Hey TwoPlusTwo,
So I woke up this morning with a message from Martin saying that his 17:00 Leeds flight had also been cancelled and that the Hurricane Ophelia is getting worse than they predicted it would be and most flights into Dublin are being cancelled.
Martin decided to book a later flight from Manchester which he hoped would run as the storm should have mostly passed by then. And if this didn’t work as a Plan B there was an even later one from Manchester to Dublin. I checked my 14:00 flight and it hadn’t been cancelled yet so I met Dan and Beth for a quick breakfast, checked out of the cabin hotel and got the train from central Amsterdam to the Amsterdam airport. I had arrived at the airport pretty early because I wanted to be able to act fast if my 14:00 flight wasn’t running. From looking at the weather reports, checking the news and the Dublin airport arrivals I gave my flight a 30% chance of running. After a while the check in desk opened and I checked my bags in, the check in girl said “I’m not sure the flight will run but things are looking ok so far”. I went to the departure gate and looked at the board, first thing I saw was ‘Dublin – Cancelled’ and my heart sunk. It took me a few seconds to notice that this was the 14:20 flight to Dublin and my 14:00 flight was still running according to the board, phew! But if the flight taking off just 20 minutes after mine was cancelled I wasn’t super hopeful about my flight, however at this stage I increased my flight percentage to 50%. Win a coinflip please! The ticket said the gate closed at 13:30 so by 13:15 when no plane or staff had arrived it wasn’t looking great. I knew if the plane was delayed then the landing time would be even more into the worst of the hurricane and the flight had a higher chance of being cancelled. But soon after this thought the boarding crew arrived and so did the beautiful plane!! Holllld!
My flight percentage had increased to 70% but I still wasn’t sure I’d be actually arriving in Dublin. For this flight I didn’t care if they put me in the middle seat or in the bloody toilet for the whole thing, just get me to Dublin ASAP. They soon started boarding the plane and it was looking like I had held! We got on the plane and it was a big relief when it actually started taking off. Though I thought there was still a chance we could be diverted to Liverpool or Manchester midflight I was putting the landing in Dublin percentage at 95% now.
We were around 20 minutes from our scheduled landing time when the captain announced “We’re going to try and land in Dublin but please expect it to be a dumpy landing” First time landing in a hurricane so my seatbelts were extra tightly fastened haha. The captain wasn’t wrong about the landing, the plane was jerking from left to right and the whole landing seemed to take a lot longer than normal. We finally touched down on solid Irish ground after a nervous 20 minutes and the whole plane broke out into applause and cheers. More importantly I’d made it to Dublin and it looked pretty certain I’d be getting to Vegas with Virgin Atlantic as I had planned (I didn’t use my vacation one time on this btw, but it was close). Tbh the weather when I walked out of the airport towards the hotel wasn’t that bad. There was no rain, sometimes some strong gusts of wind but I didn’t think it was anything major. At this point I was fairly certain Martin’s later flight would be fine as well. I checked into the hotel with no issues, I thought because it was under Martin’s name they would need him there but I got into the room with no questions asked. Put on a movie and had a little nap. Woke up to this…
I couldn’t believe they’d cancelled his flight, the weather outside seemed fine to me (but clearly not a weather expert). The later flight from Manchester was also cancelled. There was no way Martin was getting to Dublin tonight which would mean he misses the Dublin to London flight and means that he loses his London to Vegas flight (and the return flights). After looking how much new Vegas flights the next day would be he called me, I knew it was bad news when I saw that he was calling “Tom, would you be mad if I don’t come to Vegas? New return flights are £700 and I would need a hotel in Manchester so we’re talking an extra £850 on top of everything else. I will still come if it’ll make you mad or if you’ll have a crap time alone” Martin is currently saving for a house deposit and obviously I’m not going to make him pay an extra £850 and said it was totally up to him. After having a quick think he confirmed that he wouldn’t be coming and suddenly I’m a one man band and my trip to Sin City becomes a solo trip
. Totally gutted for Martin as we’d both been looking forward to this for a long time. Also not really what I would have planned, I would have preferred to try somewhere new with my days off rather than a solo Vegas trip, some other friends are going to Vietnam in November which would have been class, but it is what it is and I’ve got to make the most of it. Luckily I think Vegas is somewhere you can go alone and still have a great time. I also checked the later flight from Amsterdam which I was debating to take as it seemed less risky and that flight had been cancelled as well. I think I got very lucky that my flight actually took off and landed or I would have been in the same position as Martin. I tried calling Expedia again for the one outer that Martin could just go straight to London but again after over an hour on hold gave up. I messaged a few poker mates to see if anyone wanted a free Vegas bed but understandably no one else could make it to Vegas during the week with such short notice.
As well as being gutted that Martin won’t be coming this has also caused some other issues:
Martin has all my $$$. I had left my dollars in my parents’ house in the UK after my last Vegas trip and my parents had dropped my dollars off with Martin a few weeks ago and I was meant to get them from him when I met him in Dublin. This means I’ll be arriving in Vegas with literally $0 in pocket… Martin was also going to give me TV shows to watch and now I have nothing for the flight (less of an issue). I’ll have to put in a ****load of poker now to get the poker room rate, won’t be easy with the day trip to San Fran as well. Just generally the whole cost of the trip has increased as don’t have someone to share taxis with etc… Not to mention I spend a fair amount of time in Georgia alone and I was just looking forward to chatting and going to restaurants with a familiar face. Also I think it’ll be pretty unlikely I’ll have another Vegas trip next year so this will most likely be the last one for a while.
During my first fish & chips in a year I tell myself that these are first world problems. I’m worrying about TV shows while Martin lost his Vegas flight and this hurricane caused a lot of damage and killed at least three people. My problems are small in comparison.
The storm outside sounds pretty crazy now but tomorrow if the storm blows over like it’s meant too and if everything goes to plan I’ll be going to one of my favorite cities on earth and experience Vegas as a solo traveler for the first time.
Good night x
Last edited by hutchyw117; 10-18-2017 at 09:33 PM.