The journey has begun

There’s a very apt quote in Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The course of true love never did run smooth” and I think a similar quote could be appplied to Emirates. Admittedly, we have booked this holiday at the last minute and so there’s been a certain amount of scampering to ensure Visas, ETAs, vaccinations etc are all in place. However, “the course of Emirates never did run smooth” most definitely applies to our experience so far and as I write this, we’ve not yet set foot on the plane.

We’ve had Emirates accounts for some years, but the problem seems to be that we haven’t used them since 2011 and so emails, addresses, passports, inside leg measurements and a variety of other obscure metrics have all changed. Sadly you can’t just make the changes in your profile on their website, it involves going through the AI chatbot and nearly winning an Oscar for staying calm while you go around the usual loops before you finally get to speak to a real human being. The main issue with Emirates has been that the “manage my booking” section of their website doesn’t agree with the conversations we have had with them or the emails they have sent to us surrounding our ground transfers.

So on the fourth time of contacting Emirates, with the same issue, I finally found a member of staff who actually seemed like she wanted to help and understood customer service. She read back the date, time, address of pick up, where we were being taken to, both our correct email addresses and both phone numbers. Awesome. Forth time lucky. She concluded that we would be contacted by Emirates transfer services within the hour. And then out of nowhere, Nick gets an email to an email address he rarely uses, an incorrect date and address for our pick up, and incorrect drop off details. At that point I “lost my presence of mind” and passed the problem to Nick. In my defence, I had done all the ground work for the holiday and pretty much all the prepping, so my view was, if someone wasn’t to have their head ripped off, Nick was the best man for the job to sort this one simple issue.

Mind you, it took some doing, but he finally got the taxi service to change the date of pick up and the place of drop off. Major achievement. Fifth time lucky?

It therefore came as a bit of a shock, when the taxi actually arrived, admittedly to the wrong address, and half an hour early…but let’s not get too picky. We were dropped at the right location, so 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. First world problems eh!?

However, prior to the pick up, we were, for once, really ahead of ourselves and packed super early. Nick rather smugly announced he was “locked and cross checked”. It was only when we got his case downstairs and tried to wheel it along the hall, that we realised it wasn’t wheeling. On closer examination, I announced it was, in fact, a former suitcase and had to be confined to the scrap heap. Somehow one of the corners of the suitcase had ripped, thus rendering the wheel useless. There was simply no way the case was going to survive the number of flights or transfers we have going on over the next three weeks.

All I can say is a massive thanks to Nick and Sue as a frantic repack swiftly took place after borrowing one of their cases.

Our journey to our hotel was “brisk”. Speed limits were simply advisory. And I think a new world record was set for driving just shy of 100 miles. Our flight is at a civilised time, but we didn’t want to risk road works, accidents, alien abduction, hence the desire to get to Heathrow the day before. Yes, I am that person that considers absolutely every eventuality and how something can go wrong, so to alleviate that particular scenario, we agreed, for both of our sanity, it made sense to get within staggering distance of the airport in good time.

It’s not often anyone can remark at Heathrow airport being quiet, but it was and we whisked through check in and security. As always I got stopped and searched, which doesn’t bother me as I find it reassuring the staff are ever vigilant.

In true Nick and Gabs tradition, a bee line was made for the lounge and the essential glass (or two) of pink pop consumed. We’ve been told the flight is over an hour delayed due to the weather in Dubai. Oh well, what’s a girl to do in that time, but to numb the boredom?