Charlotte Mills
Team Chikita got the furthest in Jailbreak this year with a last minute flight to Gran Canaria - this is how they got on.
10:00 and off we go with a doughnut in hand! My (Charlie's) flat mate has offered to give us a lift to Bristol Airport to start us off for the day. However, unfortunately no one there was very helpful. No airlines said they could help but lots of nice customers in the airport donated to our pink pot for cancer research.
12:00: Definitely no luck at Bristol Airport so we see if the bus to the city centre will give us a free lift but it's a no. So we ask a different bus driver from falcon company who kindly lets us on the bus to the city centre for free! We've seen there is a megabus at 2:45pm so that gave us time to do some more fundraising in Cabot circus before trying to convince the driver to aid our challenge and cause.
After the megabus being late, a small debate with the bus driver and trying to explain our adventurous challenge he let us on.
4 and a half hours later we arrive in Manchester, Charlotte's hometown.
We walk around the town for a bit waiting for her lovely friend to pick us up and take us to the airport to try there before it shuts (perks of going to her hometown) but we are too late. Ah well, it meant we could go back for some food and sleep before our early start the next morning to try again.
Sunday 4:00: Very early start but with a free taxi from a generous taxi company, Hastings and now £60 of donations from all the drivers!
Sunday 5:30: Back at the airport with big smiles, orange tshirts, rabbit ears and a pink donation pot we try again. After a couple of hours and 3 terminals later it is evident no airlines can help us. We have no choice but to try and raise money for the cheapest flights that get us the furthest away.
Although Thomas Cook airline could not help us the ladies working on the desk couldn't have been more lovely and helpful and between them gave almost £20 in donations!
2 more hours and lots of asking and generous donations later we manage to raise enough. But no: The flights have gone up in price! My heart sinks and I think we'll never make it. However we find out that doing it yourself on the app or online is actually cheaper and we manage to get a good deal that we have raised enough for!
FLIGHT TO GRAN CANARIA BOOKED FOR 14:30.
We know this is further than all the other teams and definitely warmer than England so we're very excited.
More fundraising done in departures and we've got a nearly full donation pot again!
Wednesday evening: We ended up spending 4 days in beautiful hot Spanish Gran Canaria and raised approx £300 for cancer research!
All in all we're both very happy if unfortunately also very burnt and red!
We are so glad we decided to participate in Jailbreak and have this amazing experience as well as able to donate so much to an important charity.
A pledge signed by VC Steve West
Following the publication and the success of our first issue, we are very pleased to launch a call f