Alex Sisan and his friends had to be creative on how to get home after their flight was canceled (Photos: SWNS)
Molen’s party, stuck in Amsterdam due to the chaos at the airport, embarked on a 230-kilometer adventure – providing the content of a wedding speech for all.
Alex Sisan, 29, took 13 friends to the Dutch capital on Thursday and spent two days drinking and sightseeing.
The boys had to fly home to Gatwick Airport on Saturday and even arrived at Schiphol Airport five hours before departure.
But their easyJet flight was canceled at the last minute, forcing them to come up with other ways to return to Worthing, West Sussex.
They decided to board a train to Calais, France, and then board a ferry to Dorset, reports The Mirror.
Along the way, the boys discovered that health and safety rules mean that people are not allowed to board the ferry on foot, but cyclists are.
Fortunately, the group stopped in Brussels, Belgium, and Lille, France, so they frantically searched for bicycles to buy for the few hours they had in each city.
All but one of the group managed to buy a bicycle in Brussels or Lille (Photo: SWNS)
They traded in second-hand shops and looked for a bargain on the Facebook Marketplace.
All but one managed to get a bike by the time they finished in Lille, but in keeping with the theme of the trip, the friends faced a new challenge.
They found that the train service that took them to Calais allowed passengers to carry only folding bicycles with them.
So the friends had to quickly find taxis to take them to their ferry – at a cost of 350 euros (299 pounds) per car.
Miraculously, the boys arrived an hour free and managed to build their own boat.
Friends reach Calais ferry port with one hour free (Photo: SWNS)
The 14th boy, who failed to get a bike, persuaded a kind couple to let him sit in his car to cross the English Channel.
The whole group returned to the United Kingdom by Sunday morning, though exhausted.
Alex said: “Looking back, the experience was as stressful as something from a movie or a Top Gear challenge.
“But it was such a fun and brilliant story to tell at the wedding and, I hope, to my children – and then to their children!”
EasyJet apologized and said it intended to reimburse them for “all reasonable costs”.
More: Cycling
This comes as airports and airlines in the UK have been plagued by chaos in recent weeks as staff levels have failed to cope with the increase in passengers.
Of the 10,662 flights scheduled for the anniversary weekend, 305 received the ax, according to aviation data firm Cirium (via the BBC) – affecting thousands of passengers.
Realistically, the break will last for a while – before things start to look up.
Jet2 CEO Steve Heappy told Travel Weekly on May 31: “It’s as bad as it gets, I think it’s going to get better from here.
“All the companies I know are working on recruiting, so things will get better.”
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