Getting to Lapland

This post could have quite easily been called ‘Easyjet you bar stewards’ but, no diplomacy is my middle name so I’ll just have a little in-post rant instead. Trust me, I’m entitled grrrr

The flight from Edinburgh was delayed by about two and a half hours, no problem though we passed the time with croissants dipped in hot chocolate, yum!

However our arrival in Stansted was a different story. I’d booked an ‘airport hotel’ via the easyjet site. I checked at the information desk, they were very vague and hadn’t heard of the hotel. I checked with the taxi desk and they said ?31.50?! I checked at the bus desk and they said the 510 bus in 45 mins. We waited, the bus arrived, and the driver told me it was the wrong bus. I tried to phone the hotel, no answer and then my phone died. At this point Erin’s tired and I’m seriously stressed out and close to tears.

I checked the price of staying in another hotel (?105) and if I hadn’t had to wait 40 mins for a shuttle bus I’d have booked it. Long story short I ended up getting a train and a taxi, exhausted and harrassed I tried to check into the hotel (that was in the middle of bleedin’ nowhere). After a further 20 minutes it turns out I’d been booked in on the wrong day and was down as a no show.

Eventually we were allowed to go to our room. The corridors looked like a hostel and smelled like a bad indian take away. So the room was a pleasant surprise. We holed ourselves up in there from 4pm until we could leave at 7am the next morning. Don’t know why (well I do now) but I didn’t feel safe.

Next morning we just took a straightforward taxi transfer back to the airport (?25), during which our driver let us know about the undesirability of living or staying in Harlow, bit rough apparently.

Very pleased to be back at Stansted the check in desk displaying ‘Lapland’ our moods lifted and we celebrated with hazelnut cappuccino (smoothie for Erin!) and croissants (iced and filled with chocolate!).

We made our way to Gate 1 via the Stansted monorail which elicited squeals of excitement from Erin.

Everyone at the gate was really friendly, lots of knowing smiles from other travellers. The atmosphere was great….. to be continued