Plain sailing my arse
Last January I mentioned that we had decided on a French holiday again this year.
The holiday is all arranged, with documents signed and deposits paid. Sandy has her passport and we are all ready to go……..
Except that I forgot to book the ferry.
On Saturday, I sat down and called up the Irish Ferries web site to book the tickets. I have had a few issues with Irish Ferries but the alternatives either involve driving to Cork or taking a long-cut across Wales and England. So Irish Ferries it had to be.
The first thing that slaps you in the face as you enter their site is the trip booking section. Fair enough. So far so good. I carefully calculated the dates that I wanted to sail and carefully selected the outward journey on the correct day to Roscoff and the return journey from Cherbourg.
It then insisted that I book cabins.
No problem there. I booked a cabin for the outward and return journeys.
It then wanted to know all about Sandy. I told it all about Sandy.
It then wanted to know all about me. I told it everything except my religion.
It then wanted to know all about Herself. This was getting tedious.
It then wanted to know all about the car. Fucking hell! I was rapidly running out of Prozac at this stage.
Finally it got to the payment section. At fucking last. It then asked if I had travelled with them before, and could I please enter my password. It is two years since I last used the site, so of course I had forgotten my password. I tried a few on the off chance but none of them worked. Bollox! I clicked the link to be sent a new one.
I waited for the email. No joy. Time passed and I got bored. I tried a few more passwords. Still no go.
Finally, about twenty minutes after I had requested it, the mail arrived with the Unlock Code, as they called it. I went back to the site and entered the code. It told me to fuck off. It told me that the code had expired as I should have entered it within ten minutes of requesting it. Now that would have been fucking difficult as the bastards hadn’t sent it to me by then.
I took a handful of Prozac and requested a new code.
This time, they were a tad quicker offt he mark and sent me another Unlock Code within five minutes. I beetled back and lashed in the code. That worked, and I set a new password. Great stuff!! Now I am getting somewhere.
Now that I was logged in, I went to the booking form to complete my payment, to find that the fucking thing was blank!! I had to go back and select my sailings and book my cabins, and then had to tell it all about myself, Herself and Sandy all over again. It finally presented me with a page with all the details on it and it asked me to check them carefully. I did. I read through the page very carefully as I didn’t want to book a wrong day or a wrong car or a wrong something else.
All was OK, so I clicked on the payment button. It told me that the page had timed out for security reasons [?!]. I had to go back and start the whole fucking procedure again from scratch. FUCK! Another handful of Prozac.
This time I went at it like a greyhound out of the traps. I lashed in all the information as quickly as I could and when it came to the confirmation page, I whipped past it and into the payment area. I paid and it finally sent me a confirmation thing to print off.
I have no idea what I have booked. I trust I am going to France. Or maybe I have booked us a trip to Wales? I have no idea who is going and in what car with which dog. I put in the information too quickly and didn’t have time to cross check it.
So we are sailing on the Third. I’m not sure what month, but we are definitely booked in.
I wonder where we are going?
Maybe you should have just called a travel agent.
I recently tried to get the price of shipping a bird to England. A Nanday Conure to be precise. Why the fucking thing couldn’t just fly there I don’t know. Anyhoo, the first box to be filled in asked dog, cat or bird. So I clicked on bird. Then another box wanted me to click on the breed. The site wouldn’t let me continue without saying the bird is an Andalusian fucking Wolfhound or whatever. Assholes.
I’m so glad this happens to other people as well – I thought it was just me!
TT – What is the point of spending on fares for a bird? All you have to do is tell it the address and it can fly there under its own steam? And as it’s a parrot, it can ask for directions if it gets lost. You really aren’t thinking this out.
Meltemian- No. It’s me as well. All the time.
Did you actually read what I wrote ?
” Why the fucking thing couldn’t just fly there I don’t know.”
aah adventures, just the thing to recover from the stress of planning the bloody things!
Damn lucky you weren’t going to the States. You and Sandy would both have gone straight on a watchlist because you both have beards and are therefore likely to have been diverted to a site for suspected Al Qaeda.
And the CIA site has ears so if it had heard you swearing at the screen you’d have had to get Sandy as a good Christian dog to sign a document saying she was your Christian employer and that you would be staying while in the US at a hotel of Sandy’s choice.
And I don’t think you’d have liked sleeping in a kennel while Sandy and herself were off chasing good christian rabbits in Vermont during your VIP stay at the Crown Plaza for Pooches.
Its your fault for having a Tribute Beard Mr ToraBora. Have a nice day unless you are a commie/atheist/alqaedaoperative in which case jesus gonna bit yo’ ass but GOOOOOD.
Jesus I just wrote the funniest post ever slating off Homebland Security and the entire post disappeared. Fucking CIA. Why can’t they just stick to what they are good at? Blowing each other’s cover and arranging deep undercover agents from Harlem to infiltrate the Swedish government?
You won’t get into the States Groandda because of the three of yiz only herself doesn’t have a fundamentalist beard.
I wonder if the one euro an hour employment contracts also apply to Irish Ferries web support team?
Maybe they are up to their neck in it. And all at sea. Rudderless. Just wanted to run that up the pole and see if it flutters.
TT – “Did you actually read what I wrote ?” No. Was I supposed to?
Cat – That is one of the advantages of booking so far in advance. With a bit of luck I’ll be over the trauma by the time the holiday arrives.
Con – Wrote where? Do you have a site that you are too embarrassed to reveal? As for getting into the States [as if I should ever want to!], all I have to do is stop Herself shaving and we will all look the same then.
DD – Their web is run by a team of Lithuanians that they keep cloistered in the bowels of the ferry. That’s the price of illegal immigration!
Hey Con!! I just found your funniest post ever [?] It wasn’t the CIA – it was my spam filter [much more intelligent]
In 2009 I and a few friends sailed to Cherbourg with Irish Ferries. We were on our way to Stassbourg. There were two wheelchair users, myself being one, in our company and we had booked two wheelchair accessible cabins. However when we boarded we all were told that there were only one accessible cabin available. The Eastern European clerk assured us that we would have two accessible cabins on our return journey. After a lot of arguing the head clerk came along and I was eventually put in the equivalent of the penthouse cabin which was bigger than all the others. This was adequate if not ideal. In conclusion all I can say is Irish Ferries must have thought that Strassbourg was the opposite of Lourdes and one of the able bodied was going to come back in a wheelchair