A Lesson Learned The Hard Way – Be On Time

After one year being divorced, I decided as a single parent I wanted to take my daughter on a really nice trip. Since it was my first time traveling out of the country and first time traveling on my own, I decided that a place that speaks English would be best. So my 9-year-old daughter and I went to England (We live in Connecticut.) The trip was great with one major exception.

We went on an all-day bus tour of the countryside. At our last stop before the one hour trip back to the hotel, we were in a gift shop with a short amount of time before we needed to get back on the bus. We rushed and ran to where we were to meet the bus and found that because we were 5 minutes late, they left without us! We were stranded and didn’t know how to get back to our hotel.

Also, everything we had bought throughout the day and our jackets were on the bus. My daughter was in tears and I had to try my best to “keep it together”. I called the tour company and found out the route the bus would be taking and where it would be stopping. I then got us in a cab and had the driver try to get ahead of the bus via a shorter route with the goal of boarding the bus at one of its stops. Several times we got to the stop as the bus was pulling away. We ended up having to take the cab all the way back to the hotel.

That was one expensive trip. Fortunately, since I did not have that kind of cash on me, the cab took a credit card for payment. The bus company had our things delivered to our room the next day. This was a nightmare we will never forget nor will I ever be late for a bus again!