Europe 2006 - EasyJet, thy name is crap

May 24 started out in a way that a typical day for me never starts — at 7AM. Thanks to jet lag, I got to sleep around 1AM and could no longer sleep around 5AM. I finally stumbled out of bed and made my way to the communal bathroom.

At this time I’d like to give a personal shout out to the person that invented “hotel curtains”. Seemingly in use in every hotel worldwide, these allow the wary traveler to pretend it’s 2AM to trick their body into sleeping just a little more. These are a mixed blessing, though, as everyone who has been woken up by a foreign hotel alarm clock knows when they go to peel back the curtains and let in that first piercing shaft of Death Light. Is there anything more painful after a night of binge drinking? Ah, but I digress…

Communal shower facilities are fine and very clean (albeit not heated very well). The rest of the family (wife, mother-in-law) grok though the morning and we finally get to breakfast at 8:30 AM. A couple cups of coffee start the morning right, as does the presence of a full English breakfast.

The English breakfast, for the uninitiated, is probably the only bit of English cuisine worth eating. No, beans on toast does not count as cuisine. Okay, I’ll make an exception for fish ‘n chips, perhaps, but only without the freakin’ vinegar. The “English breakfast” typically consists of tea, toast, fried tomatoes, eggs, and bacon rashers (slices). Now I have no idea if the English breakfast is eaten by English people, but it is certainly trotted out as the de facto Bed & Breakfast accoutrement, seemingly gratis when you book their 90 GBP (that’s pounds, folks) per night room for three (which is, gulp, US$205).

Perhaps the coolest thing (according to my wife) is the toast rack. This is a typically cheap metal thingy that holds your toast upright and presents it in that oh-so-cute way. See more than you need through this Google Image Search. I swear, my wife squealed with delight when that thing came out, laden with toast.

After breakfast I find out that payment will be taken in cash only. So, I have to go out and find an ATM. Step outside and it is pouring rain. Pouring. Buckets. Digging through our luggage comes up with a solitary umbrella. Sigh. Mom stays put and me and Caryn run through the rain back down to Kensington Road near the High Street Kensington tube stop, find an ATM, and withdraw too much money.

We bum around for a while until shops open up at 10 AM and jump into an H&M and buy me a windbreaker/rain coat. It’s around 50F out and I packed for the 75F of southern Italy, not stupid England. Get back to Abbey House and check out. We drag our bags down to the tube and on to Victoria station. We check our bags into the “held baggage” area for, wait for it, 6 GBP/bag per 24 hours. Nice.

We take a little walking tour around the Victoria station area and stumble upon Buckingham Palace. After a quick lunch at an Asian noodle shop, we take some pictures in front of the gates of the Palace. It is interesting watching tourists (like us) gather around the gates for a glimpse of, well, important people. Semi-important-looking people were dribbling out of the front gate every couple minutes, all dressed up in tuxedoes (at noon) and bright-colored dresses with fancy, fancy, fancy hats. Who were they? No idea. But everyone was taking pictures of them. Doubt they were that important. Certainly no Queen Mother or famous kids.

We were headed out to Rome that afternoon, so time was short. We decided to stay in the area and ducked into the Queen’s Gallery. A small amount of okay art, but the real crowning jewel of the exhibition were the, well, crown jewels. I don’t think they were the official set of jewels, but there were some freaking huge diamond things in a case. Definitely “are these even real” level of huge.

We blew out of there and caught the 14:32 Southern train to Gatwick airport from Victoria station. Upon arriving at Gatwick, we learn that, at least in London, airports are different than the United States.

Instead of, say, a big swath of American Airlines counters ready to get you boarding tickets to wherever, there are single counters that serve particular destinations. So, all of us going to Rome Ciampino airport on EasyJet clamoured into a single line in the South Terminal. Makes kinda good sense, eh? No asking about your destination. Everyone knows what line they are in. You don’t get people in the back of the line whining about their Houston flight that is about to leave so can they pretty please cut in line? Nope. We’re all going to Rome. It also gives you a chance to check out the folks you’ll be traveling with. In one way, you can’t be mean to them because you may end up seated next to them. Interesting.

So we check in and head to the departures lounge — a second difference. Instead of heading into the gate right away like in U.S. airports, all passengers go to a big lounge and wait until the gate of departure is announced on the big plasma televisions hanging all over the place. Seems like they don’t announce them until, say, 30 minutes before takeoff, either. It also just so happens that this lounge, at least in the international terminal, is just jam packed with duty-free shopping. So much, in fact, that it is honestly just a mall with plasma screens with gate information on them. Sigh.

Our flight is called up and we walk with the other hundred or so bargain flight hunters to queue up at the right terminal, a mere 10 minute walk away. Ugh. Now here is where EasyJet policy starts to suck. Like Southwest Airlines, you don’t get a preassigned seat. I call that cattle seating. Instead, your boarding card is marked with A, B, or C. You make your way to this tiny terminal room, no bigger than twice or three times the size of a modern living room. And you stand around. Sure, there are seats lining the walls, but seriously, we’re packed in here like sardines. And you stand around.

And you stand around.

And you stand around.

Wow, this sucks. Almost like Southwest sucks. No one seems to tell us what is going on, or when the plane is going to arrive. We stand around some more. Finally, an EasyJet employee makes a move to one of the two doors on the opposite side of the room and everyone jammed in here stands up and crowds around this pour soul. He opens the door to let more people in from that door, then promptly shuts it. Everyone looks at each other and there is a scramble for the recently-vacated seats. I laugh out loud. No, this is better than Southwest!

Finally, at some point, we all get on the plane. This is the typical mad dash for good seats, with arseholes sitting in a three-wide on the aisle all by themselves, piling their stuff into the middle seat for good measure.

Not only until after takeoff do I fully comprehend the true cost of low-cost airfare. First, eating or drinking anything costs money. Okay, I can handle that. But the real gem is that the flight attendants, basically for the entire duration of the flight, busy themselves (and disturb the passengers) pimping stupid EasyJet products for purchase. Not only do they broadcast this over the PA all flight long, they also tromp up and down the aisle the entire flight with their little cart of shit, stopping to sell to everyone in every aisle.

Oh. My. God. I was already a captive audience at the Gatwick “lounge”, but this is ridiculous. Oh well, I need to move on.

We land in Rome at the little airport known as Ciampino. We blow through customs, pick up our bags, and meet our driver right outside of baggage claim. He brings a nice Mercedes 300 E-class over, takes our bags, and whisks us into the center of Rome to our hotel, Hotel Daphne, Veneto [gmaps].

If I have to make a recommendation to you, the reader, who might be traveling to Rome, I’d take a cab to the center of Rome if you come into (at least) this airport. If you’re coming in in the evening like we were, you just don’t have the energy to train/Metro into the center of town, especially toting a bunch of luggage.

Our driver cost us 55 Euro without tip, and it was an entertaining ride. We drove past the Colosseum, some of the Roman Forum ruins, through downtown, and all over. For the uninitiated, driving in Rome is, ahem, interesting. You can read about the style and aggression, like here, and many other places on the web. It was a thrilling ride, to say the least.

Since I had just come from England, all I had was UK Pounds in my wallet. Told the driver to find a cash machine so I could get him some money, and he drove us to a bank near the hotel. I jump out, insert my Bank of America card, and try to punch in my 8-digit PIN. Italian bank cards have 5-digit PINs, but better yet, the entry field is only good for those 5 digits. Uh-oh. I try a couple variations, but the ATM just balks each time. One of the times, the machine complained that my account was not authorized for international withdrawls. When the machine returns my card, I decide that I shouldn’t risk it, run back to the car, and grab my wife’s card. Her card, linked to the same account, only uses a 4-digit PIN. Whew. Cash in hand, I’m back on the road to Hotel Daphne.

We get to Hotel Daphne and meet the night manager. The hotel, room, and manager are all wonderful. This is an awesome hotel. The pictures on the web site are totally accurate. The room is spotless, very nicely decorated, and totally modern (good for American travelers). Some of the niceties include an electronic safe, air conditioning, WiFi, internet access on a public computer, private bath, refrigerator, and coolest of all — use of a cell phone.

Why other international American-destination hotels don’t do this is beyond me. Daphne provides a cell phone for your use. A simple Nokia phone with a prepaid SIM card in it with some amount of money (~30Euro in our case). Pre-programmed into the address book are emergency numbers and hotel personnel contact information, pasted on the front and back of the phone is the address of the hotel (in case you get lost), and the phone number of the cell phone (all incoming calls are free, so give it out if you need to). The Daphne staff invite you to call them for recommendations when you are out and about — food, drink, sights, etc. They bill you your usage. Simple, elegant, and makes the trip so nice. Truly a well-thought idea. If I ever run a hotel in Europe, I’m doing the same.

Even though it is late, we haven’t had any dinner yet. The Daphne staff recommend a restaurant just down the street, and we wander there around 10PM. A dinner of wine, pizza, spaghetti carbonara, and mussels over pasta welcomes us warmly to Italy. Here, I am introduced to my new favorite appetizer (nay, meal) — prosciutto, tomatoes, and a big, semi-spherical hunk of buffalo-milk mozzarella cheese, all drizzled with olive oil. Oh boy this is good stuff.

After the brief dinner, we head back to Daphne. With a long day of travel behind us from England to Italy, we quickly turn in for the night.

Stay tuned for more…