Rhodes - Day One
Regular readers of this column may remember such previous travelogs as "Three Go to Croatia but Only Two Bring Luggage, "Three Go to Barcelona and manage to wangle free entry to the Picasso museum, pissed, at midnight", and "Final Destination" - the holiday which lost us: one girlfriend; an ovary and half; three hundred-odd pounds worth of Hungarian Forints; much foot-blood; several wine glasses; one door; much dignity; and a brand new passport. In exchange, it gave us many plastic smurfs and the phrase "It smells like a brothery in here".
So when Stewart requested a journal of "Rhodes 2011", it seemed fairly likely that there would be enough newsworthy items to make it worth while.
Our day began, promisingly enough, with an 8am text from Ewan advising that he was already boarding and proceeded, ahead of schedule, with Laura arriving half an hour before we were due to depart for the airport and Nicky and Steve even arriving 45 mins before our scheduled assembly time. It was all for nought, though, when we realised that our 1525 departure time had been pushed back to 1845 (and, as time went on, 1945). This turned out to be just as well, as Thomson's computer systems were down and we had to be checked in manually using a system of cunning stickers for seat allocation. As a result, checkin took so long that we were not even at the front of the queue when our plane was originally scheduled to depart. This proved to be something of an ordeal for Steve who found himself in the queue in front of Margaret - a pensioner with absolutely no concept of personal space whatsoever. So much so, in fact, that Nicky actually promised to buy a pint for the stranger who explained the concept of "wait behind the blue line" to Margaret.
Once through the gate, much time (and food vouchers, so delayed was our flight) was spent in Frankie + Benny's, where the staff were friendly, even if they did have a tendency to walk away in the middle of their own questions.
Matters proceeded according to (late) plan thereafter and our pilot was at pains to point out that although there had been a technical failure, the engineers had worked for over six hours and never put an unsafe plane into the air. Mostly.
The passengers were generally appreciative of the cabin crew who volunteered to work beyond their maximum duty hours. Despite the in-flight entertainment having broken, our journey was perfectly pleasant and so four hours, and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon later, we touched down in Rhodes.
Despite the delays, there is no hurrying the Mediterranean people and it took a whopping hour to get through baggage reclaim. The Thomson reps were perfectly nice about it, making sure we didn't leave our luggage or our children on the coach.
We arrived at our destination at 4 am local time to find that Ewan had long since arrived, explored the town and, more importantly, stocked the fridge with wine. A quick toast to the fact that we had all arrived with internal organs intact, it was off to bed for a well air-conditioned rest.
So when Stewart requested a journal of "Rhodes 2011", it seemed fairly likely that there would be enough newsworthy items to make it worth while.
Our day began, promisingly enough, with an 8am text from Ewan advising that he was already boarding and proceeded, ahead of schedule, with Laura arriving half an hour before we were due to depart for the airport and Nicky and Steve even arriving 45 mins before our scheduled assembly time. It was all for nought, though, when we realised that our 1525 departure time had been pushed back to 1845 (and, as time went on, 1945). This turned out to be just as well, as Thomson's computer systems were down and we had to be checked in manually using a system of cunning stickers for seat allocation. As a result, checkin took so long that we were not even at the front of the queue when our plane was originally scheduled to depart. This proved to be something of an ordeal for Steve who found himself in the queue in front of Margaret - a pensioner with absolutely no concept of personal space whatsoever. So much so, in fact, that Nicky actually promised to buy a pint for the stranger who explained the concept of "wait behind the blue line" to Margaret.
Once through the gate, much time (and food vouchers, so delayed was our flight) was spent in Frankie + Benny's, where the staff were friendly, even if they did have a tendency to walk away in the middle of their own questions.
Matters proceeded according to (late) plan thereafter and our pilot was at pains to point out that although there had been a technical failure, the engineers had worked for over six hours and never put an unsafe plane into the air. Mostly.
The passengers were generally appreciative of the cabin crew who volunteered to work beyond their maximum duty hours. Despite the in-flight entertainment having broken, our journey was perfectly pleasant and so four hours, and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon later, we touched down in Rhodes.
Despite the delays, there is no hurrying the Mediterranean people and it took a whopping hour to get through baggage reclaim. The Thomson reps were perfectly nice about it, making sure we didn't leave our luggage or our children on the coach.
We arrived at our destination at 4 am local time to find that Ewan had long since arrived, explored the town and, more importantly, stocked the fridge with wine. A quick toast to the fact that we had all arrived with internal organs intact, it was off to bed for a well air-conditioned rest.