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Trip Reports: Angela and Martin's trip report
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2004-08-02 to 2005-05-08: Angela and Martin's trip report
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Martin de Weger (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3632) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 10:15 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

October 9, 2004. Today is the day. We are leaving for another visit to Bonaire. We leave our place around 7.30 AM to leave for the airport. Since we have stand-by tickets, we are not sure yet on what flight we will be. So when we check in at Schiphol airport, we try to get on the 11.00 AM flight directly to Bonaire.

Unfortunately the flight is full, so we change our destination to Aruba, since we know we can get on a Bonaire-Exel flight to Bonaire about 1,5 hours after we land on Aruba. That shouldn't be a problem (we think)… We can get on the Aruba flight, so everything goes as planned so far.

After a nice, smooth and relaxed flight we arrive at Aruba. Here we hear our luggage is still in Amsterdam. OK, no problem, please forward it to Bonaire, so we can pick it up a day later. Now it’s time to get a ticket from Aruba to Bonaire. The ticket office is closed when we arrive there, but only for a few minutes. 45 minutes later a person shows up and tells us the Ticket office is closed, so is the in check desk and the plane is about to leave. We are a bit disappointed, to say the least. The staff of Bonaire-Exel is not very helpful, they are only willing to sell us a ticket for the next day. The morning flight is full, we can be put on the waiting list, in the afternoon we can get an OK ticket. Since this is our only option, we agree.

Now where to sleep? We get a cab and are brought to a hotel in the main hotel area. Unfortunately, the hotel is full, so we walk to the next one. There we have another nice surprise, they are full as well, and so is every hotel on Aruba. There is a song festival during the weekend, so all hotels are full. But the staff of this hotel is helpful, and made some phone calls. The Renaissance hotel (formerly the Sonesta Hotel) downtown still has 1 (one!!) room. So into another cab and back to the town. The hotel is really nice and so is the staff. We get a nice room, where we finally can get some sleep. It’s now 21.5 hours after we left our house.

October 10, 2004. We get up and get ready to go to the airport. After check-out, we grab a cab and get to the airport. We try to check in, but since we are on a waiting list, we have to wait 45 minutes before they can tell us if we are accepted. 45 minutes later, we report to the desk again, and they tell us, only 1 person can be accepted. After the nice trip from the day before, we decide to stay together. The person from Bonaire-Exel tells us we can not go to Bonaire today, so we have to wait another day. We are getting close to the borders of our patience with her, and explain to her we have confirmed tickets for the afternoon flight. She replies like: “Oh, do you?? Let me check.” She checks it and guess what, we are correct. So she checks us in for the afternoon flight.

Now the long wait begins, we arrived at the airport around 7.40 AM and our flight leaves at 3.30 PM. We do some shopping and people watching and I made some phone calls to Bonaire, to inform Linda and Ilka (where we rent our car) about our new arrival time.

We did manage to get on the 3.30 PM flight and met Ilka and Linda. We even met Tom and Smack at the plane to Bonaire. Unfortunately our luggage is still not here (the KLM flight to Aruba had a 4 hour delay and Bonaire-Excel, customer serving as always, didn’t wait for the flight).

To be continued…

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Barbara Leary (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #6626) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 11:03 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Geez, Martin...I hope the luggage arrives soon...it took mine 4 days to make it out of Bonaire and Puerto Rico..and fortunately no mildew in the wetsuit! Put Smack to work..he's the airline connection man! :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mary Wills (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #345) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 12:52 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Oh Martin!
Do you have a button on your gadget that you can push so that your luggage arrives pronto?
Oh Angela!
I do hope your stuff arrives soon.

MaryW

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Diana van den Wollenberg (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #2723) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 3:18 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Oh.. what a story. Glad that you finally got there... now hoping the luggage will arrive soon!
I would be very frustrated that the staff of a flight compagnie is not willing to help.... (I always think it's their job to help stranded passengers as good as possible)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Brian (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #681) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 3:35 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Martin

I hope your luggage arrives soon, have a great vacation.

We just got back from Bonaire yesterday. I think Bonaire Exel are still learning, they booked us all the way home with a flight to Curacao, then Amsterdam and then Birmingham (took 20 minutes and all three staff). We checked the tickets and they had issued the same seat on both boarding cards on both KLM flights (one seat two people). This was resolved after much discussion amongst the check in staff and just before our flight was due. On the plane we noticed that the AMS - BHX ticket had someone elses name on it. KLM soon corrected this in Curacao.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jerry Besco (BonaireTalker - Post #47) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 6:29 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Martin,
Chicago to Montego Bay to Flamingo Airport in 9 hours feels great after hearing of your adventure.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Lisa Barclay (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #281) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 8:45 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Martin and Angela I hope your vacation gets more relaxing and your fun can begin. I also hope your luggage arrives soon. Have a great vacation from here on out!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Marabeth Owens (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #199) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 9:04 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Martin and Angela - wow, what a way to start a vacation. Well, I hope you and your luggage are united shortly. Try to find out where your luggage went. It may have had a more exciting trip than you - well, come to think of it, naw - Bonaire is better than almost any trip.

Mara

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Eileen Kimmett (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #6666) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 9:09 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I hope you get your luggage soon. You'll have an awesome time soon though:-):-)!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Martin de Weger (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3635) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 11:16 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

The luggage has arrived, more in the next update of out Trip report... Stay tuned...

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mary Wills (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #347) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 11:27 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Martin, has your gadget arrived intact?

Curious Mary

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Martin de Weger (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3636) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 11:31 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Mary, you don't think my gadget will leave my side, do you? That is one important piece of luggage!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mary Wills (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #349) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 11:55 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Martin! Big sigh of relief!
A man and his gadget should not be kept apart for too long.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Eileen Kimmett (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #6670) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 12:18 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Whew! I am glad your luggage arrived!!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Freddie Hughes (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #5221) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 1:09 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I know for a fact that Martin had his gadget out and using {abusing}it about 1 hour ago..

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Marabeth Owens (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #205) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 1:12 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Why does this frighten me?? LOL! And Martin, I just looked at your profile and realized that I have been to your lovely city 2 times. The company that I work for has an office there and I have been there to conduct training.

Glad your luggage and your gadget made it.

Mara

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Eker (BonaireTalker - Post #39) on Thursday, October 14, 2004 - 10:47 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

OK, I'll bite.

What's the gadget you keep mentioning?

Searched the archives, checked their websites, and still came up dry. I'm halfway thinking it's a camera, but half thinking will get me elected US President!

We're all hoping you have better luck getting home after your vacation! Don't let 'em drop you in Lower Slobbovia or some other garden spot.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mary Wills (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #365) on Thursday, October 14, 2004 - 11:20 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Okay StanE,

Bottom of this page, click on keyword search, click on keyword box, type in gadget at the 'search for' field, click on perform search, and you'll get a list. Click away and read about Martin Muffin Man and his wonderful (so far unseen) gadget.

If you still need help, holler.

 


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