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Sorry Ma'm, your husband cannot get on the plane.
That was the disturbing message that we got Monday evening 16/1 after a successful flight from Copenhagen to Brussels, heading on to Abu Dhabi where we had planned a 24 hour stop to stretch legs and enjoy a swimming pool. But that was not going to happen after all…
It turned out that there is a political dispute between Canada and the Emirates making Canadians unwanted in Abu Dhabi. Without a visa, Bryan was not allowed to stay in Abu Dhabi for more than 8 hours. Although Bryan even tried to convince the gate staff that with his Danish residency, he was as good as Danish, the message was the same: Bryan was not going on that plane.
Our options were the following:
1: We would all stay in Brussels and buy new tickets for the next day going into Sydney instead of Brisbane (and thereby skipping Abu Dhabi). Only tickets left were 2 in business and 2 in economy…
2: As above, only with Bryan getting new tickets and the rest of us going on the planned flight (meaning that I would have to travel with 3 kids alone for 48 hours (!) and that we would have to find eachother somewhere in Australia)
3: That Bryan stayed in Brussels and bought a ticket to meet us in Abu Dhabi the day after
What to do now? Splitting up the family or spending the whole travel budget on new tickets did not seem like very attractive options. Fortunately, Bryan himself got the brilliant idea to buy a round trip ticket out of Abu Dhabi so that instead of going to the hotel with the rest of us, he would fly to Doha and back, avoiding too many hours in Abu Dhabi at the same time. So we bought the ticket, hoping that Bryan would not need it.
Unwanted in Abu Dhabi
Upon arrival, immigration indeed confirmed that Bryan had no right to enter the Emirates. However, he was allowed to stay in the airport (and thereby avoided the flight to Doha and back). One thing led to another (another long story), and we found ourselves staying for free at the airport hotel with food coupons for the whole time there. Not a luxury hotel like the one we had booked, but most importantly, we were toghether, as Thomas said while we were enjoying the free airport food: Now life is good again. We all slept for 13 hours after that stressful event.
And the ticket to Doha remains unused.
Other than that, the trip went very well. Thomas and Daniel enjoyed the inflight entertainment combined with Nintendo DS and iPod (sometimes it all at the same time), and only slept a few hours. Thankfully Jonathan slept a few more.
Feeling very excited about getting to our final destination.
- comments
Else Beider I'm glad to know, that you all came to Australia - together! what an experience!!