Then it really was time to start making a move back to our hotel ready for our journey home. We made a few final purchases on the way out of the park and got the bus back to our hotel. We collected our luggage and waited in reception ...... and waited ....... and waited.
The reception staff were very surprised and said it was very unusual for BSTransports to not show so they phoned the office for us and it turned out the driver was sat in the
Disneyland Hotel car park. Thank goodness it was only a simple mistake and we hadn't been forgotten or worse still, the driver had an accident. He was with us in a few minutes and we were soon on our way to CDG.
This is where the fun now started.
Earlier in the week we had noticed that BBC Worldnews was mentioning how there was a likelihood of a transport strike in France and Air France would probably be involved. We had decided to be typical ostriches and bury our heads in the sand and not worry about it until going-home time so we were mightily relieved to find our flight to Southampton was coming up on the departure boards. However, when we went to check-in we found there were only 3 seats left (for 5 of us) because some earlier flights to the UK had been cancelled due to cabin crew striking and the passengers from these flights had been put onto ours.
The check-in lady allocated us the 3 seats and said as some of the seats had been checked-in online there was a possibility there may be some no-shows and we would then all get to travel. Unfortunately this didn't happen so we had the choice of either 3 of us travelling and the other 2 following later or giving up the 3 seats and sticking together. We decided on the latter which greatly pleased the check-in lady as she was able to allocate these seats to 3 solo passengers.
I quickly phoned England to cancel the car that was coming to meet us and said I would be in touch later.
By now, it was utter chaos as more and more flights were showing as cancelled on the departure boards and the lady was having a nightmare trying to get us home. She had been planning to book us onto either the one remaining Bristol flight or one of the Heathrow ones and pay for a car home from there but the flights were being cancelled faster than she could check for seats for us. Then she tried to taxi us into Paris to send us back to Waterloo on the Eurostar but these were being cancelled too so in the end she said she would pay for us to spend the night at one of the airport hotels and would sort us out a flight for the next day. Only ........ as the next day was Saturday there was only one flight to Southampton and this was full
so she decided it would be easier if we went via Dusseldorf
until she found there weren't enough seats left.
Next thing I knew, she must have taken pity on us ~ or maybe it was because we seemed to be one of the few people who weren't ranting and raving and getting thoroughly unpleasant
~ anyhow suddenly she was printing up boarding cards for us and explained she had bumped some people off the Saturday flight for us (poor them but I was past caring by now, I needed to collect my dogs by Saturday tea-time
) and was now trying to book us into one of the airport hotels. No luck here either, they were by now all booked to full capacity. However, it meant that instead of being just well compensated for being bumped off we were now
very well compensated
with the choice of either finding a hotel and paying for it ourselves or staying in the departure lounge for the night and keeping all our compensation.
We chose the latter and told the girls to just treat it like an adventure.
There were quite a few other people staying too, either they couldn't or chose not to get hotel rooms. I must say both Air France staff and CDG staff were absolutely marvellous. As well as the meal vouchers that Air France gave us, during the night CDG staff would regularly come out and bring us coffee, bottles of water and snacks.
I can't praise them enough.
The girls got some sleep
so did Bryan, but I couldn't so managed to read a huge chunk of the seventh Harry Potter book.
I think we were all on tenterhooks the next morning, even though our flight was showing on the departure boards ~ I know I didn't relax properly until we actually started to board!
The previous night I had telephoned our car company to let them know we were now coming in the next morning and they were marvellous and promised to come and meet us at no extra charge. So it was utter bliss when we landed at Southampton and walked through to find a driver stood there with our name on his clipboard.
Of course, I would have used the compensation to book another holiday but my sensible hubby insisted it was used for replacement double-glazing for the front of the house!!
This was the first time we've flown to DLRP as we've always caught the Eurostar before and many people have asked if it's put us off flying there in future but I'm going to work on the principle that lightning doesn't strike twice
and if it does I do need a replacement porch!!