Days 72 - 74 Trip Home

All was on schedule for our trip home. We waited in the Cathay Pacific lounge until our flight boarded around 1.00am.

Settled comfortably in our business class seats the Captain came on the speaker to let us know we would be leaving shortly, flying time to Hong Kong and that there was a possible typhoon in the area near Hong Kong but all was fine for us at the time.

Once in the air Margaret settled down for a sleep while Vince watched a movie before settling down for a snooze.

On waking we both watched a couple of more movies until we landed. Money Monster, Now you see me, and Captain America to mention a few.

Just prior to landing the Captain advised that there was a typhoon still in the area but we would still be landing. However, he was not sure about onward flights. It was a smooth landing so imagine our surprise when we went to the transfer lounge to be told our flight was cancelled and we needed to have new boarding tickets issued.

At 5.30am with a T8 typhoon warning having been declared the airport was rather quiet and not a lot of staff to deal with those who needed to be reallocated to later flights. It was not a good start to the day to find that only one woman was at the Cathay Pacific counter, dealing with the growing queue of people.

When we finally reached the counter we were issued new tickets which at first we thought were the same as we had just given her. We were then informed our new flight was for Saturday, not Friday. To add to this, Cathay Pacific do not organise alternative accommodation if the flight is delayed due to weather conditions, a typhoon, (at least not in Hong Kong). We assume this is because all of a sudden the price of rooms near the airport had increased exponentially.

We managed to contact our travel insurance company and found we were covered for reasonable accommodation costs so we decided to ring around. None of the close hotels had rooms left except one and that was for A$8000 (HK$44,000) for the night. We did not feel that this cost fell under "reasonable accommodation costs". We went online and Vince rang Expedia to find what accommodation was available close to the airport. The closest accommodation was on Kowloon Drive, 22km away. We were told there was a shuttle that take us there and back so we made the booking.

When we rang the accommodation to find out where to catch the shuttle we were first told it was not running (in a T8 all public transport is cancelled) but another person said it might be running. The problem was that we had to go through immigration and out of the arrivals area to actually have this confirmed.

We had been talking with a WA couple who travel frequently to Hong Kong to visit their son and they said the Cathay Pacific Lounge was quite comfortable. As we were concerned about the shuttle not only today but for the return the next day we decided to stay put and spend the time in the lounge.

Then the fun began. We contacted Expedia to cancel due to not being sure we could get to the hotel and they advised the booking was not refundable, even though that was stated up front. Vince was on the phone for nearly an hour debating these points. Eventually they said they would check things out and get back to him. Yet another long phone call but Vince won out.

We went for a walk from one end of the terminal to the other and up the connecting wing to fill in time before being allowed into the departure area.

Safely ensconced in the lounge we settled into a corner lounge area which would allow us to stretch out for a sleep later on. We spent time catching up on our blogs and reading. We did manage to stretch out for a couple of hours of dozing before being told with the influx of people expected the T8 warning was downgraded and flights were resuming we could not stretch out on the lounge.

Around 3.30am the few remaining people were asked to move to a smaller lounge downstairs while they ready the main lounge area for later in the morning. We returned to the main lounge, back on the opposite end of our corner lounge at 5.30am and now we are eagerly waiting for 12.05pm to board our final flight home.