It started badly when - the night before departure - I crashed into the lounge room coffee table with my bare feet and probably broke the little toe on my left foot. It is very badly swollen and blue and I am having trouble walking - but life goes on.
So I checked in online and found that the seats I had pre-booked a few weeks ago had been re-arranged by Emirates. As we are paying for ourselves we are of course traveling economy so I had chosen an aisle seat.
We were instead now boxed into the middle of a row of four so had no aisle or window access and the plane was completely full. I am not sure why this happens but my pre-chosen seat is often arbitrarily changed by the airline – even when I have some status – as with Austrian Airlines. It even happens to Cate who has Senator status with Austrian.
With Emirates we are traveling with about the of status of road kill so expected nothing less.
Particularly so after the series of emails I sent them last year when they refused to respond to my repeated requests for a response to our emails about glasses left on a flight. You may recall my wittering about this. After a series of emails to Emirates – none of which was ever responded to – I got a bit snarky and they have clearly marked my card for eternal punishment.
This is unfortunate because we are flying again this year on home leave on Emirates – because they are the cheapest – and I just can’t wait to see what they have in store – even in business class. I am planning to leave a present for them from Muffin in one of the Business Class life jackets.
Anyway – it was a good lesson because I had forgotten how bad long distance economy class flights next to a Japanese man who sniffs every fifteen seconds can be. It was a actually a cross between a sniff and a snort – let’s call it a snork– but it was disconcerting and could still be heard when I was wearing my Bose noise cancelling earphones and listening to German grammar.
Cate was particularly unhappy because we could not get into any lounges and were forced to sit with the ‘general public’. So in Dubai she consoled herself in the 4 hour layover by quietly sipping Bollinger in the Champagne bar and dealing with her BlackBerry.
My next companion from Dubai to Male was an unhappy German who was not sitting next to his wife. He did not sniff so was quite satisfactory. He had big arms but by wedging my elbows between my knees end resting my head my stomach I could just fit into my allotted space.
A speedboat took us to the Paradise Island Resort where we were herded with a crowd of other unfortunates into a bar area and made to fill out many forms and told to sit and wait – for some time - until we were taken to our rooms. I became restless and this made our guards unhappy.
This gave us our first indication that we were not actually in a 5 Star Resort as we had planned. Well that’s not quite true. The prices are 5 Star.
You can get a mediocre bottle of wine for $90 and shrimp cocktail for $35 – but the resort is 3 Star. Bring your own Shampoo and Conditioner.
Actually, the accommodation is quite nice. We have a lovely Water Villa with excellent air conditioning, a fabulous big bed, a beautiful balcony and spectacular views. It is not their fault about the dredging.
For some weird reason I was nominated as a Blog of Note by Blogger. I cannot understand why. I do not write about anything interesting or important and have very few readers.
I assume it is a random sampling thing computer generated thing and my number came up. Life goes on.
