Shattered Dreams (EasyJet Remix)

This is David again. I get blog duty today because it’s a sad day (we’re doing good cop/bad cop).
We woke up all excited to go to Italy. Kids were excited about the food, and I love Venice. Plus, it’s good to mix up the adventure. So, we spent the day getting ready. We picked out our clothes, packed our bags, and cleaned the apartment. My parents burned into my brain a hatred of coming home to a messy house, so I have a compulsion to clean whenever we go on a trip. I’m sure given my normal state it kinda freaks the family out.
One fun thing is we sent Hayley and Dillon to get supplies and lunch. I was excited to see them venture out on their own. I forgot to send them with a cell phone, so Wendy worried the entire time they were gone. She’s a good mom. The best part was lunch. They had to go to the new bread store and had to buy from the lady who isn’t excited to serve people who don’t speak the local language. As Hayley recounts it, she asked for a ‘baguette and jambon’ for a ham sandwich (one of the kids favorites). The bread lady spoke French at 200mph and all Hayley caught was ‘Frommage.’ She said ‘no’ and the lady said a ton more, took a different sandwich, and started going the other way. Some how things got worked out. We had a good lunch, and they had a good story to tell. I’d like to see them venture off on their own a bit more. We’ll see what Wendy thinks.
Anyway, we bought our tickets and took the RER train to CDG. We were overly conservative, and we hit the trains right, so we got there about 2 1/2 hours early. We looked at the board, and our flight was delayed about 2 hours, so we had a good stay ahead of us at the airport. We hunkered down with books and gameboys and waited things out.
We were flying EasyJet, which has the same no assigned seats as SouthWest. I was sitting near the line up spot, and about 30 minutes from the new departure time the crew showed up. I hopped up and got near the front of the line. The attendants got up and said a bunch of stuff in French, and a whole bunch of people when ‘Awwww!’ The line fell apart and everyone rushed the counter. I had no idea what was going on. Just then an Italian guy started shouting at the counter lady. He turned around, threw something on the ground, shouted a bunch of stuff in Italian with ‘EasyJet’ mixed in a bunch of times. It felt just like this comic strip.

He pushed the line thing over and ranted the whole way out. It was quite a display.
We got up to the counter and found out the flight was canceled. They had us go to the ticket window and talk to folks there. We got there quickly and was near the front of the line, but it was not moving because each person was yelling at the two ticket people for EasyJet. Another Italian man turned to the crowd and shouted, in English ‘I hope you’re all as pissed at EasyJet as I am right now!’ and then returned to talking with the folks. Our first mad Italian friend was at the front of the line for a long, long time talking. We got bits of information from other EasyJet employees, but it wasn’t much. The American I was next too got mad that the mad Italian guy was taking so long and had a long, colorful conversation with one of the helpers. There were a lot of really, really mad people. The Americans were catching a cruise tomorrow in the AM from Venice, so they were motivated.
After a while, we heard that the earliest flight was tomorrow night and they would give us hotel vouchers. Then we heard that flight was full. They then gave us a sheet that explained our rights under Regulation 261/2004. We talked with the helper lady and she said that there were no flights free tomorrow and the next day would be the earliest. At this point we could go to Air France and try to book something and they would reimburse us after we bought the ticket. We hustled down to the Air France counter and waited in line behind our American cruising friends. There was an Air France flight leaving at 9:45, but they were asking 580 euro per ticket (before all the taxes and fees). The Americans said that EasyJet would only reimburse use the cost of the tickets we paid, so the difference would come out of our pocket. We trusted him and decided it probably wasn’t worth it, especially since we would have to fly EasyJet back, so we decided to call it and go home.
Reading the text of Regulation 261/2004, I think EasyJet would have had to have paid for the flight, but I’ve been on their web site trying to get our tickets refunded, and I think the stress of fighting them for our money back probably wouldn’t be worth it, so we’re feeling good about the decision. Anybody with experience with Regulation 261/2004 and flights getting canceled in Europe should give me a ping if you’ve got a suggestion on what we can/should do.
Caught the train home and watched Lost. We’re going to figure out what to do now that we’ve got a few more days in Paris. We got a good story out of it, and we were thankful that this was just a fun side trip and not a cruise or a job like some of the other folks impacted. We had a home to go back to.
The other great accomplishment is I beat Hayley’s high score in Tetris on my cell phone while waiting for the flight. Now I won’t get my phone back. But, it’s worth it.

Disappointed kids on the way back from the airport