Gay Paree

There were a couple of minutes of white knuckle turbulence as we came in to land at Paris (CDG) airport, but we just take it in our stride. Not really an alternative.

We had an airbridge on and off the Air France A220 from Prague, so that’s good, no climbing steps.

Also, I got onboard with my trolley bag every flight, without being challenged. Before every flight we hear announcements saying we’re full, and passengers are asked to get hand luggage checked in. On some flights, we have seen passengers challenged at boarding, and their bags taken. Carrot and stick. 

By the way, the flight was late. So that’s a clean sweep of our European flights.

We took a minute to get to the arrivals belt, helped by the AF app giving me the belt number. It then was about 15 minutes waiting for the belt to start. My AirTags told me they were in the building, so all good. One good thing about hand-loaded luggage, the AirTag will trigger quickly.

I had been messaging with the Uber driver from the time we were taxiing in. Then when we had our bags. Then when we followed the signs to ‘app ride pickup’.

We ended up in a small open-air carpark, just outside the building, with an assortment of roads spiraling overhead.

I had no idea how he was going to find us, and apparently neither did he.

With a bit of back and forth, and a lot of waiting, he turned up outside the carpark (special access only), nosed in to an entry lane for the downstairs park. 

We scurried over, and he managed to get all of our luggage into his C-HR. Then we were off. Spiraling down into the carpark, and then find the exit to spiral back up towards sunlight. This time.. Maybe not. 

I assume that because there had been so many attempts to find us, the Uber app shit itself. He couldn’t fix it.

So he told me to cancel the ride. I did. Uber charged me €20 instead of the €57.

If I’d booked another Uber, there was no guarantee that he would get the job, and everything was already in his car. 

So he offered to take us to our hotel for €37 cash, less the €15 he would get from Uber for the cancellation. Considering the original charge, that would be a good deal all around.

Problem is we’re not carrying cash. We had done 90% of our time without cash, and Sarah gave our last €5 of actual cash to the guy at the Prague hotel for bringing our bags down from the attic.

Sarah told the driver that we can get the hotel to pay him and put it on our bill.

No problem, said the driver, I can give you my number and you can pay me later. Honest guy.

Then Sarah remembered that she had $70 in NZ currency. That converts to about €34, so added to his €15 from Uber, even a bad exchange rate will see him ok.

He was happy with the offer, and we all lived happily ever after. 

I don’t know if he was new to Uber, or new to the airport, but let’s be honest. Large airports are generally pretty unforgiving with pickup access and with signage.

Harder than it should have been.