WEARY DELIGHT was the mood among many of the travellers who arrived into Dún Laoghaire port on a full ferry sailing from Holyhead yesterday.
While in Busaras, Dublin city, many of the passengers queuing for a coach to Rosslare were anxious to go as they faced days of travel to continental Europe.
SEÁN WALSH,
GLANMIRE, CO CORK
Seán Walsh was bleary eyed as he neared the end of his 2,000km journey by bus, train, ferry and car from Hungary to his home in Glanmire, Co Cork.
The Carbery Plastics worker went to Budapest for a short business meeting on Wednesday and was due to return on Thursday.
Following cancellations, rebooking flights, changing airlines and further cancellations he discovered by chance that there was a bus going from Budapest to London.
“I was 24 hours on the bus, a tour of Europe! I couldn’t sleep at all in the bus but I think I’m too tall for buses,” he said. From London he stayed overnight in Wolverhampton, took a train to Liverpool and caught the ferry to Dún Laoghaire.
Airlines offered “no assistance and the updates were pathetic”, he said. However, Seán took two other passengers he met with little English under his wing and they travelled together back to Ireland.
Later, collecting his car at Dublin airport for his journey to Cork, he was hit with €50 in car park fees.
HAZEL GROSMAN,
AUSTRALIA
Arriving in Dún Laoghaire Australian Hazel Grosman’s whirlwind journey to visit her two daughters came to a halt last week.
She flew from Sydney to Washington to visit her daughter on April 7th and then on to Heathrow last week. But her connecting flight to Shannon to visit her daughter in Limerick was cancelled. “At the airport they recommended a totally overpriced rip-off three star airport hotel at £199 per night. Fortunately I hope my insurance will pay,” she said.
Fabrice and Verene Gerardin, from Strasbourg in France, were looking forward to seeing their children aged two and five when they arrived in Strasbourg in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Waiting for the bus to London, the couple counted the cost of the delay and journey which could reach some €800. “We hope some of it is refunded”.
From London they would travel to Paris where Verene’s father would make the five-hour drive from Strasbourg to collect them. Finally they will need to collect their own car in Frankfurt Airport, where they got their original flight.
“We are angry about the lack of help and information,” Verene said, claiming stranded travellers were just left to their own devices.
Lithuanian Vidmantas Tutlys’s two-day conference in Dublin last week was ending with a very long bus journey back.
Yesterday, as he caught the bus from Dublin to London, he faced an overnight stop followed by over 36 hours non-stop on a bus through Germany and Poland before arriving home in Lithuania almost a week later than expected.
RICHARD KERRIGAN,
SAN FRANCISCO
Uncertainty lay ahead for Richard Kerrigan (31) as he departed on a ferry to Holyhead yesterday with hopes of returning to San Francisco when airspace opens up.
“He is a structural engineer and works in San Francisco for the past two years,” said father Richard, who brought him to Dún Laoghaire port.
Richard had come home to go to a friend’s wedding. But as the wait to return to San Francisco dragged on Richard decided to go to the London headquarters of his company to continue his work from there, his father said.
CLAIRE AND SIOBHÁN BRENNAN,
CO LONGFORD
Sleep-deprived sisters Claire and Siobhán Brennan from Co Longford arrived back in Dún Laoghaire yesterday when what should have been a 40-minute flight from Edinburgh became a two-day journey. “We hoped to get the ferry from Larne to Stranraer but couldn’t get the train so had to travel down to Manchester instead where we stayed with our brother before getting a ferry,” Siobhán said. “I had an interview for a college in Edinburgh so I hope it was worth it,” Claire said.
Even some not stranded undertook long journeys. Trish Vernon drove from Crosshaven, Cork to Dublin yesterday to collect an elderly friend who was in Liverpool. “She was anxious to come home as she has Parkinson’s disease and was running out of medicines,” Trish said.
