With a lot of help from Grandma, we pushed Christmas Day forward by 48 hours to Sunday 23rd, so we could devote the 24th to getting everything ready for the Canada trip. In theory it was a good idea, a whole day to print out paperwork, drop the dogs off at kennels, load up all our various gadgets with movies for the kids to watch on the planes, and pack the clothes and other things we'd need. Which was basically everything for Danilka.
It was an early start, with me setting an alarm for 3.10am so we could check-in online with KLM. (I'd made an initial hash of our booking with some help from eBookers. I have a profile saved with eBookers, where my name is "Chris Armstrong", however when I booked our flights back in September, the site completed the name part of my booking from this information, so my e-ticket was issued to "Chris Armstrong", which is different from my name in my passport - Christopher Armstrong. I agonized over this for a few hours, wondering how much trouble this might cause, and in the end I decided to contact eBookers and ask them to change the name on the booking. They could only do this by cancelling my ticket on the original booking, splitting that booking so Olga, Lara and Danny were on it, and I'd have to book a new ticket under my correct name. By the time we had done this the airfare had risen by £100. Bummer. Anyway, a lesson learnt there.) I already had a seat assigned to me, but Olga, Danny and Lara didn't, so we decided it would be best to check-in at the first opportunity - 30 hours before departure - to make sure we all got seats together. But... KLM don't let groups with infants check-in online, and they only tell you that after you've woken up at 3.10am and spent 10 minutes trying. So we'd have to check in at the airport. Danny decided to wake up at 3.30 to join us, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so spent a few hours loading our new Nexus 7 tablet with useful apps.
Little Danilka had been feeling very poorly over the weekend, and wasn't keeping food in at either end, and by Christmas Eve we were concerned enough for Olga to take him to see a GP on Monday morning. She reassured us there was nothing seriously wrong, so he was cleared to come on holiday with us.
This puts plans behind schedule, and the jist of the story is Olga and I retired to bed with 99.9% of things packed by 3.30am, with our alarms set for a 6am wake-up.
It was an early start, with me setting an alarm for 3.10am so we could check-in online with KLM. (I'd made an initial hash of our booking with some help from eBookers. I have a profile saved with eBookers, where my name is "Chris Armstrong", however when I booked our flights back in September, the site completed the name part of my booking from this information, so my e-ticket was issued to "Chris Armstrong", which is different from my name in my passport - Christopher Armstrong. I agonized over this for a few hours, wondering how much trouble this might cause, and in the end I decided to contact eBookers and ask them to change the name on the booking. They could only do this by cancelling my ticket on the original booking, splitting that booking so Olga, Lara and Danny were on it, and I'd have to book a new ticket under my correct name. By the time we had done this the airfare had risen by £100. Bummer. Anyway, a lesson learnt there.) I already had a seat assigned to me, but Olga, Danny and Lara didn't, so we decided it would be best to check-in at the first opportunity - 30 hours before departure - to make sure we all got seats together. But... KLM don't let groups with infants check-in online, and they only tell you that after you've woken up at 3.10am and spent 10 minutes trying. So we'd have to check in at the airport. Danny decided to wake up at 3.30 to join us, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so spent a few hours loading our new Nexus 7 tablet with useful apps.
Little Danilka had been feeling very poorly over the weekend, and wasn't keeping food in at either end, and by Christmas Eve we were concerned enough for Olga to take him to see a GP on Monday morning. She reassured us there was nothing seriously wrong, so he was cleared to come on holiday with us.
This puts plans behind schedule, and the jist of the story is Olga and I retired to bed with 99.9% of things packed by 3.30am, with our alarms set for a 6am wake-up.
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