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So far, holiday going not quite according to plan. Our flight didn't leave Heathrow on time - we had to wait for someone for about 15 minutes and then presumably we'd lost our slot on the runway and didn't get another one for a while, meaning that we were nearly an hour taking off. We were a little nervous about our connection, which was 1h30min after our original arrival time but assumed that because it was the same airline, they'd wait the flight or make some arrangement. No such luck. When we got to Lisbon, we got into the terminal to be told that our flight had left without us (meaning it must have been bang on time - not sure why the Heathrow flight waited but the Lisbon one didn't...) and we would have to go to the transfer desk to find out what would happen next. So the next thing was that we spent an hour waiting in line at the transfer desk while two women gradually worked through the queue. I spent this period getting quite stressed and arguably, justifiably so as when we arrived at the front of the queue, we were told that we were being put on the night flight taking off at 10pm and landing at 2am with no option or consultation. When we pointed out that we would be landing 4 hours drive from our destination in the middle of the night with no way to know if we could arrange any transportation at that hour or whether the reserve would be open to new arrivals at that time in the morning, we were met with a shrug. Needless to say, I also requested the complaints form and we filed a complaint. I would say definitely avoid TAP Portugal if you have a choice of airlines!
I was a bit tearful by this point so we wandered in to find a seat, connect to the airport wifi (fortunatly, freely available) and figure out what to do next. I managed to email my contact at Fathala, who, luckily, was absolutely lovely. I got an email back within half an hour and she had arranged a new driver to pick us up at 2am and reassured us that he'll wait for us if there are any delays. So now we just have to wait. We've managed to secure a spot with a charging point and a sofa so Alex is currently having a nap (he didn't manage to sleep on the journey at all) and fortunately, as well as the plug changers and so on which are in our hold luggage, I also had a euro-pin plug in USB charger which I dropped into my hand luggage at the last minute as a just in case thing so between power and internet we can manage to amuse ourselves for the day but it's not exactly the day I'd been planning and looking forward to :( Oh well, at least tomorrow should still be amazing....
I was a bit tearful by this point so we wandered in to find a seat, connect to the airport wifi (fortunatly, freely available) and figure out what to do next. I managed to email my contact at Fathala, who, luckily, was absolutely lovely. I got an email back within half an hour and she had arranged a new driver to pick us up at 2am and reassured us that he'll wait for us if there are any delays. So now we just have to wait. We've managed to secure a spot with a charging point and a sofa so Alex is currently having a nap (he didn't manage to sleep on the journey at all) and fortunately, as well as the plug changers and so on which are in our hold luggage, I also had a euro-pin plug in USB charger which I dropped into my hand luggage at the last minute as a just in case thing so between power and internet we can manage to amuse ourselves for the day but it's not exactly the day I'd been planning and looking forward to :( Oh well, at least tomorrow should still be amazing....
