When Things Go Wrong

I patiently awaited this day for many months. Ever since I had made the bookings, both the flights and the accommodation. Today was the day I would travel from Brisbane Queensland to Broome Western Australia for a ten day, nine nights, much needed holiday.

I would travel from one side of Australia to the other, a distance of 5,622 kilometres if I was to drive, but today I was to fly instead.

I was beyond excited as I used to live in Broome 33 / 34 years ago and it held a lot of fond memories. I’d also been considerably stressed in my work environment for a number of months and desperately needed the break.

Well today finally arrived and I excitedly jumped out of bed when my 4:00am alarm sounded in my ear.

Then things started to go wrong and to be honest, if I’d known the day I was going to have, I would have happily climbed back into bed and stayed there the entire day — foregoing the entire holiday!

But I didn’t do that and my day unfolded into one stressor after another, all piling on top of each other, until I was utterly exhausted by the stress and emotion of it all.

4:00am arrived and I hurriedly dressed, packed the last items into my suitcase, did my hair and was almost ready to go — I just needed to clean my teeth.

It was here that I noticed a message had been received, while I slept, from my Airbnb Host. Donna had sent me a message on behalf of my host, Colin.

The message read:

“May I clarify if you are aware that the top floor has 2 rooms and you'll be getting the bedroom 1 right?”

A tiny trickle of concern wormed its way into my stomach. WTH???

No, I did not book just one room on the top floor!!! I actually booked an entire two bedroom, one bathroom apartment for me — a single guest. Why would I just book one bedroom in a two bedroom apartment?

I, of course, responded to Donna advising her of this and then began frantically searching for my email confirmation. I was beginning to panic and doubt myself, thinking I’d made a mistake.

But no, there on my receipt, it clearly states, Entire home/apt • 2 beds • 1 guest, at a cost of $341.67 per night. Who’d pay $340 per night for just one bedroom?

No I definitely booked an entire apartment.

I stood there silently urging Donna to respond and tell me everything was okay. But of course that wasn’t going to happen, it was 2:20am in Western Australia. Donna would be snuggly curled up in her bed, sleeping, oblivious to the panic she has set off in the pit of my stomach.

I glanced at the clock and noted it was time to go. I hastily brushed my teeth, running late so they didn’t get the clean they deserved, and woke my son to drive me to the airport.

As we were driving the 20 minutes it’d take to get me to the airport, I was searching the Airbnb advertisement to see if there was something I had missed — but no, it was clear that I had not made a mistake.

My son dropped me off at the pick up / drop off area and I was on my way, telling myself it would all work out as it should.

My flight was due to depart at 6:00am for what is typically a 5.5 hour flight from Brisbane to Perth Western Australia, where I was to pick up a connecting flight to Broome.

As I had an hour layover, my two sisters had decided they’d meet me at the airport for a quick hug and hello. My oldest sister had been over to visit me in Brisbane a few months before but my second oldest sister I’d not seen for eight years. So it may only be for an hour but I was so excited to see them both.

We boarded the Qantas flight on time and all was as it should be, until it wasn’t!

We sat patiently on the tarmac until 6:00am, our scheduled departure time, and then 6:05, 6:15, 6:25 and finally at 6:31am we began to taxi out to the runway.

I began to worry that that thirty one minutes had just eaten a considerable chunk of my time with my sisters. But I decided not to stress as usually the time could be made up in the air.

However, after approximately an hour of flying time, the captain announced that due to the winds we were heading into, we would actually be landing an hour late at Perth airport.

No! Please no!

That means one of two things. I’ll either loose ALL my designated time with my sisters or I would miss my connecting flight.

Keep calm, keep calm Colleen!

But no, with all the previous months stressors, the message this morning about my accommodation and now this — it was too much and tears began to leak from my eyes.

I attempted to stop the flow and press the help button for the air hostess. When a hostess asked me what I needed, I explained the situation and he promised to check it out. He soon come back explaining the airline was aware that I had a connecting flight and the managing air hostess would come and talk to me soon.

I sat quietly unable to stem the tears.

Trish, the managing air hostess, come and sat next to me and explained that when we were close to landing in Perth, she would move me to the front of the plane so I’d be first off and I could make the mad dash to my connecting flight.

I still wasn’t convinced I’d make it because we were now expected to land in Perth at 10:30am (12:30pm Brisbane time) and my connecting flight was due to depart at 10:40am. Cutting it awfully fine!

Trish explained that we’d land at terminal 12 and my connection would depart at terminal 14, so I wouldn’t have far to go.

Trish could see I was deeply upset, so she sat and talked to me for half an hour, which was awfully kind of her. I was terribly embarrassed by my emotional state but it was out of my control. I was devastated and once Trish left me alone, I had to send messages to both my sisters letting them know that it was a waste of time coming to the airport, as I wasn’t going to have the time to even give them a hug as I rushed past.

I was so terribly sad.

It was about this time that I finally heard from Donna about my accommodation. She responded to my message about renting the entire apartment as follows:

“Sorry for the inconvenience. May I ask Colleen, if you would to share the other bedroom? The actual price for the whole top floor is around 400. There must be a system issue that's why you are able to book the lower price. I am so sorry for the inconvenience :(“

No, I couldn’t believe what I was reading! Under no circumstances was I prepared to share the apartment with strangers, especially as she was making it obvious that there’d be no compensation offered for the inconvenience.

I messaged back explaining that I was not comfortable sharing an apartment with strangers and asked her to confirm immediately that my booking would be honoured as per our arrangement. I asked if there was another option or could I book elsewhere?

I didn’t need this as I was in mid flight, trying to sort this debacle out from an airplane thousands of metres above the clouds!

Donna responded:

“We have not given this yet and we asked for your confirmation first.”

I explained that I was not comfortable with this arrangement and Donna responded saying she understood and I believed that to be the end of the issue.

Apparently I was disillusioned because Colin, the host messaged me two hours later, while I was still in the air:

“Hi Colleen. This is a terrible mix up for all of us all due to errors in the booking system. I'm really annoyed. Can you send me your number please. We will work this out.”

WTF! There was nothing to work out. I’d booked the entire apartment and now they were trying to double book it and have me share with total strangers.

Not only would I lose my privacy but I wouldn’t feel safe.

I responded to Colin to tell him he couldn’t ring as I was on my flight and that I was getting terribly stressed about this issue. I requested that he confirm that he’d honour my booking for the entire apartment and to let me know immediately to help ease my mind.

I received no response from Colin so I began to research what my options were. I’d never used Airbnb before so was unsure on their policies.

I contacted Airbnb support and explained the situation as I was getting increasingly worried and stressed that I was going to land in Broome, near on 6,000 kilometres from home, and have nowhere to stay.

Airbnb support was fantastic and I explained the situation via messages. They asked me to be patient while they contacted Colin but assured me if Colin insisted on making me share, I was entitled to a full refund and support would help me find alternative accommodation.

That didn’t really ease my stress because I was time poor. I needed accommodation for that night!

I finally received another message from Colin as follows:

“Everything is ok Colleen. This is why I asked to talk with you to. Your booking is fine. Can you call me when you have time please. I got a message from airbnb re this issue also???”

This didn’t instil me with confidence because if everything was fine, there’d be no reason to call him.

I responded explaining that I couldn’t call until I landed in Broome and that I was now officially extremely stressed and concerned and asked him to immediately confirm that he was, in fact, honouring our initial agreement. I also explained why I had contacted Airbnb support, sure he’d understand my reasoning and concern.

I received no response from Colin.

It was at this time Trish approached and advised it was time to move me to the front of the plane as we were preparing to land in Perth.

We landed at 10:36am and I thought there’d be no way in hell I’d make my connecting flight that was due to depart at 10:40am, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a Qantas employee waiting for me when I disembarked the plane. She rushed me through to terminal 9, not 14 as I’d been advised, so if I’d been on my own I’d certainly have gone to the wrong terminal and certainly missed my flight.

Qantas had held back my connecting flight to wait for me.

Now that is service with a capital S!

However, I still couldn’t totally de-stress because I still didn’t know if I had accommodation when I landed in Broome and this second flight was not wifi enabled, so I was in the dark.

After a much anticipated landing, I checked my messages and neither Colin nor Airbnb support had contacted me while I was on my flight and here I was at 1:30pm, in Broome with no idea what the outcome was going to be.

As Colin had asked me to ring him, I promptly did so only to hear his voicemail message explain he was overseas and preferred to correspond via text message.

WTF!!!

I left a message asking him to ring me.

Instead Colin sends me a text message saying “Text me.”

So I did and this was the resulting conversation:

WTF!!!

I rang Colin again when I go no response and finally he rang me.

Colin then proceeded to ask me to share the apartment again and I once more explained that I was not comfortable doing so. He finally agreed to honour our agreement but he made it blatantly obvious he was severely pissed off with me and couldn’t get off the phone quick enough.

I was relieved but utterly exhausted from all the stress and unnecessary emotions I’d cycled through over the last twelve hours.

I just wanted to check in to my accommodation and de-stress. I was thankful that keys had been organised to be left in a lockbox at the property and therefore I wouldn’t need to deal with a human being, especially a pissed off Colin, during the check in process.

I caught a taxi to the property, followed the instructions messaged to me the previous day on how to open the lockbox, only to discover ……………. the box was empty.

There were no keys!

I just wanted to sit down on the steps and cry!!!

But I didn’t.

Within the check in instructions there was a phone number for the property manager, Thomas. I rang that number and thankfully Thomas answered. Apparently he was unaware I was arriving that day!

However, fifteen very long minutes later, Thomas arrived and let me in.

I was finally in Broome and too stressed and exhausted to enjoy it, so I decided I would chill quietly in the apartment for today and tomorrow I’d begin my relaxing holiday in earnest.

I am so thankful I stuck to my guns because this two bedroom, one bathroom apartment is tiny, which is fine for just me but if I’d had to share it with strangers it would have been uncomfortable and I wouldn’t have felt safe. It would have meant spending all my time shut away in my bedroom, because the living area was not big enough to be shared with multiple people who were total strangers.

I’m going to try to put today behind me and enjoy my stay in Broome but I promise, when I leave Broome, I will be writing a review on Colin and this entire debacle.

A review that will not be easy to forget!!!

Please click the link below my name to read more of my work. I would also like to thank you for taking the time to read this today and for all your support.

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Please visit my website if you'd like more information on my newly published book, Battle Angel : The Ultimate She Warrior.

Originally published on Medium