Picture this….

So they we were, the whole family in our bed for a morning snuggle. All of us getting excited about our holiday the following day. A plane flew over our house and the girls jumped up and down squealing with excitement and chattering non stop. “Maybe that’s our plane”. “Is that our plane Daddy”? “How big do you think it will be”? “Can we have our sticker books on the plane”?… “please Mummy”!

This was to be our first proper summer holiday as a family of five. We were going on a plane to Portugal for two whole weeks in the sun. It was supposed to be extra special as Husband had just had his 40th birthday and I was going to have mine whilst away. The cases had been packed for days, passports and tickets were safe and the car was booked in the airport car park.

Then my Dad sent us an innocent text message.

“0 more sleeps, enjoy and we will try and FaceTime you on your birthday. Lots of love xx”.

We all looked at each other “what? Silly Gramps, there’s still one more sleep to go”.

We quickly told Daddy to check the tickets just in case, which he did on his phone straight away, not really thinking for one second we had made a mistake.

After a quick check we discovered that yes we were definitely going on the 23rd but not the following day. No Mummy had made the biggest mistake ever and booked for the following year….yes you read that right. I booked it for August 2016!!! We were devastated!! We looked at the paper tickets, no mistake, we weren’t going anywhere the next day!

The girls faces fell, husbands face too and me… I was holding back the tears but panicking. What had I done? Could it be fixed?

We had booked with On The Beach who whilst friendly and helpfull on the phone,  couldn’t really do anything for us. Our flights were non refundable! With five of them we couldn’t afford to just cancel them and we couldn’t use the funds from that holiday to buy another either. All we could do was book a second holiday and keep the other for next year.

We spent all weekend searching and found plenty of holidays. Some were just too expensive whilst others were just not worth the money they wanted. What has happened to last minute cheap deals? Put in the details for five of us and it was around £3000 for a 2 star hotel with twin beds pushed together and sofa beds in the living area. Nothing like the beautiful apartment we had previously booked.

Devastated, gutted, there were no words to describe that feeling. Thankfully my lovely husband was amazing. He didn’t shout, get upset or point out that it was all my fault. He was patient whilst I cried and help me look for another holiday. He was reluctant to spend too much more though so in the end we decided to drive to France like we did earlier in the year.

We are now heading off to the Dordogne on Wednesday for 10 nights. Not quite what we had planned but there will be pools with fantastic water slides and a lake with canoes. The area is lush and green and looks really looks beautiful, oh and the weather is supposed to be about 31/32 degrees everyday. I’m sure it will be amazing.

Today I can write this and one day I might even see the funny side of it but right now I’m still feeling terribly disappointed and as though I’ve let my whole family down. You see it was no ones fault but my own, Husband was away when I booked it,

If you are booking a holiday yourself please don’t do what I did and make sure you check all the details carefully. I don’t think I will ever live this down or be trusted to book another family holiday again!

On a positive note, at least we hadn’t got all the way to the airport and realised our mistake whilst checking in! Now that really would have been the worst! Oh and of course we are now super organised for next year!

 

My Travel Monkey

Karen x