Swear I don't always write scathing reviews.

United Airlines.  What a joke.  What a plentiful source of hilarity.  Fly United if you want a good belly laugh.  And if you’re willing to have that laugh at yourself, and at the abundance of total incompetence you’ve landed yourself in.  To be honest you can at least be grateful you’ve landed somewhere.  And even more grateful if your luggage has landed with you.

I am writing this whilst sat in stunning Hawaii, wearing a bikini bought from Walmart, courtesy (we hope) of United.  This is the result of our fourth unsuccessful flight in four days.  We began our saga with United upon leaving London almost an hour late; after a smooth journey we arrived to Newark with a race against time to collect our bags and check in to our connecting flight.  We were met at the desk by a man who remarked, ‘well miracles can happen’.  Optimism or sarcasm?  Well I can tell you that when travelling with United a huge dose of both is highly recommended.  Next was security where we were escorted through by a man who hit a child.  A slight exaggeration perhaps for him knocking their arm out of the pathway accompanied by a sharp scolding, but he was a rude man nonetheless.

We made the flight! Hurrah!  After legging it to the gate and undergoing the embarrassing walk down the plane as those annoying passengers that everyone is waiting for, we were on board.  But was our luggage?  United staff had reassured us that if we got on the plane so too would our bags; we had a sneaky suspicion that this was a lie, but we kept faith until arriving in Las Vegas.  It was like a fun game watching that carousel, some extra entertainment laid on by United (or perhaps compensation for one of our television screens failing to work throughout the journey?).  Will our bags arrive or won’t they?  Place your bets now.  They didn’t appear.  Shock horror.  We were sent off to our hotel with a toiletries bag each, so we at least had minty fresh breath upon waking in the morning while a less than agreeable fragrance exuded from everywhere else as a result of sleeping in the same clothes we’d been travelling in.  Thankfully by this time our bags had been delivered to the hotel so we weren’t nasally offensive for much longer.

Two days later we trustfully handed ourselves and our belongings over to United again.  But much later than planned.  Two and a half hours later to be exact.  Our flight was delayed due to weather conditions, but once again we had a connecting flight.  The United lady at the gate said that the journey was only forty minutes so there was a chance we would make the connection to Kona, Hawaii.  It was the only one to our destination that day so she kept us booked on, but also provisionally booked us on to an alternative flight to Hilo, still on the same Hawaiian island, but a two hour drive from our hotel.  Once we had boarded the plane, the attendant explained how the total time would be approximately seventy five minutes, with forty in the air plus taxi time either side.  So we were doomed from the outset; we wouldn’t catch the next aeroplane the United staff had so tantalisingly given us hope for.  This same representative had also sorted out indoor transport to drive us from one gate to the next as some extra help.  Fantastic news.  So we shot off at the other end, even though we had missed our connection it was still going to be tight reaching the alternative.  There was no buggy in sight; but we knew United by then, we hadn’t really expected one, don’t be silly!  Panting, we reached the gate in time.  Yippee!  …To find that they had no idea who we were or that we had seats provisionally reserved.  Brilliant.  Luckily we were eventually allowed to board, with the forewarning that our bags definitely wouldn’t be accompanying us.  At least they had the decency to let us know in advance, saved the torture of the carousel game.

We touched down in Hawaii.  Without luggage, and two hours from where we needed to be with no idea how to get there, but United had at least dropped us on the correct island.  Which is more than they managed to do for one of our bags, but that’s a later story…  It must be pointed out that the United representatives at Hilo airport were absolutely wonderful.  They called a taxi for us and charged the fee to United Las Vegas (where the problems had originated).  They provided us with a rather luxurious toiletries collection this time (including laundry grains, how swish) and they even packed us a goody bag each from their staff room supplies!  It was here that we found out about the $25 allowance each for shopping to use whilst waiting on our luggage.  It is slightly concerning that we had to buy it ourselves and then submit a receipt to united.com, but we can hope.  This seems to happen a lot in fact; too many times we have been pointed to united.com, it appears that issues cannot be rectified when you’re standing there in person with an actual human from United one can interact with, they instead insist upon customers typing complaints into cyberspace to await an automated response.

At last we arrived at the hotel, and clambered into bed sporting new Walmart pyjamas, bellies satisfied after a lovely evening meal…oh wait, United made us miss that.  Correction, bellies full with rice krispies squares and crisps from the airport staff.  The following morning, one of our party went to the airport to enquire as to the whereabouts of our bags, due to the fact that we had been unable to get any further information over the phone or through the online tracker.  He was appalled to find a woman stowing our bags away into storage, as she had been given no instruction on what to do with them.  So he returned to the hotel with all the bags, apart from his.  Which had been sent to another island.  Surely it is harder to separate the bags than send them off together???!!  The incompetence is simply unbelievable.

We have been compensated at least.  With vouchers for United. 

Welcome to the house of fun.

My boyfriend and I have just returned from an enriching stay at Morville Hotel.  We felt instantly welcomed by the mid-Summer Christmas trees decorating the front and the goldfish who made the special effort to swim through their murky tank of filth to reach the glass and greet us.  Despite the lack of gym we managed our fair share of exercise through climbing all the stairs and opening all the doors that appeared at random intervals on the stairwell, serving no purpose other than for an arm workout, how thoughtful of them to include interval training as part of our experience.

Our room was a delight.  They had clearly paid particular attention to making the sheets have an individual design with stains splattered artily across them.  My boyfriend expressed concern that this might be dirt, but I reassured him there was definitely a cleaner because the odour of sick on one of the floors had later been mixed with the smell of chemicals so there was obviously a cleaner in existence.  We had a beautiful sea view from our window, panoramically enhanced by the hole in the ceiling.  They had provided one towel for the two of us which was a useful lesson in sharing; we were slightly disappointed not to have this towel fashioned into an origami style swan, or a chocolate on the pillows, however the hotel redeemed itself by the bonus black hair we found in the coffee.  The communal shower brought the next surprise of something furry lining the top of the temperature control; it was exciting because there was constantly something new to find!

Thank you Morville for helping us to appreciate what we have in life.

Big Issue chats and squabbles.

I am a great supporter of The Big Issue.  "Working not begging" is a highly respectable ethic to run this organisation by and the employees should be respected for this.  What many people do not realise is that the vendors buy their copies and sell them on, so they have to make sure they sell otherwise they will be even worse off.  I for one can understand it is a hard trade as I have often been that annoying person on the street corner trying to shove a flyer into the hands of passers by and it is a soul destroying job I can tell you.  Now that I have experienced this, I always take the flyers, or at least acknowledge the person with a polite "no thank you" as this is all we need: acknowledgement.  It is in fact much nicer to vocally decline than to  ignore us completely, the feeling of being invisible and non-existent is horrible and unusual, a strange spiral downwards into the angry pit of thinking that all these smart business people are looking down at your flyering inferiority.  And I got paid an hourly rate! It didn't even matter whether the flyers were shifted in the grand scheme of things, I just had to stand there being ignored and nothing for me would change financially.  But for the vendors of The Big Issue it is a hell of a lot different.

I met a lovely vendor at Vauxhall station a while ago who was in a wheelchair, Michael.  I got chatting to him and he explained how some other vendors had stolen a stack of his copies, clearly because he was more vulnerable in his chair and was unable to chase after them. This is absolutely disgusting.  His aim that night was to get enough money from the copies he had left to pay for a room for the night; he was also very unwell and due to go to the hospital with his support worker the following day.  I gave him the money for the cost of the room and took his number so that I could check in on him.  Unfortunately, I tried a couple of times to get hold of him, but to no avail.  Some may question his sympathy inducing tale because of this but he was a genuine man; I could tell from his posture and the way he moved and spoke that there was no acting there.  I must try to contact him again.

It is sad that we are often sceptical about situations and people, such as Michael's, I myself considered the possibility that I was being lead on, and feel irritated with myself that this even occurred to me.  I know a few people who always assume that thise they are dealing with are being manipulative and conniving, but for no real reason other than that they go around being constantly suspicious of people's intentions.  People can be nice because they are kind, and because they want to help, it is not always a selfish gesture, or fictional spiel to play on your empathetic side.

This is something I firmly believe and stick to.  Clearly everything can't fit into my rose tinted world and there will be the odd person that is not genuine.  I just think we should not live life worrying about this and assuming the worst conclusion....although you just have to accept that sometimes you will be caught out!...

I was caught out with my naïve approach to life by a homeless man in Covent Garden.  He was trying to sell his last magazine, which he said was a Big Issue.  I offered to buy it, and he took my money whilst popping the rolled up magazine into my large open bag.  On reflection, alarm bells should have rung!  As I left, passing his group of friends in the street I noticed they were all drinking beer.  This saddened me slightly, because I'd much rather see the Big Issue earnings be spent on food or something else more useful, then again, everyone is entitled to treats and fun!  This also made me realise I couldn't recall him wearing a Big Issue badge.  I stopped and pulled out my magazine, to find it was the free Covent Garden Guide.  AAARRGGHH.  As I said, I support the Big Issue because it is "working not begging", and I think this man should invest in that to make his way.  I was fuming at being tricked and stormed back to him demanding my money back.  He said that he had already given it to his boss and while I continued to argue, it reaped no rewards.  AND he was in another location with another magazine yelling out to the public that it was his last one.  The cheek! I have since told this story to friends and some of them have laughed, some have been appalled, some have given him big kudos for being so crafty.

I suppose I do not like "the homeless" to all be generalised.  There are adverts around warning you not to give money because it will be spent on drugs and people everywhere being moved on by the police.  However, there are those that work and those that are lazy, those that are genuine and those that will con, those that aren't even in it for the money (yes I have had one vendor offer me a discount!) and those that will do anything they can to take advantage of you.  We cannot pass judgement on any group as a whole, and we cannot look down on anyone.