The Holiday From Hell | Part 1

*Originally posted on my blog at http://callumjw.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-holiday-from-hell-part-1.html*

I think for a lot of people that first holiday away with your partner is an exciting time, filled with the dreams of possibility, visions of fruity cocktails and the hope that you will be transported to a level of bliss and relaxation that you have never known before. 

Or at least that's the dream I had when my girlfriend, Emma and I decided to book a reasonably impromptu holiday to that heavenly Greek island, Corfu.

What I did not anticipate however was that the universe and every God from every civilisation EVER had decided that I deserved to be bent over and fucked like the last whore on a Viking ship lost at sea. 

In a less than sober state I started making a list of everything that had gone wrong and I added to it each time the long dick of the universe came out to bugger me.The list currently stands at 27 catastrophes, which for a 7 day trip is outstanding. So I have to break these shitty titbits, or shitbits into individual blogs, but lets start at the squelchy beginning of this wet shit.

The Flight Out 

Now we had an early flight, 6:05am to be precise, and much to Emma's annoyance we were flying with EasyJet due to my insistence that over a short distance it was ludicrous to pay so much more to fly with someone like BA. This happy little notion was soon shattered like a thin pane of glass being struck by a sprinting hippopotamus. 

We arrived at the joyous time of 4:00am at Gatwick only to be greeted by a queue that was essentially the human centipede. Gatwick had experienced an entire failure of all the check-in desks. All of them. 

Naively we thought a company as large as EasyJet would have some sort of procedure for such a problem.

No. 

We thought that with it being such an issue for so many people they would seize the initiative to really provide a fantastic customer service.  

No. 

We thought that someone employed by EasyJet would have a thimble full of either intelligence, common sense or sympathy. 

No. 

What Easy jet had was a hot, long, bustling, unorganised queue with a bumbling orange neckerchiefed nitwit shouting out flights that were leaving imminently like a game of shitty holiday bingo where winning was a relative term as you still had to suffer through an EasyJet flight. 

With only 15 minuets before take off the Neckerchief shouted "CORFU"; so happily we left the queue to find our savior who would no doubt be making himself easily accessible to those who needed to make the flight. 

No. 

He had disappeared down a black hole into a parallel universe where EasyJet runs like a well oiled machine and bad things happen to someone that isn't me.

Out the queue and aware our flight was leaving soon we pushed our way to the nearest desk and thrust our boarding passes under the noses of the man at the desk. 

Me: "Our flight to Corfu has just been called." 

*Man at desk looks at the boarding passed* 

Man: "Check in for this flight is closed." 

Me: "No it isn't, the guy over there has JUST called us, the gate IS NOT closed"

*Man at desk types on his computer* 

Man: "Okay so your flight appears to be on time, here are your tickets. Please place your bags on the conveyor belt and have a nice flight" 

'Have a nice flight'! I think that ship sailed a long time ago buddy boy. 

We now had less than ten minuets to get through security and run to the gate, which of course was on the other side of the terminal. 

Hot, sweating and out of breath, I made it to the gate and told them to hold it open just for a few moments longer for my girlfriend. Right on cue, Emma appeared scampering down the escalator. 

We then walked onto the PACKED plane both giddy that we had made it but annoyed that somehow despite leaving the queue of doom as soon as we heard our flight call we had still managed to be the last ones on the plane. 

But the final sour cherry on that cake iced with disaster was the cabin crew coming on the tannoy to apologise for the stressful morning and that rest assured they wouldn't have left without us. Really?! Because closing the gate was a pretty clear statement of intent to me that you where going to do just that. But our holiday lay ahead and surely that was the end of any stress we would possibly endure. 

Again, NO.