Wanted to write a re-cap on my trip to Brussels, Amsterdam & Paris. I have provided a brief overview of my hotels (Marriott Grand Palace in Brussels AVOID, The Domincan Brussels: highly recommend, College Hotel Amsterdam: LOVE this hotel and would def stay here again and Dress Code Hotel Paris: loved this hotel, but don't expect full service (which I don't need); excellent location, clean, comfortable and yummy breakfast -- will def stay again.
Some may recall I was to take the A380 home in first class with Singapore Air. This was my intention until I got a reminder from AC to check-in for my flight the day before my departure (a flight which I forgot that I had booked). A day before I left I found out that my long ago ex, ds's dad, has been diagnosed with stage 4 secondary liver cancer (primary colo-rectal). Ds is absolultely devastated -- he is his dad's only child, his dad never married and doesn't have a partner, so ds is his sole caregiver (a lot for a 31 yr old). His dad started chemo for liver cancer last week (they will treat the colo-rectal, which they caught fairly early) afterwards. I knew that ds, who is my dog-sitter, wanted to get back to his dad's (he lives in a basement apartment at his dad's house), so I pondered taking the AC flight home as it would take a full day off my travel. Also, ds and I had to fly down east to pick-up dd at university (he drives her car back and she and I fly home), so I made the difficult decision to skip the flight with Singapore (which would have required me taking a 4 hour train ride to FRA and an overnight stay at the airport). I called Singapore Air and they re-deposited the points to my account. Looked like my desire to fly in the A380 was gone (since they are not flying the A380 on the SIN-FRA-JFK route past May).
For anyone traveling home from Paris summer please leave A LOT of time at the airport. I don't know if I've ever seen a busier, more congested airport. It was chaos. It took my taxi 20 mins to go .5 miles to drop me off (the one and only time I took a taxi on the trip and glad that I did). Checked-in with AC (no line at the priority desk), got to the customs line and it was HUGE. Like I couldn't even tell where it ended. There was a much shorter line for priority thank goodness (a couple in the regular line told me they had been in line for 2 hours and they weren't even close to the front). It took me close to 25 minutes to get through the priority line, then I had to get to security. It was not my lucky day because just as I was approaching the escalators to head up to security, they closed the area (I was the first one stopped). Turns out some idiot left a suitcase behind, which is extremely serious. How serious you wonder? Well, serious enough to close the entire area, call in the army and the bomb squad. I was standing at the front of a mob of hundreds of people, if not more, for almost an hour before the bag was disposed of (bomb squad cleared it). Though the airport announced that all airlines would be delaying flights due to this disruption, there was no indication of how long flights would be delayed. It was clearly not my day because when I asked the security personnel where the customs office was to get my VAT forms stamped I was advised that it was on the other side of security (meaning I'd have to back-track and clear security again); since I didn't know how long the AC delay was, I made the difficult decision to skip getting my VAT back (first time ever). Maybe I should've taken the train to Frankfurt.
I found a flight back to FRA on May 13th on the A380 in first for the same points (I want my VAT back). Was also able to book a direct flight home on AC using eUpgrades on May 16th. I have a FNC with Marriott which I can use at the Westin Frankfurt and 1 night using URs. Not sure that I will go through with this as there is still food to pay for and cash for whatever activities I do (thinking of a day trip to Cologne or Heidelberg, both places I've visited). Dd will be here to dog-sit as ds doesn't want to leave his dad right now (understandably) -- not sure if he will pull be able through this or not (I sure hope so).
Not a fun day at CDG for me.