My 'Day Trip' to London. DUB/LGW 5th January

[EchoVictorOscar]

My 'day trip' to London on Tuesday the 5th January: FR112, the cancelled FR119, airport experience, and eventually getting home on the evening of Thursday 7th Jan. This makes for quite a bit of reading, there is a summary below.


Tuesday:
The flight over from Dublin was perfect - early, no problems. We had a great day in London up until about 3 o clock. I went to the info desk in Victoria Station to ask what time we'd need to get the train in order to to get back to Gatwick on time, but the lady on the desk said that the trains probably wouldn't be running because of a severe weather alert for (potentially) 40cm of snow in the South of the UK.

So we immediately made the decision to scrap the rest of our plans and head to Gatwick 7 hours (!) in advance of the flight. We were hoping that they might be able to transfer us to any earlier flight, but that
didn't work out. The snow was forecasted for about 6pm, but by 8.20pm, nothing had fallen and we were very optimistic about getting home. But at 8.30, the snow came, and came, and came. Within 10mins, there was
chaos. The airport was closed and they announced one-by-one (to prevent a surge of digruntled pax), all the flights that had been cancelled. Ours was the last flight to be cancelled.

This is when things turned sour. The Servisair agents informed us that we would be escorted back through security, where we could re-book free of charge and that we would not be charged for the check-in printouts (normally @£40 per pax). We were escorted back through to departures, but the agents were
nowhere to be seen. Everything, including the airport info desk, was closed and no-one knew where to go or what to do. I eventually got to go online, but whenever I tried to re-book with my itinerary, I got an
error message, whereas everyone else's worked fine. After debating whether to stay or try for a hotel we thought it would be best to stay at the airport. I got 1 hours sleep. We were not offered anything. Not even water! Overall, the night in the airport was terrible.

Wed:
Next morning, we queued at the 'SkyBreak' desk, as they represent Ryanair @ Gatwick. To cut the story short: The guy behind the desk simply didn't care. I explained the re-booking issue that I had to him, etc. but he didn't want to know. He simply said, and I quote: "Here's the number, ring it yourself". My response as you can imagine, was not very subtle. His reply to this was, and again, I quote: "I'm not Ryanair, I just represent them. It's not my problem" There are no words that I would be allowed to put on this forum to describe this man. He is simply the single rudest person I have ever some across!

So overall, the situation was not good. I checked the weather and I knew by looking at it, that Gatwick would not reopen on Wednesday, and possibly not until Friday, as this would be the only break in the snow showers. After our poor sleeping arrangements and our experiences with other rude and inconsiderate airport staff, we came to the conclusion that we had to get the boat at Holyhead. We got a fantastic deal at £30 each for all the train connections, and the boat included.

So at 9.20, we got the first of 4 trains. But, to make our bad 24hrs in the UK even worse, the train from Euston broke down and sat for 2hrs just outside Milton Keynes - we missed the boat. Luckily, we have relations in Wales, and we got a later train to Chester, and on to Abergele and stayed with them. In the end, we made 7 train connections on Wednesday!!

Thursday:
The only smooth day of the trip. Despite a few icy roads along the way, we got to Holyhead on time and got the ferry. Crossing was very smooth and FINALLY at about 6pm, two days later than planned, we were home in Dublin.

Summary:
Our Ryanair experience was faultless. But Gatwick Airport, Servisair and SkyBreak treated us like dogs. They didn't care about us and for the entire time we were there, they offered us nothing, not even a bottle of water. After travelling by: plane; disrupted trains; automobiles and a ferry, we got home. It certainly won't turn me off another day-trip, but I will be more vigilant as regards weather conditions.


Pictures to follow

[EchoVictorOscar]

Here are some pix. Only the 3rd one worked in the forum, the others are just links.

Departing Dublin
http://img696.imageshack.us/i/1000783.jpg/

Arriving in Gatwick - it was frosty at this point. After 8.30pm, you can imagine it was all white
http://img3.imageshack.us/i/1000795y.jpg/

A small dent I spotted on the outermost spoiler - probably a birdstrike

Emirates A380 flying over London
http://img685.imageshack.us/i/1000815m.jpg/

Snow from the train
http://img696.imageshack.us/i/1000828e.jpg/

A couple from the boat home
http://img13.imageshack.us/i/1000832n.jpg/
http://img696.imageshack.us/i/1000830i.jpg/