Ahhhh, sleeping in. I was up earlier than everyone else. I had started a load of laundry the night
before, but when I went to remove the clothes, the door was stuck. I set up the dryer to run for
12 more minutes hoping that would unlock the door.
Nope. Not sure what to do now!
Chris started a conversation with the main office. They weren’t much help. They did send a
maintenance guy to the apartment. He started the 12-minute cycle again and said the door
would open when it was done and then he left. The door didn’t open.
At the same time, we were doing proctored covid tests for the cruise. Proctored meaning an
online company was monitoring the results. Four out of five were negative until Kristen took
her test. Positive. She was devastated. We were all devastated.
And suddenly our plans for the next week changed.
In a “discussion” with the Airbnb office, Chris explained that the washer door was still closed
and we weren’t leaving the apartment without the clothes. Well, I wasn’t. Chris took the girls
out exploring while I sat and waited for the maintenance guy to return.
It was awkward. The cleaning girl was there, and I was definitely in her way.
I waited for the maintenance guy to return. The office said he would be there within an hour and
it took over two hours for him to return. He wasn’t happy. He walked in, unscrewed the washer
door from the machine, and had me remove my clothes before he put the door back on and left.
It took him all of five minutes and he could have done that the first time he came!
At this point, it was about ten minutes to 3 pm. The new Airbnb guests could be arriving soon.
I packed up the damp laundry and then proceeded to make four trips loaded down with
suitcases, duffels, and backpacks to remove all of our stuff from the apartment. The apartment
was on the third floor (probably equal to five or six flights of stairs), but I finally got everything
moved.
Chris and the girls were trying to get back to the apartment, but it was raining and the buses
were behind schedule.
They finally arrived and we took off quickly to the Gare de Lyon (train station) to transfer to the
Gare de Nord for our Eurostar train back to London.
After a harrowing morning and afternoon, we stopped for an easy and quick dinner at Five Guys
in the train station.
Kristen was starting to feel not so great. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of waiting in a
bunch of frustrating and infuriating lines for our train which was delayed once again.
I would never ever recommend taking the Eurostar. So poorly managed. The workers were so
frustrating. They had people in four queues and would open the first queue and let a 100 people
through no matter how long they or others had been waiting in line. And then then same with
the next line.
Once you got through, no one was there to tell you that families (and people under 18) had to go
through one line. So we get to the front of a line and they asked Kristen how old she was. 17. They
tried to get her to go on her own to another line. Nothing doing. She isn’t going by herself.
So she and I moved to another line. More waiting.
After so many hours, we finally get through immigration and then security, only to wait in the
lounge with hundreds of people—pushing, shoving, not willing to wait in line people.
It was not our best travel day ever.
We finally boarded our train. I guess we should be grateful. The next night the train lost its power and people had to sit for a couple of hours outside of Paris. Don’t ever take the Eurostar.
We rode the train to London and then transferred to a bus toward Southampton. We were supposed to be leaving from there for our cruise the next day. We arrived at the Hampton outside of Southampton around 11 pm.