The Honest Jonny | BLOG

As we were departing at the crack of dawn on the SAA flight to Mauritius, we decided to reduce our "airport time" by an hour, by completing the on-line check-in on www.flysaa.com. Oh boy, was this a mistake ... we arrive at the airport at 08h10 for an 09h40 flight (on-line check-in stated 08h20) and on presenting our check-in passes, SAA had "lost" one passenger, my 23 month old son. So check-in that should have taken 10 minutes took close on an hour.

What I can say is that the service I received from the Swissport assistant, was brilliant. Once we had finally checked-in, we were whipped off through passport control and lead directly through to the gate. We really wanted to do some duty free shopping but the only shopping that was done, was from a fast trot en-route to the gate.

Our flight was rather pleasant and fortunately we had a spare seat so my son did not need to spend any time on our lap ... not that he spent much time in his seat either. The other passengers were much more entertaining.

On arrival in Mauritius we were again feeling like royalty when we were escorted to the Preferential passport control counter (I think families with kids all get this treatment). The Mauritian's on duty were not the most engaging, and the process was rather slow ... something like 20 minutes just to get a family of 5 through passport control, and don't forget we were in the "Preferential" passport counter. But that was okay, we were finally on holiday and nothing was going to ruin the start to it.

The airport is pretty small with only two conveyor belts so by the time we arrived, there was absolutely NO luggage going round and round ... but there was a group of about 30 travellers from our flight standing at the "lost luggage" counter. Guess what, out of 8 items checked-in, all that arrived was two prams and my sister's suitcase. So, we were okay, we could easily get around the resort but were left with no clothes, nappies or formula. It was a hectic 34 degrees and all we had were the clothes on our backs (jeans and t-shirts ... just fab for a sticky humid destination). From the customs chaps in Mauritius, this is a rather frequent occurrence - the rumour is that SAA make more money off cargo than what is costs in compensation for the luggage that is left behind but who knows, SAA was not sharing any info with us ..........

After a painful 50 minutes of waiting to log our baggage tags we headed off for Shandrani. Thank goodness this was only a 10 minute drive from the airport - a real blessing in disguise. The kids were by now exhausted and starving. We quickly checked into our rooms (which were just divine) and took the kids off to the closest pool for a quick dip (of course in the state they arrived in this world). Still in our dirty sticky clothes we headed for dinner, and breakfast, and lunch .....

It was not until 18h30 to following night, that we received our luggage.

I would like to compliment the resort at this time who were constantly following up with SAA to ensure that our luggage was on board the next SAA flight and got the luggage to us as soon as the could ... what a relief, fresh clean clothes at last.