I took a long weekend to visit the UK for two events important to me: a bash for those who left my school exactly 50 years ago, and a celebration of the life of an old friend who died in January. Given I was staying in London, I took a couple of extra days for stuff, including visiting the corpse of my old poly. I booked to travel Thursday to Tuesday. The route I planned was Luxembourg to Brussels, then Brussels to London, renting a short stay studio flat in the East End.
I was sitting on the train in Luxembourg station a few minutes before departure when I received a text message from Eurostar cancelling my ticket: there was something wrong with the carriage. I think they were out of lemon–scented napkins, but I won’t swear to that. They couldn’t offer me an alternative seat because the train was full.
So I got off that train in Luxembourg station to consider my options. First of all, I tried to book a later Eurostar from Brussels. All were full that day, as were those on Friday, Saturday, …. I could not get to London via Brussels.
I had to get to London: I was not going to miss those two vital, to me, events just because of ‘napkins’. Now, what Eurostar wanted me to do was travel to Brussels so they could sort something out. That would take nearly five hours: an hour waiting for the next train from Luxembourg, and most of four hours sitting in it. In those five hours, most of the alternative travel options would probably be used up. Meanwhile, I found virtually the last ticket on a Eurostar from Paris later on that day.
I wasn’t going to risk missing that train, so I booked both the last ticket on the next TGV to Paris, and that chunnel ticket. The only TGV ticket available was first class. This ticket is how I discovered that TGV first class seats are, to my surprise, rather uncomfortable. The back cannot be set upright, the only settings correspond to various degrees of slouching. I dislike slouching.
Anyway, it cost me, but I had tickets to get to London, and I’m happy to say they worked. But, of course, Lady Luck had more gremlins to throw at me.
I got to Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord in ample time. However, while awaiting boarding the chunnel express, I received an SMS saying my booking for the flat was cancelled: the previous tenants had broken stuff. In other words, I could finally get to London, but now I had nowhere to stay. FFS!
Luckily, London has lots of hotels, and some had vacancies. Of course, London hotels are expensive, and last minute bookings in London hotels really are expensive. Since I had stayed at Z–Hotels in London previously, and was happy with them, I went back to them. I booked a room in Victoria. It cost twice as much as the flat, but I had little choice. Despite everything else, there was no problem with the hotel: the room was fine, the hotel was fine, the location was fine.
The day wasn’t done yet. My single tube journey from St. Pancras to Victoria cost me 14 quid! This was mostly my fault; I confused London with Paris, and tried to tap in & out with my phone. I should have used a card. However, for some reason, the tap at the exit gate didn’t align with that at the entrance gate, & never mind I used the same phone. Unfortunately, the mechanism to claim a refund in London requires me to buy an Oyster card, so I lost that money.
All the same, finally, I got to the hotel, got to bed, and slept. I went to those essential events, despite everything. My God, though, what a hassle. It wasn’t over, either. I took the planned trains to return to Luxembourg, but the Eurostar got stuck for a couple of hours outside Lille, because of an accident near or on the tracks ahead.
I have claimed compensation. I expect to get it.
Gordon Bennett, what a mess.