Today not much happened except travelling....and more travelling. We first ate breakfast in the hotel, which was like most Irish breakfasts we've had here: tomatoes, Irish sausages, and white and black Irish pudding. Plus a lot of water and tissues for our ailing selves. Then we picked up our laundry, got showered and packed, and we were off to the Dublin airport. Kerry made good time and got us there early--it took about 2.5 hours. We handed in our rental car and took the shuttle to the airport with no problems at all. But then the fun began. We went to the Ryanair area only to find out that we were supposed to have our boarding passes ready in advance. How we were supposed to know this, I do not know. We were told by the ticket agent that if we get the boarding pass now, it would cost 55 euros each. And, oh yes, the checked bags cost 50 euros each. To her credit, the ticket agent was able to locate my online info (because I did process some of our information online in advance), but I thought the checked bag price was asinine. We then went through security, in which EVERYTHING had to go into these huge grey containers, and the security agent told me I had to have my boarding pass in my personal item, and then proceeded to shove it in to my bag. Lovely. After that, we learned that our flight had been delayed about 90 minutes. At first, we just said, okay, let's go to Burger King. We get to Burger King and there are about 60 or more people crowded around three cash registers. It took me about 30 minutes to get the food: 20 euros for two crappy BK lunches. Our flight gets delayed...again. Then we go to our gate area....and there's nowhere to sit. So we sit down at another gate. We wait. And wait. The flight gets delayed two more times. By the time we boarded, it was a three-hour delay. By the time we actually took off, it was a FOUR-HOUR delay. Not fun.
On the plus side, the seats on this flight were more roomy and comfortable than the last one. But they wouldn't give us any snacks, not even water....they charged for EVERYTHING. I'm assuming that they also charged to use the toilet, but I didn't bother to even try.
When we landed in Prague, we didn't taxi much, and the bags came out pretty fast. We located a portly Airport taxi driver, who said "Taxi?" to us. I showed him the address and we got in. To his credit, he didn't rip us off and he played good music in the cab: Czech music and oldies, like "Ballroom Blitz" (but not too loud). I gave him a decent tip. The night manager at the desk of the Clarion City Center, where we are staying, was also nice and helpful and tried to show us where certain sights were. Then we headed to the room, which, oddly enough, is across from the "Hairdresser" in the hotel (but, as of this writing, things haven't been noisy at all). We were a bit wired, but we eventually fell asleep around 3:30 am.
Lesson of the day: Don't fly Ryanair.
No comments:
Post a Comment