Summer 2012: Calais to St Jean D’Aulps – Leg 1

Dan woke on our departure morning with unusual pre-trip nerves. We packed the vehicles and headed for a pre journey tea and cake.

Our European journey started out with us managing to get onto the Chunnel (channel tunnel) earlier than expected. The excitement was building, with boarding looming for what we hoped would be another Summer Adventure.

The first night was uneventful, having booked ourselves into the Formula 1 (motel) at Abbeville. We pulled in, checked in and found a restaurant just a hop and a skip down the road. Had a pleasant first meal.

Formula 1’s are basic: simple room, separate showers + an ok nights sleep. The sole purpose of this stop was to provide sleep on the road.

We were abruptly woken early the next morning by some snotty, screaming children running up and down the hallways…not happy!

We made an early start, we are now heading for Paris.

As we arrived at the Premiere Class (similar to the Formula 1) we were booked into, we decided to check in and then take the lift to go and check out our rooms before heading off for some food. Our rooms were on the 3rd floor and as the lift came to the 3rd floor, it stopped! The lift would not go up or down or open the doors.

There were 6 adults and Cassie in the lift, and it was HOT, HOT, HOT! We had little air circulation and four 50 watt halogen bulbs burning down on us. Clearly it was going to get hotter. Dan made the decision to remove all but one of the bulbs, to minimise the heat build up. Being so hot already and not wanting to burn himself he removed his soaking shirt to handle the bulbs. In the end we were stuck in the lift for over 45mins. Cassie had to sit on the cramp floor to avoid fainting. She also started to have a mild panic attack, we had to quickly calm her down. We were all dripping after 10 minutes. If it had not been for a French speaking man in the lift with us, that had his mobile phone with him, we probably would have been stuck in that lift for a LOT longer.

The staff at the hotel simply did nothing about us being stuck in the lift, choosing to stay in reception instead, despite the knowledge we were stuck with an infant, no one from the hotel staff attended to provide assurance they were aware of our problem or that someone would attend imminently. We had to call the maintenance company ourselves and then the fire brigade to chivvy them along. Eventually we were set free. We were now rather hot, angry and irrational. We headed downstairs to speak to the receptionist to get a refund and leave. To put it bluntly, the receptionist simply did not give a damn. As he said to us “it is not a problem, only a small one”. We were told that we had to wait till 15.00hrs for the Manager before anything could be sorted out….so outside to the car we went to sit and wait.

The Manager arrived and we went in to speak to her about a refund. The conversation got a little heated and the Manager decided it would be better if the police were around, so called the Gendamerie. So we waited for the Police to arrive, during the wait the Manager would not talk calmly to us to sort the matter out. Another hotel Manager had since arrived, she kindly translated and spoke to the Manager for us. She agreed with us and our situation and seemed appalled that the Manager would not listen or give a refund. The Police arrived, they spoke to the Manager and then called Dan into another room to speak to him, and simply agreed with Dan that the Manager was out of order, and allowed us to go.

When the Police arrived, the manager was suddenly cooperative and listened to what we had to say. Her argument was that there we’re too many people in the lift. We argued that we had called the fire brigade for help as her receptionist would not help, and there would be a recorded call with the operator that said we had 6 adults and 1 child in the lift.

Anyway, after a long, heated debate, we decided to cut our losses and leave Paris, head to St Jean D’Aulps, to Dan’s sister and brother in law.

We found a campsite on the outskirts of Paris, a Euro Disney visitors campsite it would appear, and stayed 1 night. The campsite scored Cassie points as it had a swimming pool. Short stay, with no more events to be noted.

Next day we broke camp a little to late. We drove as far a Dijon and managed to find a campsite in Dijon. We managed our first shopping trip and had a lovely Braai of spatch-cock chicken and potatoes. Did some clothes washing and sorted out our travel plans to get to Anna and Lance the next day.

Another late break from camp, hopefully we will get better at this as we go on. Looking forward to a break from driving.