Cluster

How exciting we are off to Australia! I called and booked two van taxis to pick us up at 7pm for our 10pm flights. We would then catch the 7:30 train and get to the airport at 8pm. A short shuttle ride to the other terminal on the bus and we are off. Yeah!

At 7:05 our vans are not here, so I call and he tells me that he would be here in 10 minutes. At 7:15 still no vans, he calls and asks if he can bring cars instead. That won't work because we have 6 people and a ton of luggage so I tell him to forget it. Luckily we can catch cabs right by our house so Kyle heads down the street to hail 3 small cabs to haul to the train station. Not an easy task but he does it. After much debate among the drivers on where to put all the stuff, we load up and are on our way. I am in the first cab and he is turning the wrong way and I say "not left, we need to go right". He says "one of the guys needs petrol". I then firmly say "we have NO time for petrol". So he gets out and yells at the other guy and then we turn and are going the right direction.

At the train station we are stalled because they have problems processing Kyle's credit card. Three tries later we just pay cash and get on the train. Upon arrival at the main airport we have two porter guys that are helping with our stuff. I tell them we need to go to the other terminal with Air Asia. I then ask if we should take the bus or a taxi? They asked what time is our flight and when I told them 10pm they both said bus because we have enough time. So we all follow them to the bus area. You would think walking to the bus area is easy but the airport is crowded and we have a stroller, five people, two carts of luggage and two porter dudes. So we have to wait and wait to get on elevator after elevator. Finally we get down to the bus area. We are ready to board and the driver tells our porter this is the wrong bus. Crap. The other, correct, bus pulls up but there are SO many people getting on and off I can tell it will be a while. At this point time is flying by and we are getting testy. So I tell the porters we will just take a taxi, please show us the way. He assures me they are right upstairs. Well back upstairs with all the elevators and across the terminal takes probably 20 minutes. We finally get two van taxis.

Now we are in the van taxis to go to the other terminal. At this point it is 9pm and the driver asks "what time is your flight?" I answer "10pm" he sighs and steps on the gas. Well this short shuttle to the other terminal is a 20 MINUTE car ride. It is a whole other airport in my opinion. At this point I have not completely given up.

We pull up to the new terminal at 9:25 and run to the ticket counter. All the desks are reading for a flight to Melbourne, not Brisbane where we are headed. We ask the first guy we see and he says "oh sir that flight has already left". We say "it was at 10pm" he says "no mam it left at 9:40pm". Shit, it is official we missed the flight. So he refers us to another manager guy. He says the policies of Air Asia are that you will need to book another flight altogether. At this point we have all been in okay spirits but when we heard that I think we all melted. Then he says "let me see what I can do". Thank God he rebooks us on the flight for the following day and we only pay the difference in fares. Once it is all taken care of we now have to get another two van taxis to go all the way back home-over an hour drive. We made it home at 11:30pm.

3 tiny taxis x $18 = $54

5 tickets on the train = $155

2 van taxis to shuttle to the other airport = $100

Change fee on airline ticket = $332

2 van taxis for the long ride home = $334

Quest for a family vacation...PRICELESS. Yeah right! It was a complete CLUSTER F**K!

PS - at least the prices above are ringgit so it was only $278 US dollars. I guess it could have been much worse.