Let me preface this by explaining that I lead my ski club's trips to Europe. The following true story happened in January 2008. I have changed the names to protect the innocent.
So here are the gory details. We got to Chicago and boarded without incident. The plane was completely full, we had about a third of the main cabin seats ourselves and another 25 from Lakeshore Ski Club in Chicago all going to Wengen. We landed on time at 11:30 in the morning, got luggage (a couple of people who flew in to Chicago had missing bags) and breezed through customs, met four people who arrived the day before, and then the fun began.
I had asked the people waiting for us in Zurich to keep on the look out for our charter buses so we would have them located when we arrived. No one saw them. I went out and began the search. Several buses are there, but none for our group. I’m getting worried. I saw the Lakeshore group loading, and I asked their driver if his company had any other gigs booked here. No. I walked around the airport and located the charter bus holding area. There were several buses there, but they all had signs in the window, “Berlin Philharmonic”. Since no one brought so much as a harmonica, I was unable to convince them to pick us up. Back at the arrivals hall, our group of 68 was huddled together with their luggage carts, all looking at me with one question on their faces, “What’s going on, Sam?”
At this point, I began working on Plan B. It was 1 PM now and the troops had been hanging around for an hour and getting restless. I got a call into our tour operator from a pay phone (US cell phones don’t work in Europe), but as it was 6 AM in Chicago, I only got his answering machine. “There are no buses at Zurich Airport for our group. If they are not here in one hour, I’m going to the train station and buying 69 rail tickets to Wengen. Page me at Zurich Airport.”
With that, I began implementing Plan B. In Europe, most big airports have train stations right in the airport, and Zurich has a particularly good one. Across the street down stairs of the parking garage I went to get particulars. At the ticket counter, when I inquired about 69 tickets to Wengen, the agent said to go around the corner to the travel office for such a tall order. At that point, I heard myself being paged. I ran back to the arrivals hall, and found DW on the Information desk phone and motioning me over. It was our tour operator. Seems his secretary had forgotten to book our buses, and Plan B was now a reality. I told him to stop apologizing, so I could get to work.
Back at the train station travel office, I explained my needs to the nice girl. No problem. Then I asked if we could get a group discount. “Hmm.. Normally, that must be reserved 72 hours in advance. I’ll check.” She went in the back office for a few minutes and came back. “OK, but we can’t give you your own rail car.” No problem, lets go, and I hand over my credit card, glad that I paid off the balance before I left. “You need to have your group on track 3 at 2:11. The train only stops for only 2 minutes, so you must have your group spread out on the platform and on board by 2:13. Swiss trains leave precisely on time. Otherwise you will have difficulties making your connections. Are they ready?” I look at the clock and its 10 to 2. “Start printing the tickets and I’ll get them down here.”
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