Lost Passport - My Story

So I am writing this as an advise piece as I have endured THE worst experience of my entire life.

It all starts with a trip to Benidorm for a stag do ( yes it is as bad as it sounds )
This was a 4 dayer, leaving on the Thursday and coming back on the Monday.

First night was typical on the lash at Gatwick right the way through to the early hours, absolute carnage.

We attempted to get into a Casino, which is where the trouble started. They wanted our passports before entry, so the plan was to go the second night with the passports.

DO NOT TAKE YOUR PASSPORT OUT, probably an obvious one but I am impressionable when I am drunk.

Ok so I will spare the details of the early morning drinking session which again carried us through until the early hours.

I awoke Saturday morning in a blind panic, somehow I knew that my passport had gone, completely ignoring the fact I was either a) still drunk b) had the worst hangover I have ever had I set out to find it.

I retraced my steps that night from what I can remember but had no luck, horrible things were going through my mind. Was I mugged? Well no because my wallet money and phone were still with me. I must have dropped it somewhere. I went to our hotel reception, they had no sight of it.

FEEEECCCCK.

My next step is to contact the tourism place for emergency’s this is in benidorm. I hot tailed it into a taxi in hope that they would solve my problems. No such luck I was met with an unsympathetic Spanish lady who gave me a crime reference number and was then told to go to the police station to get a crime report.
My next call was to the consulate, googling this problem gave me horror stories of people being stuck in countries for days on end which quite frankly scared the life out of me.

Too my absolute horror the consulate for appointments to get an emergency travel document was closed on the weekends.

Ok so next steps was to go online and book an appointment
This was relatively pain free however the fact that I have not spoken to a human being yet still left me scared and worried.

My appointment was confirmed

9am Monday morning

MY FLIGHT WAS AT 11AM – I WAS GOING TO MISS THIS

This left me more worried and to the point of tears, I was desperately hungover, desperate to go home and curl up with my mrs and dog and it being Saturday I still had Sunday and Monday to go.,

I was now sleep deprived, the hotel I was staying at was horrific, blokes kicking off left right a centre, my fellow stag do buddies were sure that the answer to my problems was to just get on it.

Monday morning comes, the blokes leave for the hotel and I have to get to Alicante for my appointment, 80 euros for the 40 min trip there,

I am not hugely sympathetic to things like depression and anxiety, but now I am, my journey to the consulate, to the complete unknown was horrible, all I could do was worry, I had no idea of how I would get home.

This is where the story gets better.

The consulate was amazing, I got there 15 mins before my appointment, a friendly face confronted me, I explained my flight time and she said to me not to worry. I signed some forms and she told me to come back in 30 mins and hopefully they will have the emergency passport done.
I went back in 20 and it was done.

I made my flight back in the end …JUST

But the whole experience was horrendous

My advice,

Call the consulate number straight away
If its closed, and it will be on the weekend call the out of hours number ( this number is reserved for being arrested and people dying etc )
They will put your mind at rest