Hi Gracia,Originally Posted by gracia_006
yeah, hes landing in manila, thats why we are curious on how many hours before he can have his flight for cagayan de oro. I am from MALAYBALAY CITY.
I never take the chance of booking an ongoing flight on the same day as I arrive in Manila. I arranged a flight on the day after my arrival the first time I went there and still ended up arriving a day late and missing that flight. When I did arrive, my suitcase was missing so I was still in the airport for ages after everyone else on the flight had gone filling in forms.
I had it all planned and the ongoing flight to Cagayan De Oro was booked for the day after my arrival because my flight was due to arrive at about 4:00 in the afternoon and there were no flights to CDO after about 2:00pm.
Unfortunately after my flight with KLM from Birmingham was delayed, I missed the connection at Amsterdam and because it was KLM's fault, they put me up in a hotel in Amsterdam overnight. The next direct flight to Manila was not until 8:00pm the following night so they then booked me on a flight at about 2:00pm to Hong Kong with an ongoing flight with Philippines Airlines to Manila the following morning. This was supposed to get me to Manila at about 11:30am compared to 4:00pm for the direct Amsterdam to Manila flight.
When I eventually got to Hong Kong Philippines Airlines wouldn't take me because my suitcase was missing and as they were transferring me from one airline to another they said if they accept me, they accept liability for the suitcase.I was supposed to fly to Manila with Philippines Airlines at about 9:30am and after being shunted (escorted) around Hong Kong airport from one airline desk to another by a very charming young Hong Kong Chinese KLM assistant, I was eventually booked on a flight with Cathay Pacific at about 2:30pm to arrive in Manila at about 4:30pm - half an hour later than the direct Amsterdam-Manila arrival time.
Meanwhile, my G/F, now wife, had arranged to get a midday flight from CDO to be at NAIA to meet me at 4:00pm and luckily she had arranged for friend of hers to meet her at Centennial airport because she was a little worried about being in Manila alone. If she hadn't arranged to meet her friend she would have been stranded in Manila completely alone when I failed to turn up.
Well, while all of this was going on, my G/F and I had been keeping in touch by text and her friend had managed to sow a seed of suspicion in her mind and by now she had become convinced that I had another G/F in Hong Kong and had gone there to spend a night with that G/F before coming to see her. Then when I was stuck in Hong Kong airport and my phone battery died and I stopped replying to her texts for a while she became even more convinced of this.
Anyway, I eventually found a place in the airport where I could get my battery charged just in time to text her my flight details from Hong Kong to Manila before I boarded my flight. By then I don't think she really believed that I was actually going to come to Manila, but she decided to give me one last chance and when I landed at Manila she was waiting there with her friend. As soon as I landed in Manila I texted her as the plane taxied to its stand. But she was not convinced I really was there and said she would only believe it when she actually saw me walk out to the arrivals area.
I had been told by KLM at Hong Kong that my suitcase would be traced and would be on the Cathay Pacific flight when it took off - no chance. I watched the carousel go round and round until 99% of the bags had been collected, no more suitcases were being loaded on and it had become obvious it had not arrived. So off I went to the Cathay Pacific people to fill in all the forms while my G/F outside across the road was becoming even more convinced I was some sort of a wind up merchant.
Eventually at sometime after 6:00pm I got through immigration and customs and emerged at the road outside. It was lashing down rain and I was extremely stressed as walked across the road and turned left down the ramp (the wrong ramp for my surname) to the road with the waiting area on the other side. Well, I was in the wrong place and with the rain it was extremely noisy and chaotic. I was trying to call my G/F and she was answering but with noise of the rain etc, we couldn't hear each other.
Then eventually a policeman who was on duty there asked if he could help and I reluctantly gave him my phone as my G/F was still on the other end trying to talk to me. He told me very firmly to wait there as he wandered off up the road and I thought, great, there goes my phone already and I've only been here 10 minutes. I couldn't have been more wrong.
After a few minutes he came back and gestured me to follow him which I did. We walked up the road about 50 or 60 yards and he started gesturing, waving his arms in the air. Then I realised he was waving at my G/F and her friend. I saw them very briefly with a big sign with my name on it (just as I had instructed her to do) then after disappearing again for a few seconds, all of a sudden they just seemed to appear right nest to me - what chaos.
Then, after refusing a tip, the policeman left us to it and walked off. Then before I knew what was happening we were in a cab, we'll van I should say without any negotiation - big mistake. It was lashing down rain like I had never seen before in my life and these two wise guys in the van were asking for $60.00. Neither my G/F or her friend were, shall we say Manila Street Wise and neither of them knew how far the hotel was from the airport but they both looked quite shocked by the taxi drivers demands. Anyway, I told him I didn't have any dollars and he didn't want £'s Sterling so after a bit of negotiation, I grudgingly gave him nearly all the Pesos I had, just under P3000 - what a mug. Like they say, you live and learn
The moral of this story is: Don't make firm plans, just some loose arrangements. Remember Sod's Law - If anything can go wrong, it will.
I should have posted this in "Rants" a long time ago really.
