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Travel horror stories
#1

Travel horror stories

Traveling can be awesome. However, traveling can be a bitch. Waiting in lines, dealing with idiot TSA agents, taking shoes off, going through the 1.8 million dollar machine that you paid for, delays, cunty spinster service reps that don't need no man that will fuck you over if you aren't as polite as your local preacher. The fat fucks walking around in yoga pants, sweat pants, and of course pajamas. The even fatter fucks riding on golf carts creeping up behind you and making a loud beeping noise. The bleached blonde glued to her cell phone not watching where the fuck she is going. The illegal immigrant that just has to fucking sweep right under your feet while you are trying to sleep. Gate changes, lost luggage, motherfuckers screaming on their cell phones, crying babies. And to think, flying used to be glamourous.

So what are your travel horror stories?

My worst one is when I went to Brazil. I flew up to Charlotte for my connection.Before I left my local airport I hit check in and got my boarding pass from the woman at the front desk. "Hmm, says something here about a visa, well, here's your ticket!"

When I got to the gate in Charlotte I asked the dude about my boarding pass from Rio to Sao Paulo. He took a look at my passport.

"Where's your visa?"

"My ID is right there"

"Yeah, I see that, but where is your Visa?"

"What are you talking about? I need a Visa?"

"You need a Visa to get into Brazil."

"So there isn't any way I can get into Brazil?"

"Not today there isn't. How old are you?"

"Twenty-five"

"Oh, well you're still young. You'll have plenty of time to get to Brazil."

I gritted my teeth and walked away. I had no clue I needed a visa. The travel agency didn't tell me and neither did my buddy in Brazil. I was an idiot for not thinking of looking into this.

I wasted two days of vacation time and I had to pay an extra 500 dollars to change the date of the flight, but eventually I got to Brazil.

TL;DR: Stream of consciousness rant about airport. Had no Visa and couldn't get into Brazil.

You want to know the only thing you can assume about a broken down old man? It's that he's a survivor.
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#2

Travel horror stories

Really? That's pathetic. lol

Common sense not even 101 but 100: check visa requirements for the country you're looking to travel before booking your ticket.

As to my worst traveling experience(s): each time returning to this shit hole called Toronto.


Quote: (04-12-2013 06:23 PM)renotime Wrote:  

Traveling can be awesome. However, traveling can be a bitch. Waiting in lines, dealing with idiot TSA agents, taking shoes off, going through the 1.8 million dollar machine that you paid for, delays, cunty spinster service reps that don't need no man that will fuck you over if you aren't as polite as your local preacher. The fat fucks walking around in yoga pants, sweat pants, and of course pajamas. The even fatter fucks riding on golf carts creeping up behind you and making a loud beeping noise. The bleached blonde glued to her cell phone not watching where the fuck she is going. The illegal immigrant that just has to fucking sweep right under your feet while you are trying to sleep. Gate changes, lost luggage, motherfuckers screaming on their cell phones, crying babies. And to think, flying used to be glamourous.

So what are your travel horror stories?

My worst one is when I went to Brazil. I flew up to Charlotte for my connection.Before I left my local airport I hit check in and got my boarding pass from the woman at the front desk. "Hmm, says something here about a visa, well, here's your ticket!"

When I got to the gate in Charlotte I asked the dude about my boarding pass from Rio to Sao Paulo. He took a look at my passport.

"Where's your visa?"

"My ID is right there"

"Yeah, I see that, but where is your Visa?"

"What are you talking about? I need a Visa?"

"You need a Visa to get into Brazil."

"So there isn't any way I can get into Brazil?"

"Not today there isn't. How old are you?"

"Twenty-five"

"Oh, well you're still young. You'll have plenty of time to get to Brazil."

I gritted my teeth and walked away. I had no clue I needed a visa. The travel agency didn't tell me and neither did my buddy in Brazil. I was an idiot for not thinking of looking into this.

I wasted two days of vacation time and I had to pay an extra 500 dollars to change the date of the flight, but eventually I got to Brazil.

TL;DR: Stream of consciousness rant about airport. Had no Visa and couldn't get into Brazil.
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#3

Travel horror stories

I almost made the same mistake in 2007. Upon finishing college, I was about to visit Brazil without having any knowledge of the Visa requirements but couldn't go bc my mom got sick. Europe for the 1st time however occurred a year and half later as that was well worth it.
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#4

Travel horror stories

Admittedly, I was ill prepared.

But thanks for the tip, boss.

You want to know the only thing you can assume about a broken down old man? It's that he's a survivor.
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#5

Travel horror stories

ive been waiting for 4 hrs for my plane to leave as I type this. never flying a low cost airline again
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#6

Travel horror stories

Which airline is that and going from where to where?
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#7

Travel horror stories

No worries we all make mistakes and learn from them. Where in Brasil did you go? Post a data sheet on it would be cool to read about your experience there.

Cheers.

Quote: (04-12-2013 08:51 PM)renotime Wrote:  

Admittedly, I was ill prepared.

But thanks for the tip, boss.
m
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#8

Travel horror stories

Good thread, you're not the only one making dumb travel mistakes, happens to the best of us and I unfortunately have tons of travel horror stories which date back to my teenage years when I first started traveling the world, here's a couple of memorable ones:

Euro trip 2001: I was still in high school and a buddy of mine and I took a quick trip to Europe: London and France (Paris, Toulouse and Andorra). We took the Eurostar train from Paris to London and while in Paris I bought a butterfly knife at a sporting goods store, a totally legit thing, I threw it in my backpack and a few days later we left for London. Back in those days, security didn't x-ray your bags while going between countries (France to Spain for example) but they did when I arrived at Waterloo train station in London, I had forgotten all about the blade in my bag, but soon realized I was in deep shit when the security guard asked me "Sir, do you have a knife in your bag?" fuck, they call the Bobbies, I get arrested and taken to the cop shop and booked for possession of an illegal weapon. They let me off easy with a simple caution and obviously took my knife, the policemen were actually razzing me up about it "you stupid tourist" but I still had a criminal record in the UK from 2001-2006.

Now, as if that story wasn't bad enough, it gets even worse. My friend and I went to the airport at 2300 to get on our plane back to Canada, we were flying Iceland air and the route was London-reykjavik-Halifax. The problem was that I misread the ticket being the retarded 18 year old that I was, the flight wasn't at 2300, it was at 1300 so we had to sleep at Heathrow airport and go talk to Iceland Air in the morning. The reps at Iceland Air inform me that the Halifax route only flys twice per week and we'd have to wait a few days to get on the next flight, well we couldn't do that, we had to be back in school in a few days. So we went down to Air Canada to see if they could help and fortunately they had a flight leaving to St. John's in a few hours and we could get on it, at a price, of course. So I call my parents and explain the situation and mom gives me the okay to charge it to the Visa I had, fucking $1000 that mistake cost me.

I'm older now, but not much wiser, I still end up making bad travel choices (often involving alcohol) and paying through the nose for it, I will add more stupid stories later.
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#9

Travel horror stories

Got hustled by a con man who was acting like a chill hippy surfer stoner dude in Morocco. I was 21 and traveling with two friends with little travel experience, we got off the bus in Asilah looking like typical tourists, Lonely Planet guide book in hand, looking at the map, trying to figure out how to walk to the cheap hotel. The con man looked like a chill guy, probably in his late 20's or early 30's, he started chatting us up in his good English.

He was asking us where we were from, where we were planning on staying, etc., he seemed really friendly and chill. He told us that the hotel we were thinking about staying at was a dump and a total rip off. He suggested that we stay with a local family, and he knew one with a nice big house, that rents out rooms to tourists. There was a bit of a hard sell, but he made a compelling case. It didn't help that ofcourse I had just read in the Lonely Planet that a "good alternative for a cultural experience" is to stay with a local family and can be a better "more authentic" option than a typical hotel.

We went to check out the house and it looked pretty legit, the house was nice, they had a downstairs chill out area with couches, and a big room with 3 beds. The price was right and everything seemed chill, the mother of the family seemed nice, she had a couple cute daughters, a young son, and an older son about the same age that I was at the time.

Any how, we stayed at the house there with the family, and the "chill stoner guy" pretty much took it upon himself to be our personal guide, even though we never asked him to. We definitely wanted to smoke a lot of hash and he had a nice fat chunk that he continuously used to roll joints with. We probably smoked at least 4 or 5 grams of good shit that first night we hung out with, since he kept rolling joint after joint. We went to a dope hookah spot where we sipped mint tea, smoked hash, and puffed sheesha. He seemed really cool, and just down to show us a good time.

Ofcouse like many Moroccans he was an excellent con man. The next day we went to the beach, but slowly the guy started to show signs of his true self, certain things he said, and did, I was picking up a shady vibe from the guy, although my friends seemed totally oblivious. Later that evening after the beach we got back to the house in town, and he was asking if I wanted to buy any hash. I wanted to buy just a little bit since we were going to be staying there for a few days, so I told him I only wanted a quarter ounce at the most. It was the weekend and the banks were closed, so he asked us if any of us wanted him to get money exchanged from his friends business, and said he would get the same rate as the banks.

As I was starting to get the vibe he was shady, I declined to give him money to exchange, but my friend decided to give him like a $100 USD. Well to make a long story short he leaves the house and comes back an hour later, except instead of bring back just a little bit of hash he brings like 2 ounces of some super shitty hash that looked like it may have had sand mixed in with it. I told him I only wanted a quarter ounce and I said I told him straight up so there is no way I wanted the full amount he brought, and that's when he started to get irate.

This guy get's crazy mad, irate as hell, he gets really confrontational and demands that I pay him for the hash. I will admit that I was pretty intimidated and felt threatened because this guy was in my face, yelling, making threats, etc. I started to bargain with the guy, but he claimed that I needed to give him the equivalent of $300 for the hash, when in reality I should have only been giving him like $20-40 for the quarter that I originally wanted.

Basically it got to the point where I was like I need to dip the fuck out of there and get out of dodge. Fortunately I had my two friends with me, because who knows what would have happened if I was alone. In the moment I just made the decision to get all my shit, pack it up and get out of there, I told my friends we needed to dip out ASAP, so we went into our room, and frantically started packing our shit up.

As we were trying to leave there was a huge commotion the shady ass motherfucker was yelling, trying to block our exit, and at this point the family (mother, young son, and daughter) had all come downstairs and were all talking (basically yelling) in Arabic. I tried to explain to the mother what had happened and why we were leaving. When I tried to hand her the house key to the front door, the shady con artist guy snatched it out of my hand, and locked the door from the inside.

What the fuck just happened, I thought to myself, my heart was pounding and at that point I felt some legitimate fear. This guy just locked us in from the inside and who the fuck knows what he may try to do next, what if he pulls our a knife, and demands we pay him.

Next thing we know, there is a pounding at the front door. Someone is pounding hard as fuck on the door and yelling to open it up. In my paranoid mind, heart racing, I immediately thought it was the police, and they were there on a set up. The con artist was working with the police and knew we had the hash and were going to try to arrest us and demand a huge bribe which they would then split with the family, they were all in cohoots the whole time. I don't remember why, but I was still in physical pocession of the slabs of hash at that point, I yelled to my friend Charles to guard the door and not let them open it and I darted into the hallway bathroom near the front door. I told my boy Charles that if it was the cops that I would flush the hash and "destroy" the evidence".

The guy kept pounding on the door, and then started yelling in English to let him in. He claimed to be the older twenty-something son of the family, and eventually my boy let them unlock the door and let the son in. Fortunately he was the most decent one in the family and spoke decent English so we were able to reason with him and explain to him what happened and why we were leaving. He basically spoke to the shaddy con man and his family members in Arabic and then finally consented to let us go without issues.

We got the fuck out of there, our minds in a tailspin, and as night fell we were a complete mess psychologically. We were completely lost as it was getting dark, we had heavy packs on our backs, we were trying to find the original budget hotel out of the Lonely Planet book that we were going to go to, before the shaddy con man convinced us to stay with that family. With our lack of Arabic or French every person who spoke to us just seemed like someone shaddy who wanted to rip us off, and we were completely paranoid and thinking of all kinds of crazy fucked up scenarios of shit that can happen to us.

Finally we found the budget hotel, got a room with 3 beds and spent the rest of the night on edge trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. My buddy who gave the guy $100 to change basically only got like $60 worth of Moroccan money from the guy, and when he went through his stuff that night he claims he was missing $300 which he was accusing the family of stealing. Me and my other friend had all of our stuff, no money or anything missing, so to this day I still don't know if my friend got his money stolen from that family, or whether he lost in the frantic packing of stuff to get out of there, or if he just miscalculated and made a mistake. Either way that was probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me while traveling, and I didn't take another toke of hash again the entire rest of the trip.
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#10

Travel horror stories

Wow, that was indeed intense! Where in Morroco was that?
You guys definitely lucked out in that the police didn't show up or else, it would have been one ugly and expensive situation to get out of. I don't smoke and have never done drugs but it's not safe nor smart to touch that shit while abroad. You could very easily get set up and end up in deep shit. Good story and great learning experience. Thanks for sharing it.


Quote: (04-13-2013 02:05 AM)OGNorCal707 Wrote:  

Got hustled by a con man who was acting like a chill hippy surfer stoner dude in Morocco.
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#11

Travel horror stories

OG nice story, lesson learned: don't go by Lonely Planet! I also have some drug related stories that I'll share as they're the ones that always get me in hot water, but for now I'll drop another flight related one.

Fort Lauderdale April 13th 2012: I just arrived in the city after a three month trip to Colombia and was only staying for two days before hopping on a plane back to Edmonton, Canada. It was the night before my flight, which was leaving the next day at 11:30am so I decided to go out for a few drinks because the flight wasn't too early. Now I had been to Fort Lauderdale before, celebrated NYE there in in 08', so I took a taxi to the main club area, I forget what its called now but its basically a strip of pubs, clubs and bars that seems to attract a younger crowd out for cheap booze, a decent spot.

So me being the piss tank that I am, when I start drinking, one is too many and ten isn't enough so I get on the booze hard. I'm rolling solo and go into a bar that's playing some hip hip, mixed crowd but its mostly black folks, I have a couple of drinks by the bar then hop outside for a quick smoke. I'm sat at a table and there's these three cute black girls beside me and they're not speaking English, I bend my ear for a second and realize that they're speaking french, but not regular French, they're speaking Haitian Creole. So I introduce my self en francais and the girls invite me to sit down and they're very friendly and telling me that I have a cute accent and I roll with it. Of course the heavy drinking continues they're buying me shots and I'm buying rounds, we dance and drink into the night. Details of the rest of the night are a bit fuzzy, can't really remember what happened but I didn't pull any of them or even get their numbers but I managed to get back to the hotel in one piece so it was all good.

I wake up the next morning to a telephone call on the hotel phone, its the front desk and they lady asks me "Sir will you be checking out this morning or would you like to book another night? I ask her what time it is and she tells me that its 11:30, FUCK! My flight was at 11:30 so I tell her to call me a taxi, I quickly throw on some clothes and pack my shit up and tell the driver to fucking step on it.

I show up at the airport reeking of booze with my printed Eticket in my hand and tell the nice lady at Delta Airlines my story and she says "You're very lucky sir, we have a flight leaving for Houston in thirty minutes but you better go fast" I check my bags and dash to the gate and got on the plane, I made the connection in Houston and from there flew direct to Etown. Delta didn't charge me a cent, I'm forever grateful to them, fuck Air Canada haha!

It was funny because I thought I may have had to stay in Houston for a night or two and PM'd RVF member Houston telling him we should meet up but it didn't happen. The heavy boozing fucks with my life again, when will I ever learn?
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#12

Travel horror stories

Quote: (04-13-2013 12:20 AM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  

No worries we all make mistakes and learn from them. Where in Brasil did you go? Post a data sheet on it would be cool to read about your experience there.

Cheers.

Quote: (04-12-2013 08:51 PM)renotime Wrote:  

Admittedly, I was ill prepared.

But thanks for the tip, boss.
m

I went to Sao Paulo.

You want to know the only thing you can assume about a broken down old man? It's that he's a survivor.
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#13

Travel horror stories

The worst one was in Poland.

Polish winter, less than minus 20 degrees Celsius...

Few times the at the ticket office they gave a different train ticket, because there are many types of trains and they were very confusing even for the ticket selling officers.

So once again, even if I underlined and tried to make sure that I buy the right ticket, I was given wrong ticket so in train I had to pay another fine of about 17 euros and to pay the ticket for the train once again.

And 2 hours before reaching the destination, the train hit a cow or something like that,
and the electricty was cut off.

We were promised by the ticket controllers that situation will be fixed, but it was not fixed
and it was the middle of the polish winter, this means around MINUS 25 celsius degrees.

People were freezing to death in the train, without electricity and without heat.

The train stood in the middle of nowhere for 6 (SIX) hours and no bus came to rescue the people
freezing inside.

It was the worst experience ever while travelling, and it showed that even if it had
European Union status, Poland can be at many times much worse than a 4th world barbarian country
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#14

Travel horror stories

I had a royal PITA when I left the Dominican Republic. The agents made the TSA look like choir boys when they rummaged through my scuba gear. Other than that the DR was pure bliss as a single man. Big booty paradise easy pussy and great beaches lobster and mamajuana drinks made it a lot of fun!
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#15

Travel horror stories

Coming back from Brazil, we got caught up with customs. My boy had stabbed his uncle (self defence), but didnt know if his uncle would press charges. He gave me his girls number who had his dads number just in case he got locked up. So we land in ATL and they detain him. Of course they have the randoms, so he had to wait till they went in. 2 hours later, he finally gets interviewed. The whole time Im thinking if I should hit his girl up.

They bring me in. I dont know what to say so I speak the truth. I am coming back from Kuwait, flew to Brazil, blah blah blah. They search through all my shit. Finally they let me go saying I wasnt on the flight and people stick shit in the stand-by's bags. That was my boy's 4th trip so they might of thought he was traffiking.

Dudes were cool when they searched my stuff. I wasn't trippin because I knew I wasn't carrying anything. They had to do their job. Can't really hate.

On a side note, my parents and I have been hit up by Mexican feds for money to pass through a checkpoint more than one time. The most we had to pay them off is 150. That was in the
90's. The feds are cool as shit now.

The cycle of disrespect can start with just an appetizer.
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#16

Travel horror stories

I got shanghai'ed in Shanghai. Classic setup, two cute girls come up to me, butter me up, 'wanna practice their english'. We went to an empty coffeeshop where they proceeded to order something. All I asked for was a cup of joe.
The whole thing seemed fishy but part of me wanted to see how far would they try to take it before I flipped out.

And flip out I did when they brought scotch, food, snacks, etc. And a bill of 1200rmb.

Bitch even wanted to 'see my passport'. HA!

I told them to fuck off, called them whores and threatened to punch them out if they didnt get out of the way. Surprisingly one of them still had the nerve to call me out if I was a man, and questioned my earning capacity. Damn ho was a seasoned con artist, no question.

Eventually one of them 'negotiated' a settlement, 100rmb. So I threw the money down and left. thankfully I didnt touch anything they brought, else I would have been in a much rougher spot.

Fuck Shanghai. Everyone will get shafted there, guarantee.
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#17

Travel horror stories

When I was in Lima, I arrived over 2 hours early for my flight. The line for check in was long, and once I got there, I paid for my bags online, and I paid for a carry on even though I didn't have one, because I knew that my bag was over weight and online they don't give you an option to pay for an over weight bag. I paid with my moms card because I was short on money. So the guy who's checking me in takes about 30-40 minutes to check me in. All the lines are long, security and immigration. I'm pushing it close, but still arrive at the gate 15 minutes before the flight supposedly takes off. I get to the gate and the same dip shit that checked me in was there and says, "The last bus to your plane left 15 minutes ago. Last bus? Nobody told me anything about the last bus. Don't you think that would be something you should inform guests about? That really your flight basically leaves a half hour before they say it does? They then inform me that spirit only flies one day a week from Lima, and I would have to wait until next weeks flight. So now I'm stuck in Lima for a week with $50. I got pretty pissed to say the least. They bring me back my luggage and it has a hole in it, and then they want me to pay $30 to switch my flight to next week. I look at them with my jaw dropped and say, "How about we call you ripping a whole in my $150 suitcase even? They weren't having it. They did nothing to help me out. I figure I'm going to have to wait until I get back to the states to figure everything out and try and get my suitcase replaced. When I call Spirit customer service they tell me I have to email someone else. I just gave up, I figured it wasn't worth it, but I'll never fly spirit again. I'll pay $200 more for a flight just to not have to fly with them. I ended up getting $400 from my dad to last me the other week in Lima. I also worked at the hostel I was staying at and they hooked up a free room, meal each day, and 40% off additional food. Much love to Loki hostel in Lima.

Lesson learned, never fly with Spirit, their seats are uncomfortable as fuck anyways.
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#18

Travel horror stories

Spirit is terrible. I only ever fly with a carry on and they always charge me for it.

You want to know the only thing you can assume about a broken down old man? It's that he's a survivor.
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#19

Travel horror stories

There's no way I'd ever fly with them again. They wouldn't refund me the money to get another flight either, even though it was pretty much their fault. They literally closed the door in my face while I was trying to figure out everything.
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#20

Travel horror stories

I've never had a bad experience. on terms of airlines. I know what in getting into. I flew in an emergency from Germany to Florida and used spirit to fly home from Florida. I knew I had 70 dollars of charges for overweight bags.

the "worst" thing I guess. I arrived in Austria and planned to go clubbing till 5am then take another train to Budapest. the clubs sucked so I went to the train station. they wouldn't let me sleep in the station so I walked outside and slept on a bench in from of the security shack.
but again. I knew what I was getting into.
I've had a couple plane delays. but that's life

I am the cock carousel
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#21

Travel horror stories

delete

Game/red pill article links

"Chicks dig power, men dig beauty, eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap, men are expendable, women are perishable." - Heartiste
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#22

Travel horror stories

That Morocco story just reaffirms not to buy dope in the third world.
In Jamaica, they told me not to buy pot because the dealer narcs you out and then splits the take with the cop. Really didn't matter since that shit's growing everywhere you look.
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#23

Travel horror stories

In Mexico, I got food poisoning and it cost me dearly.

I went out to a decent restaurant and had a some steak. About an hour after eating, I started to feel queasy. I tried my best to ignore it and decided to go on with my evening.

Walking over to the bars, it dawned on me that I was going to vomit very soon. I told my friend that I needed to find a bathroom right then. He steered me to a casino, the nearest option. With drool running down my mouth, all I could muster up was the word "baño." The staff pointed out the way to me, but I got lost in the labyrinth of the casino. My friend, recognizing a bad situation, dragged me out of the casino.

Right in front of the steps of the casino, I vomited up most of my meal. I ran across the street to avoid any trouble with the casino and I vomited again as I was running in the middle of the street. I then went to an alley and vomited some more. I was dressed up in a suit with a pocket square (word to G Manifesto). Although the street and sidewalk were covered in my vomit, my suit was still spotless.

I felt great after vomiting. My energy had come back to me, so I went to my hotel to clean myself up and went out to a club. At the club, my friend and I met a group of girls who were celebrating a birthday. The girls were drunk and horny. The night was looking good.

However, the night suddenly changed for me. I had to run to the bathroom. I had to shit. I returned to the bathroom twice more within 30 minutes. I felt lethargic again. I was dry heaving too. I couldn't talk anymore, as I was more focused on my body. I had to leave. I wasn't to have my Michael Jordan "flu game" that night.

My friend stayed at the club and brought back the birthday girl to the hotel. I was sleeping with a fever sweat. I took some antibiotics the next day and was back to normal within 24 hours.
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#24

Travel horror stories

Thread bump: Last night I experienced the worst travel drama in my life and had a full blown melt down at the airport in Manila, its such an absurd story that Kafka himself couldn't have made this shit up. This tale involves me forking over several hundred dollars, drama with immigration, a missed flight, a heart warming consolation and me reconsidering if I'll ever travel in the third world again.

Prequel to meltdown: I've been traveling in SE Asia for the past six months, in the Philippines for the past three and although its been good, the past few weeks have been very stressful (typical 3rd world issues getting on my nerves) and I've been dealing with some tax related BS back home that will likely cost me tons of money down the road. Basically I was ready to leave the Philippines and counting down the days but there was one minor issue that I had to take care of regarding my flight.

My original flight was booked from Cebu-Manila-BKK, but instead of flying from Cebu, I decided to stay in Manila and fly from there, no big deal, so I thought. Two days before my fly day, I called Cebu Pacific Air to inform them that I wouldn't be flying from Cebu but Manila instead, the flight involved a three hour layover in Manila and switching planes, so again, no big deal. I was on the horn with a customer service rep for about ten minutes trying to explain this simple issue to her in the most simple, direct and clearly enunciated English I could possible speak but the moron wasn't getting it. *Side Note* Just because a Filipino speaks perfect English, don't assume that they fully understand what you are saying or give two shits about your issue. Finally the minutes ran out of my phone and I decided to say fuck it, she took my name, phone number, flight number and I explained the situation to here several times, I should have been good to go. BIG MISTAKE, I would later learn.

The drama begins: So I met up with some friends for dinner and a couple of beers and we say our good byes and they drop me off at the airport. I go to the Cebu Pacific counter with my itinerary and passport in hand, there's a medium sized queue and the terminal wasn't air conditioned, it was blazing hot inside and I started sweating buckets. Of course a line that would take about fifteen minutes anywhere else in the world ended up taking about 45 minutes, but I arrived two hours early (from now on I will arrive three hours early and so should you) so thought I had plenty of time. Finally I arrived at the counter (of course there's no one behind me, I was dead last) and put my bag on the scale and hand the girl my papers, after a minute or so she says, "sir there's a problem, you cannot go on this flight", by now I"m drenched in sweat and say to her "yes I can get on this flight, its #531 and there's my itinerary with my name on it, so what's the problem?". She tells me that we have to go to the customer service counter to resolve this problem, oh great, I think to myself.

Customer Service Hell: So the ticket agent hands my papers off to a manager, who happens to be a flaming homo and he then informs me that because I was a no-show in Cebu, they sold my Manila-BKK seat to a person on stand by. For fuck sakes. Now before I was even informed of this, there was a European guy freaking out at these people and threatening them with every possible threat he could think of. Me being the polite Canadian that I am, it isn't in my DNA to be so rude, so I thought that I'd play it cool and see if this problem could be resolved in a more mannerly fashion.

So I ask him, what are my options? He informs me that the only way I can get on the flight is to pay 18,000P ($450 USD), I then tell him that this is unacceptable, I've flown all over the world and never heard of this nonsense, we went back and forth for about five minutes and I finally gave in and gave that faggot my credit card. I had a few workers around me listening to my complaints and the rudest thing I could come up with was to tell them that I'll never fly with Cebu Pacific again and that I may never visit the Philippines again. Of course, it takes them several minutes to get me a new ticket and by the time I have one in hand its five minutes to boarding time, I tell them about this and they assure me that its no problem, the flight has been delayed anyway, of course.

At this time I'm rather pissed off about the whole situation, but accepted it and just wanted to get on the fucking plane to BKK, I then paid the airport exit tax of about $14 and went to immigration. At the immigration counter this ugly immigration bitch informed me that I had over stayed my visa by a month, I was unaware of this but she was right, so off to the immigration cashier I went. The time is ticking down and I ask a Cebu Pacific employee if I have enough time, he assures me that I do but they had just called boarding of my flight so I only had about five minutes. There were three people in line, so I went to the first person and told him I was in a major rush and asked if I could go ahead, of course they say no, so I waited. I then get to the immigration counter and the guy informs me that I have to pay 5000P ($125), I give him my credit card and he then tells me that they only take cash, FUCK ME. So I ask where the nearest ATM is and he tells me its back inside the check in area, so there I go but I don't see an ATM, I ask two other people and they say "its over there sir" without telling me exactly where, I ended up walking a big circle around the outer perimeter of the building until I finally found one. Time is ticking and the God damned machine rejects my card, the Cebu Pacific guy is waiting by the boarding area and points to his watch, my flight is boarding.

At this point I've fucking snapped and wasn't thinking clearly, I should have tried to hit up another ATM (I later found out that I had walked by two of them in my tunnel vision state of retardation), instead I fucking bee-lined it past the immigration dicks and made a mad dash for the gate, there were still a few people in line so I just went right up to it thinking "please God let me get on this fucking flight"! Then I see the immigration dicks come towards me along with some Cebu pacific people and they come right up to me, "sir what are you doing, you can't leave without paying your immigration fine". FUCK FUCK FUCK, the flight is boarded, I've fucked up royally and missed it, now I have to deal with these immigration assholes.

So I'm totally out of it, as they would say in Tagolog, I'm full on loco-loco, all I wanted was to go for a smoke and now I'm getting an earful from this ugly immigration bitch and threatened to be taken to jail. I apologize profusely and explain to them that I"m all stressed out and just spent almost $500 for a flight I just missed and will likely have to spend more. They told me to get my bags, leave the airport and go to the immigration office the next day.

I went back to Cebu Pacific and the girls there asked me "Sir, why are you still here, you should be going to BKK now?" Ya, no shit ladies, if you idiots didn't take so fucking long to sort me out, I would have had time to get to an ATM to pay my immigration fine, if Cebu Pacific wasn't such a fucking shitty airline, I wouldn't have had to pay $450 for a God damned ticket on a flight I had already paid for 3 months ago. So I'm stressed to the max and damn near in tears and the Cebu pacific employee tells the ticket agent ladies about my mad dash past immigration and how they busted me at the gate, then the girl asks me why I would do such a stupid thing and I explained to her that I'm crazy because Cebu Pacific caused me all of this drama. I ask her if they will get my bag from the plane or if its gone to BKK. She assures me that they'll get the bag, I just had to wait twenty minutes or so, I told her that I was going for smoke, so out I went.

After chain smoking three darts, I went back in and walked up to the counter, depressed, stressed and sweating like a fucking pig. The Cebu Pacific ticket girl (who was pretty cute) then informs me that they have some good news for me, yay, what could this be? They tell me that I can fly to BKK on May 2nd and not have to pay anymore, they also have my bag. I thank them and apologize for my shenanigans and ask them if they can recommend a hotel, they tell me about one down the road. Then this girl says, "its my coworkers birthday and we're going to celebrate at a bar, would you like to come?"

Well I couldn't help but smile at that, here I am all fucked up in the head and these people I was chewing out an hour before are now all smiles and invite me to drink with them. So I check into this shitty hotel down the road and chill out a bit, drink some beers and smoke some cigs, then she texts me and tells me to meet them at a bar around the corner, about a two minute walk from the hotel. I had visions of me banging this girl, what a great way to end a shitty night but it didn't happen.

I met them at the bar and they were a group of about twelve Cebu Pacific employees at this shitty Karaoke bar, I walk into the room and am greeted by smiles and laughs and everyone jokes around about my drama at the airport. Even these old greasy Filipino dudes said to me "you're the guy who tried to get past immigration, we heard all about you". So there I am drinking with a bunch of strangers, the very people who caused me all of this drama, although they couldn't really do anything about it as they were "just following our procedures". These people cost me about $500, I should have been super pissed at them but I all I could do was laugh and shake my head at such an utterly absurd situation, this shit would never happen back home. They bought a few buckets of beer and we sang karaoke, I stayed about an hour until around 2am then decided to peace out and get some sleep, what a fucking day it was boys, one to remember!

Now I'm back in Manila, hanging out in a cafe, my flight is at 630am tomorrow morning, I'll make sure I arrive early this time and have enough cash on me to pay my immigration fine and have extra just in case I have to grease an unscrupulous security guard or Cebu Pacific employee, it wouldn't surprise me at all if I have to, considering my luck. I'm gonna call the ticket girl later and she if she wants to hang out after her shift ends at midnight.

Lessons learned: I'm probably the worst traveler in the world and all of this drama was self inflicted, I could have avoided it all by calling Cebu pacific back when I initially called them. I should have known that I over stayed my visa, but didn't read the fine print and now I know from now on, I will always have ample amounts of cash with me at a third world airport.
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#25

Travel horror stories

Pff, and I thought i had a shitty time once at Cebu airport. What a story. I would go berserk also.

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