Friday 20 December 2024 - Madrid to Dubai Part 1
Well, last night did not go how I thought it would!
The teleconf with Snowy Council was quick and fine - we were a bit nervous as the town planner said we are the first DA under the new special activation precinct zoning, but she was generally fine with what we are proposing.
We were a but buzzed from the teleconf and so settled down for the night just before midnight. There was some background doof doof music, and we remarked to each other that it must be the Christmas Party downstairs again, and surely it would be winding up soon. How wrong we were. Turns out we were just about to be treated to a free participation in an all night rave party being held at the Feria next door. The party ran from 2359 to ~0600. Had I paid for a ticket, I would have wanted my money back as it was dreadful - heavy metal head banging stuff.
It was impossible to sleep with the noise. Mr Seat 0A went downstairs at about 0230 to ask if we could be moved to a room on the other side of the hotel. No sorry, the hotel is fully booked tonight. it will stop soon. Went back at 0430 to ask when it was going to stop? Oh should stop by 0500 they said. At 0458, I looked it up. And it was scheduled until 0600.
So as we were both awake, we decided to follow up on the Omani e-visa applications we had made yesterday. Calling
@1022 to the courtesy phone - this is instalment 1 of the great e-visa debacle of 2024!
The first part of the problem was needing to upload a low res photo of our passports. None of our idevices was playing nicely, and it took ages and some googling to work out that a screen shot of a photo, suitably edited would meet the ridiculously low res requirement. The next parts of the problem was when we both honestly answered the question "have you been to Oman before?" with yes. This then generated a drop down menu with lots of questions, which included supplying the visa number for the visa granted, the passport number for the passport used and a photo of the visa. Now our last trip to Oman was in September 2016, more than 8 years ago, and both of us have new passports. This means we don't know the number of either the passport, or the visa, and couldn't supply the photo, so we decided that it might be easier to just say "No" to that question. Bad call.
Both of our applications were marked "pending, more information required". And the information that they required was a photo of the visa from the previous trip that showed in their system. Catch-22!
So we made contact with Seat Son who drafted an Arabic response for us to send back (the times on these screen shots are notreflective of the actual time the texts were exchange - by the magic of iphone, the time stamps have all been adjusted back to our local time zone here
OK, that's all we can do at 0430 so let's send that off and see what happens. So both of us submitted the same information, and now we will just wait.
We were thoroughly wired by now, and so we had a cuppa and just tried to get back to sleep. I managed about 45 mins. Mr Seat 0A got no sleep. But it did in fact stop at 0600. Thank goodness, we thought. Now we can at least sleep until the advertised renovation works resume at 0930. Both of us were sleeping by 0630, only to be woken rudely at 0800 when the renovation work started - sounded like a whole heap of tiles being thrown several floors down into a skip, and there was that usual drilling noise - probably as those tiles were separated from the walls.
At this point, we just gave up. Got up, ready to head to breakfast, but on the way down, Mr Seat 0A decided to complain. Now it takes a lot to rile him up - he's a very calm and unemotional person, but the incredibly dismissive approach of the receptionist just got his goat (maybe also something to do with less than 2 x 2 hrs sleep as well, who knows!). He started with the proposition that the hotel had failed in its only job - providing a room where guests could sleep for the night. The combination of the all night dance party and the renovations made that impossible. The receptionist then said that the renovations would not have started yet - there was no renovation until 0930. And at that, he lost it (in a Mr Seat 0A kind of way). "I will not be called a liar by you. I think I am qualified to tell when noisy renovation work has started just above my head. Call your manager, you need to accompany me to the room to hear the level of noise it is creating. My wife is a platinum member here and we only stayed because our first visit here was excellent. This is not how you should be treating your loyalty members..." And that was the key that unlocked a response. The manager appeared, apologised for all the disturbance and offered a discount for the inconvenience. We were happy with that, and when he suggested a refund for last night, we thought that quite fair. So off we went to breakfast. Now any transactions on my Macquarie card ping in the app almost instantly, and I ws suprised to see a credit of EUR 261 into the account - this being the amount for both nights, and breakfast. OK, they made good, but honestly, I would still rather have had the sleep.
So overall, I do not recommend the Pullman Madrid Feria and Aeropuerto - unless you first check the schedule at the Feria and are happy that you won't be an unwilling participant in an all night bash.
At breakfast, checked the Oman e-visa situation again, nothing new to report. Both still pending. Our planned trip to Oman is on 23 December, so I do hope it gets sorted soon. Spoiler alert: it did not get sorted!
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IKR! Given the places we have already visited, and the planned visits to Cordoba and Granada, we didn't really think the sights of Seville that looked radically different and we were pressed for time as Gibraltar was on Mr Seat 0A's "must do list". As I think it's likely we will be back in this region at some point in the future, I'd be very pleased to hear people's suggestions for Seville.
) some very narrow and hilly streets, really noticing the age of the buildings and the tokens of British heritage everywhere. But the cars are all left hand drive.
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