It is now Friday morning and we are still in Rome. When Our flight was cancelled we were all quite excited, while still excited our glow of excitement has lessened some what - as each morning begins the same we all feel like we are mice trapped on a wheel.
To explain.....
After we were notified our flight had been cancelled and we relocated, with a little drama, to the Airport Hilton we all went to bed expecting to be put on a flight on Wednesday. After breakfast we had a "team" meeting, the team being all the Cathay Pacific waylaid passengers, where we were told to wait and they would try and move passengers to different flights. So we sat and waited for 2 and half hours in what resembled a Bingo Game - he would gather us and call out passenger names at which point you would hear an excited "Yes" when the passenger "won". The crowds thinned and still we waited, eventually we were told that we would be put on the next days Cathay flight - perfect. He then told us he had also booked us on an Emirates flight that leaves in the evening as a standby because we had only 4 guaranteed seats and 2 waitlisted but he was quick to assure us that this would be fine - all passengers rarely show up.
What do you do with another unexpected day in Rome, that is a question I will answer in another blog but needless to say we had a wonderful day - besides not being able to fit on the crowded shuttle bus back to the hotel and then having to wait till the 11pm bus it but was ok we just went and had "one more Italian gelato!"
Thursday we were up, dressed and packed down in the foyer with only a handful of leftover way laid passengers, where our lovely but stressed Cathay man had to tell us that now there were now only 5 seats left on our flight but one passenger still had not checked in, so it was back to waiting. We were not destined for that flight by 1130 all passengers had checked in and with only 5 available seats we went to lunch and to the pool instead to wait for the 10pm Emirates flight.
About 4pm Mikaela very excitedly comes down to the pool to tell us that Cathay has upgraded us to business on the Emirates flight which was a strong motivation to be ready to checkout early. With the hotel in walking distance from the Airport,we headed off early, sad to say farewell to Italy but ready to go home. But Italy was not ready for us to leave - at the Emirates check in there was a problem and we were asked to wait again. They came back only to tell us that there was an error with the ticketing of our tickets,as well as as the flight from Dubai to Ho Chi Minh had been cancelled AND there flight was full but Carlos (we are now on first name basis with the Cathay guy) had booked us into the Airport Hilton. Who knows what the Emirates man expects when he has to tell passengers that they can't fly - what he didn't expect was our laughter, so the saga continues. On our arrival back at the Hilton to check in even the girl laughed and said "you only checked out 40 minutes ago" so they just put us back into our rooms.
Whilst all this drama is unfolding, Matthew has been in contact with Adriana in Ho Chi Minh getting her to inform our driver to collect us, to not collect us and to collect us again, and the housekeeper to come, not to come and to come again. This morning she also had the task of telling us that our power has been cut off, you can only
pay month by month in Vietnam and only in person and in cash. That will be something to look forward to, arriving in the dark with no lights, no air-con and no hot water.
That brings us to today - Friday. We have just been told to go back to the airport and check in at counter 212, who are we flying with? What time are we going? Via where? I am sure we will know in about an hour but I do have to wander how strong the magic of the Trevi Fountain is.
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