We’ve had so many great days on this journey that we were bound to have a real clunker. Yesterday was all that, in spades! All started well. It was a wet and windy morning in Cape Town, so we knew that a tour of Robben Island was not going to happen for us. We puttered around the motel, packing and repacking our suitcases just to be sure that none of them would exceed the 23Kilo (50#) limit for each of the two apiece we were allotted. We’d scheduled a 4:00pm shuttle to the airport for our 6:40 departure. However, since the weather was so bad, we decided to take the 2:00 shuttle, and arrive at the airport early, enjoy a meal and browse the shops.
Upon arrival at the Cape Town airport, two porters helped usher our luggage to the South African Air check in counter. Each bag was weighed, and each was within the 50# limit. But wait; the check in agent informed us that we were only allowed one bag each, not to exceed 20K/bag (44#). According to her calculation, we were exactly 67K over our limit!!! Now the good part, that 67K would cost us 345SA Rand per Kilo for a total of $23,115 SAR ($3,082). They absolutely would not budge, in spite of the fact that our friends from Switzerland flew in the day before, and were allowed 4 bags @ 23K each from Europe to SA.
Finally, after all our pleas were met with total indifference, we rolled our carts downstairs to try to find some place that would ship our bags home for us. No luck. In the end, we found a small quiet corner, unpacked all our suitcases, and proceeded to weed out anything we could in order to make our weight limit. We ended up giving three suitcases full of clothes, souvenirs, and just about any else we had, to a friendly and compassionate security guard who was working near by. Merlena was devastated by what she had to toss. A really traumatic experience for her, and on Mothers Day. Needless to say, we have nothing good to say about South African Air, whose employees were the most stoic, indifferent and cold as one could possibly imagine. In the end, we still paid an excess luggage fee of $460 for 10K overage. There was just no way we could cut any more.
We’re now in Dublin, yesterday is history, and we’re going to enjoy the last few days of our adventure. More to follow
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Oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you guys! What a devastating way to end your cruise. Please tell Merlena I'm thinking of her, but it sounds like you guys have dusted yourselves off and soldiered on. They cannot take your memories away. Looking forward to seeing you both and have a safe trip home, love,Cyn
ReplyDeleteglad you're out of south africa, and as long as you guys are okay, im happy. what a shame though. sorry mom.. they didnt know they had a world class mom in front of them on mothers day.
ReplyDeleteHere, here!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat an awful way to end your cruise. I hope it didn't sour you on South Africa, just the terrible airline. Merlena, I don't know how you did it. I can't even imagine paring down that much. Enjoy your last few days of the trip... down a few irish beers to take the sting out of that experience. See you soon, LS
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