Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!*

On Monday 13th November the news came that we had been waiting for, the Gnomadette's visa had been issued. Huzzah! Now to make arrangements to get Mrs Gnomad to the Magic Kingdom. We already had flights booked for the Gnomadette, booked, endorsed and endorsed again as things were delayed. Flights also had to be booked for the Gnomad. The rules of the Magic Kingdom are such that a woman cannot enter the kingdom unless accompanied by her sponsor (husband, father, etc). There are exceptions to this rule, nurses, teachers, certain western ex-pats depending on country of origin, etc, but none of these apply to Mrs Gnomad. The outbound flight to the Philippines goes via Island Gulf State (IGS), via Qatar and then onto Cebu. The inbound journey merely goes via Qatar.

“Since the Gnomadette must be accompanied into the Magic Kingdom, can I meet her in Qatar and travel with her for the last leg?” I inquired of the travel and visa agents. The reply was hesitant and the answer was something like this; “well you can but we advise against it”. “Why is that?” “We have had situations in the past were travellers have been refused boarding in the Philippines because the airline were uncertain that they would be admitted into the Magic Kingdom”. Apparently the airlines face heavy fines if a traveller arrives in a state were the traveller has no right of entry, so sometimes the airlines don’t take the chance. I, also, was not prepared to take this chance.

Only one option remained, the Gnomad must travel from the Magic Kingdom, home to the Philippines and back again in a weekend. So this is what I did.

Wednesday, 15h00, left work for IGS. There is a road link from the Magic Kingdom to IGS, but it is often very busy and, obviously, there is an international border crossing involved too. This can take anything from one to three hours, possibly more on occasion, so we left plenty of time. Boss Bill very kindly offered to drive the Gnomad on this stretch to ensure a smooth start to the journey.

16h00, arrived at IGS airport, greatly astonished. This was apparently the most rapid transit into IGS that Boss Bill, or indeed anyone as we subsequently found out, had heard of. Gnomad’s early arrival means that it isn’t possible to check in for at least two hours and there are almost no facilities. Only one thing to do; Head for the Qatar Airways office, waving the frequent flyer card and request somewhere comfortable to wait. Result “No problem sir, we’ll open up the check in just for you and you can wait in the first class lounge” Woohoo! Result! I do like my Qatar Airways Gold frequent flyer card. So I adjourn to the aforementioned first class lounge and wait, partaking of some rather pleasant light refreshments, not quite up to the standard of the Doha first class lounge but very jolly all the same. And I wait. And I wait. There are only so many delicate little dainties a chap can enjoy, and it seemed like ages to go before the flight was called. So I waited. And waited. The flight from IGS to Qatar was delayed. Eek! I only had 45 minutes turnaround time in Qatar! The delay got longer and longer and more and more worrying. Eventually the flight left 32 minutes late. Sweating all the way we got into Qatar 30 minutes late and I dashed off the aircraft as fast as I could. I headed straight for the meet and greet service (another frequent flyer privilege) and showed them my tickets. Phone calls were made, queues were jumped and I was escorted straight through to the departure gate in double quick time. I was aboard the outbound flight from Doha with four minutes to spare. Very relieved I settled down to my airline meal and my nine and a half hours in cattle class. If I had missed that flight the next was not for three days.

The flight was unremarkable in all respects except one. Despite a timely departure we managed to arrive half an hour late. The Gnomads live an hour from the airport, and we had only five hours of scheduled turn around time in the Philippines, so a half hour delay was significant. The Gnomadette was there to meet me at the airport. We hailed a cab and headed home to Dumlog. There a shower, and a fried chicken and roast meat (I wont say which meat, merely that it is haram –forbidden- in the Magic Kingdom) meal awaited. Fifty minutes later with both of these done and all last minute checks made the Gnomads headed back to Cebu International Airport. Arriving an hour and a half before hand the Gnomads checked in, said their farewells and aawaited the flight.

The accumulated air-miles earned in the Gnomads meanderings had proved sufficient to upgrade us both to business class for the inbound journey. As we boarded at the front of the plane and turned left instead of right, the stewardess invited us to “sit anywhere we liked, there are no others in the business class cabin”. A pleasant, peaceful and above all quiet journey ensued. Being able to actually lie down (once one has finished playing with the electrically controlled seat, of course) and sleep is a huge benefit of business class. The journey was as near to restful as a flight can be and the Gnomads were spoilt and pampered by the cabin crew who had little else to do.

Arrival in Doha was uneventful. Again at the meet and greet reception we were informed that since our stopover was in excess of eight hours we had a room at the Merweb Hotel. The hotel courtesy bus got us there is reasonable time, despite many unannounced road closures, and showers and food were able to happen again. The Merweb was not, unfortunately, up to Qatar Airways usual standards and I would not personally choose to stay there again. Our six am bus turned into a six-forty five bus and was grossly overloaded at that – all seats taken plus six children sat on adults laps and one adult sat on the floor! The aisle also lined with luggage. However we soon arrived back at the airport and had time for breakfast in the first class lounge again which did much to restore the Gnomad’s good humour.

The forty minute flight into the Magic Kingdom departed and arrived on time with the Gnomads on board. The queue at Immigration was vast, and since it was a Friday the crew was skeleton. The Gnomadette watched the progress of the queue with growing alarm. The eight other Filipinas ahead of us in the queue had their passports taken and not returned at immigration and were made to wait separately. We later found out that their sponsors had to come and collect them. They really were not admitted to the Magic Kingdom unaccompanied. As far as we know none were turned back.

When the Gnomads reached immigration, Mrs Gnomad was allowed through without delay. This is partly because I, her sponsor, was there too and not a little to do with the fact that we had thought ahead and Mrs Gnomad was wearing the abaya. This is not actually compulsory for entering the Kingdom, but it really did seem to help.

Sam, our taxi driver was waiting for us outside the airport (I learned from last time and arranged a regular ddriver to pick us up) and we are now nicely settling in to married life together in the Magic Kingdom.

G



* Title courtesy of Lewis Carrol and the Jabberwocky