a par of 18), although we only made it round 6 holes in 2 hours... and I won the high score competition too (12 on the first hole!)
What number bat do I need for this one...?
Who's going to eat the last strawberry?
Mudeford sands - where the beach huts go for more than £100k each!
But the whole weekend could have been a disaster before it began... thanks to Fly Be.
I was booked on the 5pm from Newcastle to Southampton, so pitched up at the airport at around 3.45 to check in. No problems there. Through security. Easy. Check the boards. 30 minutes till we go to the gate. Time for a coffee.
The time counts down to zero. Go to Gate 6. So I stand up to go to Gate 6. Then It changes to 25 minutes again. Fair enough, I thought. A bit of a delay. Counts down to zero again. Then the flight disappears from the board... Then 135 minutes appears. What?
Chos then ensues. Announcement - apologies on behalf of Fly Be... technical problems on inbound flight... still at Southampton... delay of 2.5 hours.... go to desk and get a meal voucher... Fantastic!
So I found a corner and read some of my book... then went to get something to eat... looked at the board - only 45 minutes to go now, but only 30 minutes since it said 135 minutes - something strange going on with the numbers - they must be flybe minutes...
Looked again at the board - 3 minutes to go - brilliant, we all thought - except no plane has arrived for us to get on.... 20 minutes passed - display still says 3 minutes - definitely flybe minutes.... or should that be flymaybe minutes?!
Looked again after another 10 minutes and the wait time had jumped back to 59 minutes... was somebody having a laugh?
And so it went on... and on... and on... Eventually I found a group of other irate passengers in the same situation as me.... all trying to find out what was going on - but there was nobody around - and when somebody did turn up, they left sharpish, promising to return in 10 minutes with answers - they still havem't turned up!
We eventually took off at 9.45pm, a full 4 hours and 45 minutes late....
Thankfully the return flight was uneventful, though they did thank us for flying with them, 'The UK's favourite low-cost airline'! How can this be?
So if any of you are thinking of maybe flying with flybe, remember, flymaybe could be closer to the truth!
Thanks to Dave, for organising the weekend, and to Stu, for giving us the excuse to get together, by getting married!
9 comments:
I'm laughing over your travelling travails! I have never even HEARD of flybe....and of course, that kind of thing NEVER happens at United Airlines! But then we don't fly from Newcastle to Southampton...and if we did you'd have to fly via Chicago and then you'd invariably be caught in a snowstorm (winter) or thunderstorm (summer).
Isnt flying fun???
You do tend to have mishaps when you fly. Maybe you should find another form of transportation next time. However, Newcastle to Southampton is a long way and you wouldn't want to do it by train for the weekend.
Sounds like you had a fun weekend anyway.
Me again.
Can I also ask why the time shows one hour behind? It is actually 12.03 and not 11.03am. Have just had a weird moment when I thought I was living in some kind of time lapse.
I have to say that I love flybe. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but when the alternative is easyjet you must understand that flybe looks pretty attractive. I mean, seriously, how difficult is it to assign me a seat number?! Oh dear, I'm going to stop commenting now as I feel it may turn into somewhat of a rant...
Hmmm - thanks, Lynne for a different take on things!
But what would you prefer...
A scramble for seats, or arriving 5 hours later than you thought you would?
A scramble for seats, or being told every hour that the incoming flight has departed from Southampton and will be here soon?
A scramble for seats, or...
Ok, I am ranting now!!
Don't stop - you rant so well! :-)
Pauline - I think the time warp in blogosphere is something to do with GMT and BST - I don't think google have fully grasped the concept of clocks changing in the summer... well, I can't find out how to do it, anyway!
Ahhhhh. I see. Also it seems that it goes for American spelling also. In the UK we don't have : between hours and minutes, but . is the standard. I'm forever correcting Stuart's incorrect typing of the time.
Oh no, I appear to be ranting too.
Hey I work for Flybe, based in Southampton too... was it a dash late(8) turboprop thing? They're always late. To be fair, it sounds like you had a pretty exceptional day... probably have one of those every other month per airport and any airline that says they don't have even that is lying. ;)
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