Our holiday plans began after booking very good fares through Flight Centre using Emirates travelling from Melbourne to KL. Having wanted to visit my godmother who lives in KL for so long, we decided to travel from KL and then to Bali for the main part of our holiday flying Air Asia. This holiday was booked in April for travel in late September!!! A long way off but at least something to look forward to. In the past we have always used a travel agent but in this case apart from the initial booking for the Emirates flights I decided to book everything myself - my husband left it all up to me - of course making sure he was ok with what I had chosen - he knows I love searching through BTF and other websites for any information on new hotels, flight deals, etc etc. - you name it I've been on it.
After making our bookings ahead for accommodation - we chose to book a hotel room at KLIA's Pan Pacific Hotel for 4 hrs - to shower, nap and for our 10 year old a dip in their pool before the next part of our journey. Ubud Bungalows for our first 6 nights, then onto our beloved Kusnadi in Seminyak for 10 nights. Also made hotel reservations for KL on our way home for 2 nights. I had always thought we were seasoned travelers and knew all the ropes - what to be aware of and how to handle money - maybe it is that I am getting older and just not on guard!
Our daughter loves Build A Bear and had been given a 'dog' for her birthday - she decided that Coco was going to travel with us, so I made up a passport for Coco - we had done this on another holiday with another bear! Thank goodness J wanted to check her passport - after a few minutes I heard 'Muuuuum how many months do you have do have left on your passport?' 'Six' I said - no sound - six????? Then 'Muuuuuum(!!!!!!!) my passport has only 4 months left!!!!' Sheer panic - we rang the travel agent and sure enough we had more than 6 months on the passport when I booked the flight - but did not even think about it again!!!!! After trying in vain to contact the Passport Office via the internet - after calling every number I could from their website, I was given another telephone number to try from the TA - finally got through but was told at 2pm (I was ready to jump into the car and not worry about any speeding fine) -no more appointments today - but you can come in at 9am tomorrow (day before we are to be at the airport) - still panicking! Also told forms could be filled out when we got there........ after a little while I tried to contact again - no luck - thought it strange to go in and fill out forms????? Went straight to the nearest post office and picked up an application form - had passport photos taken (that was another sorry in itself) - had a friend sign where necessary.
Hubby took time off from work in the morning to be there too - we were at the Passport Office at 8.30am he dropped us off outside so her could find a park - luckily that I had prepared all the paperwork as when I approached reception I was told a different story- thank goodness for being prepared on this occasion. Tried not to be nervous after a sleepless night, paid the fee plus the extra to have the passport prepared quickly - there goes $250.00 which was nearly the cost of our 6 nights accommodation in Ubud! I had planned to sit there and wait for the passport but was told to come back the next day around 2pm ...... again a sleepless night - but in the morning there was an email to say that our daughter's passport had been processed - yahoooooo - rang to make sure and then we off on the train to collect the passport. We were to be at the airport later the same day/night for our flight out in the early hrs of Friday 24th. I could have kissed the person at passport collections!!!!!!
Passport in hand we finally could smile and realize yay we were going on our holiday after all!!!!
more to come ........