During breakfast on Thursday morning I called EuropCar about a possible replacement car. I was quite directly told that because the problem with the car was customer negligence, I would be responsible for any damages to the vehicle. Further, EuropCar had a policy that when a customer negligence issue occurs, there is a 24-hour “cooling off” period before they’ll issue a replacement vehicle. Bluntly, we were on our own for getting to the Dublin airport.
Turns out that wasn’t difficult or very expensive. There is an airport express bus that leaves Belfast regularly during the day which goes to the Dublin airport. The cost was 17 pounds Sterling per person (about $15) and takes about two hours. We took our goodbyes from our hostess (a very delightful woman) and took a 6 pound Sterling cab to the bus terminal. By 1:45pm we were at the Dublin Airport for a 7:25pm flight. Plenty of time, but we needed most of it.
I went to the EuropCar desk to verify that they knew I wasn’t going to be returning a car. The fellow read the notes from the roadside assistance call and told me that their management was going to have to take a look at how badly we were treated. I’m hoping that means they’ll disregard any possible charges for damages….
RyanAir out of Dublin is definitely not very high on my favorite airlines list. We weighed our suitcases and each of us were 4 kilograms over weight. RyanAir charges 11 Euros for each kilo over 20 kg. In our case it would be 88 Euros, or about $97. We needed to lighten up.
We moved as much as we could from the suitcases to backpacks. Nina got down to exactly 20 kg (but with what must have been a 10 pound backpack, not pleasant at all). I couldn’t get any lower than 23kg, so we opted to pay the additional 33 Euros. RyanAir also requires passengers to check in online rather than at the terminal (and charges 55 Euros if you do check in at the counter and haven’t gotten your boarding pass online). We had no way to print a boarding pass. I could check in but had no printer available, Without a printed boarding pass we couldn’t check luggage as that was done through an electronic console; no human intervention.
I went to the checkin lane, got to the front of the line, and pleaded my case. Because I had already checked in online but couldn’t print, she waived the fee and printed all 4 passes, going and returning. Then came the process of checking in the luggage. My suitcase checked just fine. Nina’s wouldn’t and was asking for 187 Euros as it was 17kg over weight. Nina finally spotted a RyanAir person who gave me a very incomprehensible explanation, but went ahead and did the baggage checkin manually for us and I paid the 33 Euros ($40) for the extra 3kg. Then she wanted to upsale us on priority boarding and some kind of fast pass through security. We declined the additional 94 Euros. She told us that it’d be a half-hour walk to the gate after clearing security. She wasn’t kidding!
Security was a breeze and we were both patted down as usual because of the titanium knees. The departure display board said that our flight was five minutes delayed but no gate information. It simply said, “Enjoy our facilities. Info at 6:25” What facilities? No place to sit down. We couldn’t go to the gate a we didn’t know which one and then didn’t know what direction (there were three different concourses). We both sat on the floor up against the wall near the display board waiting until 6:25pm, the promised time when the gate information would be displayed. They don’t reveal the gate info until 1 hour before the flight. Then it was a full half-hour hike to get to gate 111. The boarding area was mobbed as several flights were leaving about the same time for that area. Two flights were going to board AT THE SAME TIME through gate 111. RyanAir doesn’t pay for gate bridges. We walked down two flights of stairs and across the tarmac to get to the airplane. It wasn’t raining but definitely threatening.
The 737-800 aircraft was configured for 208 passengers. There were very few (maybe 10?) middle seats open when we left the gate. The flight was scheduled for 7:25pm. We left the parking area at 8:00pm because of air traffic delays. The 1:15 flight to Paris was uneventful. If one wanted anything during the flight, a credit card was required, even for a glass of water!
I had booked an airport hotel near the Paris Bouvais airport for the night. We got there about 11:45pm. There was a very limited menu still available so we had some tomato soup (not too bad) and some crepes (very nice) and went to bed. Up at 6:30am on Friday, we went back to the airport and caught a bus to to Paris (14 Euros apiece) and then a taxi to the hotel (50 Euros). I’m sure there was a different method on the Paris Metro to get to the hotel, but I didn’t know what it was. We’ll know the system well enough by next Tuesday to take the metro out to catch the bus to the airport.
Amazingly, our room was available when we checked in at 11:30am! We put the luggage away and began the walk towards the Eiffel Tower. Then we decided we’d be much better off on the Metro. We bought a stack of tickets to use as we traverse the city and had our first experience with the Paris Metro. Worked well.
The Eiffel Tower is amazing.
Everyone has pictures from their visit and none of them do any justice to the real size of this structure. It Is Huge!
We waited through a 1:20 line to get on the elevator up to the 2nd floor. We walked around, took a gazillion pictures and also took quite a few pictures for other couples and one took a picture for us.
We had a chocolate eclair (delicious) and I had a cup of hot chocolate (divine). Then it was back to the metro to go to the hotel. I misread the map and we went two stops too far before we got off. It was a Very Long Walk back to the hotel. If I’d have gotten us off at the correct stop, the hotel would have been 2 minutes away. As it was, it was 20 minutes and we’d already surpassed our 10,000 steps for the day!! We were dragging when we got to the room at about 5:30pm.
About 6:30pm we went to a restaurant around the corner from the hotel. I had a pasta dish and Nina had a chicken dish. Both were quite tasty. We had dessert … chocolate cake with some vanilla ice cream for me, and French toast with vanilla ice cream for Nina. There wasn’t enough of either dessert to share….
So we’re now in the hotel room. Electric cords strung across the floor as there aren’t plugs anywhere close to the beds and we both have CPAP machines to plug in. A late alarm for tomorrow (Saturday) morning. We’ll make our way to Versailles for the day tomorrow. Meanwhile, time to crash. G’Night!