We’re off! By the time you read this I will be in Canada on our holiday and I will be sorely needing it.
The days prior to going away even just for a couple of weeks are stressful, wondering if you have packed all you need, or too much, hoping that the flights will be on time, particularly those with ongoing connections.
Making sure you have all the right paperwork for flights, cars and hotels, checking for the hundredth time that your passport and residency have not expired.
Then there are the airports to deal with. It’s all hurry hurry hurry wait!
You hurry to the airport, you get impatient with the check-in line, you get frustrated with security and then when you get through to departures you have to sit and wait.
Then there is the bun fight of boarding, you try to get on early so that you can get your bags into an overhead locker at your seat. Then you watch other passengers try to do the same and wonder why they are all allowed to bring so many big bags on to the aircraft.
When I last needed a new wheely bag I noted the maximum sizes from the airlines website and took a tape measure with me to make sure the bag I bought was within the range.
So why do the check-in staff allow many passengers to have bags way oversize and why do they allow them to have two or three of them?
Last week I was flying from Muscat to Dubai and watched as a passenger tried to stuff a bag overhead that was far too big for the locker and was never going to fit. I wondered why the check-in or the ramp staff ever let him through.
Of course with online check-in he probably never went near the desks, but why then did the cabin crew let him on with a bag that was clearly too big?
This year we will be letting our 13-year-old son guide us through the whole airport procedure from check-in and bag drop through passports and security.
Then he will have to find the correct gate and when we arrive he will have to find our way to immigration and baggage retrieval and then out to either the train or car hire desk.
The reason for this is that very soon he will be travelling on his own, so we need to ensure that he knows exactly what to do at each stage.
Travelling is exciting, going to new places is great and we will of course be keeping all our friends updated by posting lots of photos on Facebook, but nothing beats the feeling you get when after it is all done you step off the last plane into the comfort of Bahrain airport and you arrive back home.
Jackie@JBeedie.com