FAIL

We went to the wrong airport.

Go ahead and laugh, because we sure did. Can we say continuing the trail of stuggles? Wow. You might ask how this happened, especially in Glasgow – which I have informed you doesn’t have much in/at it…at all. Who would have thought there were 2 airports? Clearly not us. However, I am also going to take this time to say that it isn’t entirely our fault, yes we should have realized or checked to make sure, but still…not totally our fault.

The problem originated when I asked a woman at the reception desk at our hostel about getting to the airport. She asked if we were going to Prestwick and I said yes, remembering that that’s what it said on the confirmation email. She said we should take bus 500 to the airport and it takes roughly 15-20 minutes – not bad right? That’s what we thought, all the way up to being at said airport and being told we were at the wrong one. So we leave the hostel around 6pm get to the stop and get a bus shortly after – they come every 10 minutes and literally take you straight to the airport…super convenient, if you were supposed to go to that one. Once we get inside we look for our flight on the monitor and it’s not there, but we see a sign to another ‘terminal’…no one was there. We asked some guy at a counter and this is how the conversation unfolded:

Me: “Hi, we were wondering where we go for this flight – it wasn’t listed on the monitor in the other terminal.”
Random guy: “Um, RyanAir flight? Those leave from Prestwick Airport”
Me: Pause. “And where exactly are we?”
Random guy: “Glasgow International…”

Blank stare.

Yup that’s right, there are two airports in Glasgow. Oh but wait, Prestwick isn’t actually IN Glasgow – it’s 45 minutes away by car. Really…REALLY?! At this point we were basically like, well we have extra time…we’ll be fine, let’s go figure something out. I asked a bus driver if there was a bus that goes to Prestwick from Glasgow Airport and she said no, but being the awesome person she apparently is – she told us we have 2 options: 1) take an airport taxi over there, which would run us about £70 OR 2) she would call a friend who works for a different taxi company that would take us for £40. I voted the latter. Continuing with our bad luck, she couldn’t get a hold of him but continuing with her generosity, she called a different taxi company that she uses all the time who also said would do it for under £40. SCORE.

We were super excited (before this point) that we planned out perfectly the amount of money we would need to get to the airport on the bus and not have any random change or bills left over. Clearly we were going to fail with that too. Holly ran to an ATM while I figured out where we had to meet the taxi and we made it to our meeting point…and waited. 15 – 20 minutes later our dude came and we hopped right in and went on our way – he got quite the kick out of us. Not only were we laughing hysterically about the whole deal but Holly kept making ridiculous comments that sent us all into fits of laughter.

Also, they weren’t kidding when they told me it was 45 minutes away. ITS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! Who in the heck would have thought to go to an airport there? Not only that but it’s this ridiculously little dinky thing. If that doesn’t convince you our timetable should by the fact that we had an hour and a half to wait in the airport for an ‘international’ flight, when we arrived an hour to spare before the gate was supposed to close.

6:00 – leave hostel
6:20 – board bus
6:40 – arrive at WRONG airport
6:45 – realize our mistake
7:10 – get in taxi
8:00 – arrive at other airport
8:15 – wait in lounge (Elvis bar) for plane to board (not even at the gate)
9:15 – gates were supposed to close, we were still waiting
9:45 – supposed to be in the air, just boarding

All in all, we somehow still made it with plenty of time to spare, the taxi driver gave us a discount after we got the ride for £30 cheaper, we spent our left over change on chocolate in the airport and we made it to Dublin in one piece with all our luggage.

And this my friends, is why I like getting to airports with some time to spare. Let this be a lesson learned for all.

Cheers