Sunday, July 27, 2008

7:11 Has to Leave One Behind

This weekend the 7:11 group headed to the French Rivera for some fun in the sun. All seven of us headed out on Friday, but only six returned. What? Yes, only six of the members returned on Baboo Airlines today- Bruce was left behind. But we (myself and the rest of the group) are confident that he will be ok, due to the fact that he is the only one with any French language knowledge.

So how did this happen? Well when we got to the airport today, everything seemed fine. We were checking in Tony, Meghan, and Joe all got through with no problem, then it was Bruce and my turn. She pulled up my reservation no problem, but when it came to Bruce that is when the woman was like - I'm sorry sir but we don't have a reservation for you. So they sent us to this booth - and these two women were baffled - they couldn't find Bruce's reservation. It was of course the only one he hadn't printed and brought with him. When they finally found the reservation it was for Monday morning at 9:30 am. We of course asked them if there was any room on the flight - the answer was promptly yes and then said that would be 255 Euro's. For those of you who are not hip on the current exchange rate that's about 400 American Dollars. We asked if we could just switch his ticket to today - and they said NO. And there wasn't any sweet talking or arguing with them.

I tried to go upstairs and use the internet terminal to see if I could find his reservation. However that was a disaster due to the fact that the French keyboard has the "Q" and "A" swapped. It made me crazy and it wouldn't take my credit card. So that was no help.

So we quickly checked me in and Bruce dropped me off at the security. He headed to the train station to see if he could get a train ticket back to Geneva. That was not an option because he would have gotten back later than if he waited until tomorrow's flight. So he found a cheap hotel and enjoyed another day in Nice.

However despite the snafu - the Baboo is the way to go in Europe. They have new nice planes and they serve delicious food. The crew was very friendly. So my only suggestion is just make sure you print out your flight information - and always bring it with you.

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