Holiday Cancellations

With Covid restrictions relaxed and my heart attack recovery continuing we thought it was time for a holiday – I think after the year or two we’ve had it was well deserved. Anna and I therefore booked a little adventure to go Sea Kayaking in Sardinia. Morgan didn’t really want to come with us so he’ll stay at home to look after the pets. The planning wasn’t quite as easy as it should have been.

The Adventure Begins

You’d think a short flight to Sardinia and back would be relatively easy wouldn’t you. Well, it wasn’t that straight forward as there were very few direct flights and the in-direct ones had huge stopovers that just wouldn’t work. We did, after much searching, manage to find a suitable solution. The plan and therefore bookings were made to fly from Manchester to Sardinia. The flight arrived at an airport on the wrong side of Sardinia but we could go a day early spend an extra night on that side of the island and then get where we needed to the following day.

So, a hotel was found and an extra night was booked. The plan was therefore to fly into Sardinia, have a night in a hotel on the East of the island and then spend the following day making our way across the island by train, bus and taxi. It would be a pleasant relaxed trip across the island with no real deadline as we couldn’t check into the farm that we were staying at until later in the day anyway. It should be quite a nice day that would allow us to see some of the island.

The farm we were staying at for the remainder of the holiday looked nice and wasn’t too difficult to get to. It would be our base for a few nights whilst we went sea kayaking during the days.

Return Trip

The journey back wasn’t straight forward either. It did at least leave from an airport on the correct side of Sardinia, but it flew into Dublin. We would then have to spend 6 hours or so in Dublin waiting for a flight back to Manchester. That wasn’t really enough time to bother checking into a hotel so our plan would be to chill in the airport for the small hours of the morning before heading back to Manchester. Not ideal, but it was the best we could do.

So, everything was booked. 3 separate flights, the hotel accommodation in Sardinia for the first night, the farmhouse accommodation and the sea kayaking and of course the car parking at Manchester. The trains and buses across Sardinia looked easy enough so we’d sort those out on the day. With forms filled, Covid passes completed, insurance paid for and everything else sorted were ready. Or so we thought.

Cancellations

Anna just happened to check the first flight from Manchester to Sardinia last night, only to find that it had been cancelled. EasyJet hadn’t told us about this fact, but that was it, the flight was cancelled and there was nothing we could do about it.

Our only options were for a complete refund or to be moved to a different flight. There were no other flights! At least not ones that wouldn’t mean re-planing everything! Eventually we did find a flight that left at a suitable time. Only problem was that it went from from Bristol rather than Manchester. It left a little earlier in the day so would require an overnight stay in Bristol the night before as well, but with plenty of friends and family in and around Bristol that was a possibility. The issue we had was that our return flights brought us into Manchester, and we already had car parking booked in Manchester too. 

The latter of these was easily solved as there was free cancellations on the parking, so we only lost the £2.99 booking fee on that. The other issue wasn’t so easy. The flights were with a different airline so it wasn’t their problem that we no longer needed to go from Dublin to Manchester. It wasn’t EasyJet’s problem either as we weren’t flying back with them. It may have been their cancellation that caused the issue but they don’t care about that.

There was no other option than to buy some new flights from Dublin to Bristol and just forfeit the original flights to Manchester. We can’t get a refund for them so we didn’t actually cancel them, we just won’t use them. We’ll keep them ‘active’ though just in case as you never know what might happen. For all we know we might end up needing them at some point if we end up stranded in Dublin!

A New Plan and Favours Asked

So, with new flights booked at our expense we had a new plan. The next problem was that none of the airport parking at Bristol seemed to have any vacancies for the dates we needed. Fortunately I have good friends who don’t live too far from the airport. It was time to ask for a favour in the form of some car parking outside their house and an early morning lift to the airport. They said it would be fine so I think we are (for now) once again sorted. It will mean an extra night away from home, but that’s an excuse to see my parents. It’ll also mean a trip to Helen’s but thats good too as we haven’t seen them for ages so maybe it’ll turn out better in the end.

However, we haven’t even started packing yet and it’s already been fairly stressful!! So much for a nice relaxing break to get over the past year or so! Hopefully it’ll all go well from here on in. Although we can’t help but check the flights every half an hour just to make sure none of the new ones have been cancelled!

2 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum x says:

    Be positive it WILL be fine x

  1. Tuesday, April 19th, 2022

    […] challenges started a few days before the trip when our flights were cancelled! EasyJet never did tell us about these cancellations but luckily we were on top of things so […]

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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