They tell you not to count your chickens before they hatch, but here in Saudi you can't even count them AFTER they've hatched. We announced a week ago that we finally had our tickets to fly home in August, but it turns out that wasn't true. Somehow between last week and Sunday, the travel agency or consulting firm managed to cancel the reservations. Yes, we're dealing with both a consulting firm and travel agency to book these tickets. I have no idea why it takes so many middle men to get this done, but we tell the consulting firm what we want/need, they tell the travel agency, the travel agency give the consulting firm a few options, the consulting firm sends them to us, and we pick the most desirable one. It's like one huge game of telephone, so it's no surprise that this got screwed up. It's extra unsurprising because they managed to screw up our tickets when we came to Saudi a year ago.
Aside from the fact that I was royally cheesed off that this got screwed up, the consulting firm somehow got in their mind that it absolutely had to be fixed RIGHT THIS MINUTE. That meant they did a lot of: send me an email, wait two minutes, and then call me to ask if I'd gotten the email. So this went back and forth for a few hours resulting in a option for tickets on August 8th. This wouldn't be a huge deal, except we were told in no uncertain terms that we had to leave campus by the 5th. Turns out they're more that willing to change this rule so long as it saves them money on plane tickets.
So after two hours of headaches, emails, phone calls, and a very unpleasant tone of voice, we once again had plane tickets home.
Showing posts with label airports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airports. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The News We've all Been Waiting For
Almost six weeks ago we started the process to get our flight home scheduled. The flight is taken care of by the university so naturally buying the tickets gets outsourced to a consulting agency. Time ticked by and yesterday we were finally heard back from the consulting agency with our reservation.
We're leaving here early in the morning on August 4th and get back to Detroit by the afternoon of the 4th. We're flying Lufthansa because they have the best pet program of the airlines that fly from Jeddah. I flew Lufthansa when I first visited Saudi back in 2009 and I remember them being nicer than most airlines.
We also got Algebra registered with the airline, and it ended up being hilarious to listen to Steve talk with their representative on the phone. The first call involved spelling out our names using the Alpha/Bravo military technique. The second call was even funnier because the representative thought we wanted to take a baby on the flight. So when Steve said that we already had a carrier and were going to put her under the seat, I think the representative thought we were crazy! I of course didn't hear all of this, and just got the quotation "This is an animal, not a baby!"
We're just getting started on all of the things we need to do before we leave. Aside from the typical packing, discarding junk, and cleaning, the administrative side to leaving is impressive. We need 7 signatures from departments across the university, exit visas, a housing inspection, 6 cards turned in, a mailbox to close, and a bank account to close. All of that is going to result in a lot of needless running around in the next month or so! I'm impressed that they managed to condense all of that running around into a single one page form, but I was less impressed when they tried to tell me it was prohibited to fold it because it would need to be filed. Needless to say, that paper got folded.
So, we're coming home, and so far (almost) nothing has been screwed up! Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it stays this way!
We're leaving here early in the morning on August 4th and get back to Detroit by the afternoon of the 4th. We're flying Lufthansa because they have the best pet program of the airlines that fly from Jeddah. I flew Lufthansa when I first visited Saudi back in 2009 and I remember them being nicer than most airlines.
We also got Algebra registered with the airline, and it ended up being hilarious to listen to Steve talk with their representative on the phone. The first call involved spelling out our names using the Alpha/Bravo military technique. The second call was even funnier because the representative thought we wanted to take a baby on the flight. So when Steve said that we already had a carrier and were going to put her under the seat, I think the representative thought we were crazy! I of course didn't hear all of this, and just got the quotation "This is an animal, not a baby!"
We're just getting started on all of the things we need to do before we leave. Aside from the typical packing, discarding junk, and cleaning, the administrative side to leaving is impressive. We need 7 signatures from departments across the university, exit visas, a housing inspection, 6 cards turned in, a mailbox to close, and a bank account to close. All of that is going to result in a lot of needless running around in the next month or so! I'm impressed that they managed to condense all of that running around into a single one page form, but I was less impressed when they tried to tell me it was prohibited to fold it because it would need to be filed. Needless to say, that paper got folded.
So, we're coming home, and so far (almost) nothing has been screwed up! Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it stays this way!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Traveling that Vacation Road
We're off to the airport again tonight, this time headed for Italy and specifically Milan, Florence, and Pisa. With any luck it will be much smoother than when we left for Egypt and take less time than when we left for Athens.
Every time we've left, it's been for a late night or early morning flight. This time we're flying out around 3:30 am and will get to Milan around 1:30 in the afternoon. I think this works great because it gets us started on our trip a bit earlier than waiting until the next morning, and you don't waste a whole day traveling only to arrive at your destination after everything is closed for the night. This gives us a chance to do a bit of brief site seeing tomorrow afternoon, without having a whole day lost to travel. On the other hand, it does usually result in a poor night of sleep, which probably isn't the best way to start a nine day vacation.
Either way, we're on our way to this:
Every time we've left, it's been for a late night or early morning flight. This time we're flying out around 3:30 am and will get to Milan around 1:30 in the afternoon. I think this works great because it gets us started on our trip a bit earlier than waiting until the next morning, and you don't waste a whole day traveling only to arrive at your destination after everything is closed for the night. This gives us a chance to do a bit of brief site seeing tomorrow afternoon, without having a whole day lost to travel. On the other hand, it does usually result in a poor night of sleep, which probably isn't the best way to start a nine day vacation.
Either way, we're on our way to this:
(source)
Arrivederci!
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Saturday, February 5, 2011
Uggg Egypt Air, but Cairo is Awesome!
Without a doubt, the worst part of our trip was actually getting out of Greece. Dealing with Egypt Air on the way out was a complete pain start to finish. We did catch a bit of a break, the metro wasn't going on strike until noon that day, so we were easily able to take the metro to the Airport instead of having to navigate the bus system again. I really wish international airports checked in based on airline instead of the specific flight. On numerous occasions, we've been stuck waiting to even check in to the flight before we even hit security or customs! After they finally started checking in for the flight, we were told that we needed to show the credit card we used to pay for the flight. Since we go cash only when we travel, and that particular credit card is vicious about international fees, it happened to be sitting in my wallet back at school, not with us in Athens posing a potential risk for theft and fraudulent charges. One of the ladies tried to tell us that we would typically have to purchase new tickets (!) but that they would kindly make an exception and take a photocopy of my passport along with my signature. This cheesed me off to all kinds of Mondays because we already had problems buying the tickets; the bank thought the ticket charge was fraudulent and blocked access, and now the airline was trying to tell me the ticket purchase wasn't legit. There is no reason they needed to see the credit card for a purchase that was made almost a month prior to the flight, when there was no issue with the departure tickets.
Next, they tried to tell us our carry on luggage was too heavy (it weighed exactly as much as it did when we flew Egypt Air to Athens!) and that Steve's backpack didn't count as a personal item! So we had three carry on items and one personal item instead of two of each. We have traveled with this exact combo of luggage through no less than six airports and have never had an issue. While it is most likely not the fault of the woman behind the counter, the fact that they are applying Egypt Air rules, that clearly didn't exist/apply when we flew two weeks prior really bugged me. So we ended up having to check one of the bags. Thankfully, they don't charge extra for this convenience, so the only loss is time spent waiting at the luggage carousel. Since the handle on Steve's luggage broke about 20 feet outside of our apartment on our way to Athens, we decided to check his and not have to deal with the inconvenience.
Thankfully, the flight to Cairo was relatively peaceful, after only a slight delay of our departure. Once in Cairo though, we got more of the airport run around. Since we had an eight hour layover, we were directed to go to a special counter an have our tickets checked. It turned out that they were checking to see if we'd made hotel accommodations, and if they had asked us, we easily could have told them that we hadn't. But alas, line waiting instead.
So how do you comfortably kill eight hours in Cairo's airport? VIP lounge is how. It was $25 each for us to get in, but it was completely worth it. We easily would have spent that amount on food while in the airport, so there was no doubt that for a long layover, it was money well spent. We even had great comfy couches, but sadly only 30 minutes of free internet. I really wish more airports had free or ad included internet access instead of trying to charge for it. We're getting ready for our Spring break trip, and hopefully we can avoid flying Egypt Air through Cairo, but if we have to at least we know where to spend our layover.
The layover passed quickly and the flight from Cairo to Jeddah was uneventful. We even had our taxi waiting for us when we got through customs!
*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*
Next, they tried to tell us our carry on luggage was too heavy (it weighed exactly as much as it did when we flew Egypt Air to Athens!) and that Steve's backpack didn't count as a personal item! So we had three carry on items and one personal item instead of two of each. We have traveled with this exact combo of luggage through no less than six airports and have never had an issue. While it is most likely not the fault of the woman behind the counter, the fact that they are applying Egypt Air rules, that clearly didn't exist/apply when we flew two weeks prior really bugged me. So we ended up having to check one of the bags. Thankfully, they don't charge extra for this convenience, so the only loss is time spent waiting at the luggage carousel. Since the handle on Steve's luggage broke about 20 feet outside of our apartment on our way to Athens, we decided to check his and not have to deal with the inconvenience.
Thankfully, the flight to Cairo was relatively peaceful, after only a slight delay of our departure. Once in Cairo though, we got more of the airport run around. Since we had an eight hour layover, we were directed to go to a special counter an have our tickets checked. It turned out that they were checking to see if we'd made hotel accommodations, and if they had asked us, we easily could have told them that we hadn't. But alas, line waiting instead.
So how do you comfortably kill eight hours in Cairo's airport? VIP lounge is how. It was $25 each for us to get in, but it was completely worth it. We easily would have spent that amount on food while in the airport, so there was no doubt that for a long layover, it was money well spent. We even had great comfy couches, but sadly only 30 minutes of free internet. I really wish more airports had free or ad included internet access instead of trying to charge for it. We're getting ready for our Spring break trip, and hopefully we can avoid flying Egypt Air through Cairo, but if we have to at least we know where to spend our layover.
The layover passed quickly and the flight from Cairo to Jeddah was uneventful. We even had our taxi waiting for us when we got through customs!
*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*
Catch up on the rest of our adventure:
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