Day 13 – Airplane Drama on Vietjet – Bali Indonesia to Hanoi Vietnam
Good day humans. Okay, it is the end of day 13 and it has been some day. So we woke up this morning in Ubud uh in the middle of Dempensar in Indonesia and uh pretty early start. needed to be in the car at 8:30 to try and get to the airport uh which can be anywhere up to two hours away uh to get onto a 110 via jet flight from Denver to Hanoi. Five of us. That was the that was what we thought was happening. Uh so we did pretty well. We had a good feed. We got all packed up. We got to the car at 8:40. So only 10 minutes late, which is a record. And then we uh got to the airport in an hour instead of two hours. It was like, “Whoa, this is all going sweet.” Got to the checkout, got to check in, no one there. Um like no queue at all. Plane’s on time. Everything’s sweet. Walk up, get him our passports. She’s scratching her head, looking looking at it. And then she just eventually she goes, “Could you have your booking?” I’m like, “Yeah, there’s a booking reference.” And she goes off to have a chat to someone. know she’s going to have to set someone. I’ll be looking at the booking going, “What’s going on? What’s the problem?” And then Kate sees that it’s the 25th of October on the booking form, but we were there on the 23rd of October. All right, here’s one for the alltime scrubs list. Check out this. This is us all ready to go in Denver airport to go to Hanoi today. And we got up there, we gave them our tickets and they went like, “Your name’s not in the system.” We’re like, “What?” And we looked at it and the date’s different, like two days. So, it says 25 instead of 23 on our tickets. So, we have no flight and got everything booked in Ado. Oh, it’s going to be fun. See what happens next. But, uh, yeah, I don’t know if it was just old eyes not being able to tell if it’s between a five and a three, but I can’t work out how that’s happened. Definitely. It was never a planned to go on the 25th. So, uh we got to get on this plane cuz we don’t have any uh we got everything booked in on the other end of this flight. Uh but they’re saying no at this point. So, we’ll see what we can do. So, we’re always leaving on the 23rd. So, we got no idea why we had tickets for the 25th, how we didn’t pick up on it. Um, I have been having this weird thing where the laptop keeps changing the dates on me when I like refresh a page or the internet drops in or out or whatever. Just kind of like I don’t know if it’s to do with that. I don’t know if it’s do all eyes seeing 20 five and seeing the five as a three. I don’t who knows. Anyway, so we got there and we had no ticket and no plane. Um, and to make matters worse, we got things booked in Hanoi, you know, like we couldn’t just hang out in Bali to the 25th. We had things booked. So, we started asking questions and looking around, you know, I said, “Is there room on the flight? Like, can we just paid for a ticket? Can we just if you got five seats, can you just go on the plane?” They’re like, “Oh, no. There’s no seats. No seats.” And then she went and ask someone else and said, “Oh, there is seats.” So they were trying to win the support line, couldn’t get through. The support line just didn’t work. Um, you know, I called a contact I had in Australia and and said, “Oh, is there anything you can do? Like, do you have a we can’t get through support?” And she tried for us, but she couldn’t get any resolution either. But eventually we found that there was a 5:30 flight, so 4 hours after hours or 4 and a half hours after hours that we’re still going to Hanoi today. Uh, and had seats on it. So, we end up paying $240 Australian, which was I think the whole thing cost us 900 to begin with. So, what’s that? 30% off is uh again, but we got onto the flight and then, you know, they said, “Oh, that flight’s empty. That’s fine.” And went, “Okay, sweet.” So, then we checked in. We checked in and I said, “Oh, so it’s an empty flight, right? So, can you can you give me a bit of space up the back cuz I’m really really tall and be a jet the kind of jet star of Vietnam as my wife puts it. So, I was expecting pretty cramped seats and they were I couldn’t fit my knees in but he was like no no no it’s it’s packed. It’s packed. And I went really told it was empty like an hour ago and it went no it’s packed. It’s packed. Um and then we got on the plane and wasn’t packed and I got a whole row to myself. Charlie got a whole row of himself. the the the girls shared a row. Um Patty just jumped between multiple rows and we got on a plane. Uh landed, got to our accommodation at about 11:00 at night local time. Uh it’s a hell of a day and we actually made it, but we hadn’t eaten. Um and we’re in like this Airbnb this time around, so we don’t have there’s not there’s not a front desk or room service or something to eat. and we had no money like not a scent of cash which is interesting tip if you ever go on Via Jet is that they don’t accept anything except US dollars um or Vietnamese money BNB so there’s no card tap and they don’t care about your Indonesian money or your Australian money if you’re coming from Australia uh so they just wouldn’t accept it maybe if you’re coming from Australia maybe they accept Australian money anyway uh so we couldn’t buy thing on on the actual uh on actual plane. What in the end, one of the ladies that was there, like the beautiful young um stewart, she uh she bought us some water, like one bottle of water with her own money, and we gave her some Australian money that so she could exchange it later. So anyway, so we’re starving. We were completely unprepared for everything to happen. We were expecting to kind of like be in Hanoi kind of early afternoon, late afternoon. Um, so we hadn’t bought any food or any water or really stocked up for anything. Anyway, so we got here and I was just gone wandering around town for the last half an hour trying to find somewhere to get food for the kids cuz no one had eaten anything. And it’s midnight and I’ll show you what I show you. I ended up with these three random things which I just found in like a Circle K. I just said just give me all of them. I don’t know what they are. So, one was edible. We ate that one. This one got rejected. And this one is a root. And she laughed at me when I ordered it. I said, “Why are you laughing at me? What is it?” And she and she got out her phone and did a Google Translate and said, “It’s a root. It tastes like potato.” And I was like, “Wait, I got to go.” Um, and it does taste like potato. And it also tastes like a root. Uh, I got some crackers, some yogurt, the dodgiest ever cheese in a canned style cheese, which I didn’t realize was that horrible, and some garlic sausage cuz I couldn’t find any bread and I didn’t trust the rest of the food that was in there. At least that was packaged. So, we had crackers, which are these tiny little crackers. I thought they were big kind of salada style crackers or bats. They’re just these tiny little things like this with a giant piece of ham on it and some and a piece of cheese. And that’s been dinner and whatever the hell we ate here. Yeah. So, bit of a classic crazy traveler day. So, the kids kind of soldered through it pretty well. Um a lot of screen time. I tell you, I’m so glad that the the modern day screens have such long-lasting batteries. There’s like they had four hours in the airport to kill before we got onto a 5-hour flight and all the devices pretty much made it through. So, I’m super super stoked with that cuz um that would have been torture if they had literally nothing to do except sit on the floor of the airport. Uh oh, yeah, we also didn’t have accommodation when we got to the airport. So then on top of all that, we didn’t actually know where we were going uh once we got to Hanoi. Um so anyway, that’s why we end up in this Airbnb. We just booked something on the ground. So anyway, with all the experience I’ve done traveling and all the stuff that we’ve done over the years, I just feel like such a rookie. Um we just made so many fundamental mistakes today. like that you just, you know, like it’s the first time in the billions of tickets that we ever bought that we bought the wrong date, assuming that that’s what we did, which is what I think probably happened. But um and we only booked those tickets as well because it said somewhere that they won’t let you into Indonesia. We read something said if you don’t have a ticket out of Indonesia, they won’t let you into Indonesia. And so the day before we left, we’re just like, “Oh, is that true? Oh, We better just buy some tickets somewhere.” We bought tickets to Hanoi last minute before we got on the plane. And then we got to Indonesia and never asked anything. So, we didn’t have to do it anyway, which is a shame because Vietnam supposed in flood right now. So, we probably would have gone to a different country, but uh had the wrong tickets. Uh yes, the fundamental mistakes we just don’t normally make. I would never usually get onto a Vietjet flight, let alone a Jet Star flight or anything without being fully stocked with enough to feed all the kids and everything like that. Um, I would never turn up to the airport with nothing and then have to pay like six times the street street price for all the food in there, which roughly what it was. Uh, oh man, I’m just so tired. I’m just rambling like crazy. So, I’m going to stop. On to tomorrow. It’s already tomorrow. On to 4 hours from now.
If you’re looking for the best family travel vlog, or even the best Southeast Asia vlog, then you’ve landed in the right place. The Motivated Travel show is a daily travel vlog following a big family’s worldwide adventures. It’s Day 13 of the Stead’s travelling with kids adventure though Southeast Asia and it involves a flight from Bali to Hanoi – Indonesia to Vietnam. Or does it?
There’s a problem in Denpasar Bali at the I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport. No, the Vietjet airplane was not delayed. We had Vietjet tickets for the wrong day. Stuck in the airport with kids, no tickets and Hanoi bookings to meet, this was a true travel fail! A travel disaster! How did it get resolved?
In this episode, you’ll discover how we got from Ubud to the airport in Bali, and then onto Hanoi without any tickets. You’ll also get a Vietjet Airbus A321-200 review on the VJ902 route. What is Vietjet air like? Is it safe? Is It worth it? Vietjet economy class in particular.
This travel adventure vlog is about to head into new territory as out Vietnam itinerary begins. Stay tuned for a Vietnam guide to family travel, and various Vietnam travel tips. It’s one of the best countries to visit with kids and the Vietnam travel vlog starts now.
#vietnamtravel #vietjet #travelfails #familytravelvlog #balitravel