Coming to America...a comedy of errors

I may have already mentioned that my good friend Anne is on her way to visit me for a holiday in the sun...I say on her way but she is a little delayed..hmmm...there is a tale to tell...settle in with a coffee..it could be a drawn out affair.

Wednesday evening I checked her in online ( can she not do this herself you ask?...no apparently not) and I asked her what her arrangements for getting to the airport were. I'm all sorted she tells me, but I know Anne and decided to delve deeper... I have arranged the taxi to pick me up at 7.30am. Whoah...hold up...Anne, the flight is at 8.50am, it's international to America and you have your 4 year old with you...I think you need some extra time...also to where you are leaving your car it's an hours drive in normal traffic and it will be rush hour!....'I used to travel all the time with work (pre- 9/11) and we'll be fine. We'll see you tomorrow' I urged her to get there earlier, but guessed it would fall on deaf ears.

That evening (we're 5 hours behind) I said to my husband that I thought she would miss her flight, he told me to stop worrying and come to bed, so I did...surely Anne would leave more time when she had little Issie with her!

I woke up at 5.30am, still with a sense of foreboding, and went to retrieve my Blackberry to check for bad news...sure enough Anne had missed her flight...the motorway had been really busy..imagine that! I love her but Muppet came to mind.

Text flew back and foreward and eventually she tells me she'll now be here Friday evening instead, and whilst this gives me longer to clean up, my plans were slightly screwed...however at least they were coming. It cost her $240 to change the flights and now she would be flying through Amsterdam...hmmmm. so everything was back on track. WRONG

My phone beeped again... can you book me a cheap hotel room at Schipol airport please as I'm just going to board plane.... ok. I could do that, and being the internet whiz that I am (ok I can navigate to Priceline.com!!) I secured a 4* hotel for less than $95 inc tax (should have been $240).. pretty good!. I'd had to pay for it (it's the way that Priceline works), but I didn't want them in some hole somewhere.

Feeling pretty proud of myself I text Anne back to tell her the good news....bad news I'm afraid, we've been booted off the plane because Issie's ticket wouldn't scan properly and they couldn't re-issue at the gate...can you get your money back?.....hmmmm NO! ...so what's happening now?

20 mins later I get a text....we're back on another Amsterdam flight..hurrah! do we still have the hotel? !! ...hmmmm...YES CAUSE I COULD NOT CANCEL IT.....!!

This was becoming a comedy of errors, but at least they had moved out of England, all be it in the opposite direction to America !

Arriving at Schipol, she frantically started texting again for hotel name, reservation and directions and then all went quiet for a bit.

Vibrating another text arrives...

Guess what..they sent my luggage to Orlando..I have my laptop to wear!

Can this get any worse..?

I'm hoping she can manage to make her flight on time tomorrow, I have reminded her that the clocks are different there, so she needs to pull her finger out!

At least the hotel was nice, she messaged that her room was great and couldn't believe what a deal I'd got...at least one thing went right today! I left her washing her undies for tomorrows flight ;-)

Safe flight Anne, see you tomorrow! (maybe!!)

PS. try not to get this room if you stay at the Courtyard by Marriot...Anne washed her knickers in the bath

Update: As expected Anne had time difference wrong and would have missed her third flight...luckily Clare saved the day by checking with her! Muppet x 2