lies, lies and more lies

Monday began with us being told to leave the hotel for 12.30pm (sharp), this involved a note posted thru our doors and followed by a telephone call. At breakfast one of the hotel staff told me that he had heard we werent departing until 9pm, but that they had just been told 2pm.

We arrived at the airport checked with Servisair and I was told a 2pm departure was scheduled. They then opened a desk to issue us with new boarding passes, the majority of the group had gone to a different hotel, so only 8 of us checked in. The rest had been shipped to a hotel almost 20kms away. We then went thru security and did some shopping, next thing I notice the departure time had moved to 3pm. Not great but not a disaster. Then before my eyes it changed to 10pm. All in a matter of minutes. We had been mislaid yet again.

I had got to know this couple and we decided to go to ask Servisair what was happening, which meant walking thru the airport, passport control and customs before going all the way back to departures.

After a frank exchange of opinions they advised that 10pm was only a provisional departure and would depend on Estonia air securing a part for the plane and an engineer to undertake the work (yesterday was a public holiday in Ireland). So we opted to try for a re-route. By this time we had collected another couple (Kieran from Wexford and his Estonian gf called Murel). The 5 of us became a sort of travel group as we rebooked as one party, meaning we had to stick together like glue from here on.

Our re-route meant a flight to Prague, then collect new boarding passes and connect to Tallinn. We were supposed to arrived in Tallinn on Monday 4 at 05.30, I eventually arrived 12.45am Tuesday 5. Not quite 24 hrs late, but not far off it.

I discovered Estonians have absolutely no ability to be positive when things go wrong, the couple of locals we befriended were so negative bout everything, like our bags will get lost, we will miss our connection, our bags wont make the connection blah, blah, blah. But the are really really nice people, quite friendly when you break thru the icy exterior.

Sorry folks I needed to finish my rant.