The day began simply enough. All the packing the night before went fairly well, the minivan taxi even came on time. Though the driver was fairly dismayed when he saw the number and size of our baggage – as usual it all worked in the end and off we went to Heathrow.
The difficulties began at baggage check-in. It seems our tickets do not have a consistent baggage policy for all the flights on our journey. The excessive but very good for us 2 bags per person at 23kg each plus carry-on baggage was reduced for this leg to Frankfurt down to one bag each of no more than 20kg plus carry on baggage. What a to-do! It wasn’t our fault and it wasn’t their fault, somewhere a glitch in the Lufthansa ticketing system had occurred (which we hope will be rectified before our next flight!!).
Either way it meant a complete re-pack and reduce right there on the floor of the check-in terminal amongst hundreds of passengers. With our trolleys and persons and baggage we took up ¼ the size of a tennis court all spread out on the floor. Sadly we were forced to bin lots of things. What we could not part with but did not need till home was repacked into 3 bags for direct shipping and the rest reorganised and re-weighed.
I took the gear down to shipping (a separate level on the far side of the terminal) whilst Karen and the boys re-checked-in the remains. For my part it was going well til I lost all three bags off the trolley in front of a bus (note to self: calm down and stop running) and then had to fill out 6 pages of forms in triplicate, empty and re-pack one of the bags three times looking for batteries and other items that the x-ray refused.
Margin is a good thing. However even with the extra hour margin we had allowed it was not sufficient for the task. The plane was delayed while they paged the Williamson family, the staff were stroppy and we were now running to make it on board. At times like this God intervenes in amazing ways. You can bet we were all praying hard and miracles began to happen. They allowed us some extra weight in our remaining bags and did not count the pram and child seat and then for the first time so far there was no queue at the passport check, the personal security x-ray check or at boarding, even the gate where the plane was revving its engines waiting for us was physically the closest gate to the entry – not bad out of 40+ gates. Every other flight we’ve undertaken has seen queues at each of those points for anything up to 20mins a go.
The result? We’re now 50kgs lighter, $500 lighter (expecting to be refunded by Lufthansa later on) and are amazed at God’s provision in so many ways.
Michael
The difficulties began at baggage check-in. It seems our tickets do not have a consistent baggage policy for all the flights on our journey. The excessive but very good for us 2 bags per person at 23kg each plus carry-on baggage was reduced for this leg to Frankfurt down to one bag each of no more than 20kg plus carry on baggage. What a to-do! It wasn’t our fault and it wasn’t their fault, somewhere a glitch in the Lufthansa ticketing system had occurred (which we hope will be rectified before our next flight!!).
Either way it meant a complete re-pack and reduce right there on the floor of the check-in terminal amongst hundreds of passengers. With our trolleys and persons and baggage we took up ¼ the size of a tennis court all spread out on the floor. Sadly we were forced to bin lots of things. What we could not part with but did not need till home was repacked into 3 bags for direct shipping and the rest reorganised and re-weighed.
I took the gear down to shipping (a separate level on the far side of the terminal) whilst Karen and the boys re-checked-in the remains. For my part it was going well til I lost all three bags off the trolley in front of a bus (note to self: calm down and stop running) and then had to fill out 6 pages of forms in triplicate, empty and re-pack one of the bags three times looking for batteries and other items that the x-ray refused.
Margin is a good thing. However even with the extra hour margin we had allowed it was not sufficient for the task. The plane was delayed while they paged the Williamson family, the staff were stroppy and we were now running to make it on board. At times like this God intervenes in amazing ways. You can bet we were all praying hard and miracles began to happen. They allowed us some extra weight in our remaining bags and did not count the pram and child seat and then for the first time so far there was no queue at the passport check, the personal security x-ray check or at boarding, even the gate where the plane was revving its engines waiting for us was physically the closest gate to the entry – not bad out of 40+ gates. Every other flight we’ve undertaken has seen queues at each of those points for anything up to 20mins a go.
The result? We’re now 50kgs lighter, $500 lighter (expecting to be refunded by Lufthansa later on) and are amazed at God’s provision in so many ways.
Michael
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