Trying to Leave London

What a debacle! Ronny and I took Easyjet to London. It is the only way to get from Geneva to Gatwick airport without spending a ton of money. Easyjet is a piece-meal company. So you pay for your ticket, and then your bags, and if you want something to drink you pay for that on the plane. We got to Gatwick three hours before our flight. Outside of the terminal, there was a huge queue (British for line) for Easyjet passengers. We waited in this line for about an hour and were finally able to check in. When we got to the waiting area for flights we noticed that our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30 p.m., but the gate wouldn't be opened until 6:50 and then 7:15 and then 7:30ish. Okay, it's delayed. No worries. Around 8:00 we finally got on the plane. We were all on board. The captain came on and said "Well folks, we're ready to take off, but Easyjet just canceled your flight. We need to ask you to vacate the plane." WTF??!! Allegedly, there was a problem with the ticketing system for the company. Why it impacted people with tickets on a plane I'll never know. We all hustle off the plane and bee-line to the information desk. It's chaos. There is no one really directing people, and Ronny and I just haphazardly started following a group of people that were on our flight. All I was thinking was I need to get to the check in desk. Thankfully, Ronny had his wits about him and after we left customs (again) he had the fortitude to grab our baggage that came off the plane. A lot of people didn't know to do that, myself included. If he hadn't grabbed that bag, we would have been royally screwed. When we got back to the ticketing counter there was not one Easyjet representative in sight. They had packed up and said "Oh Shit!" At this point I'm panicking. I had to pick up my Uncle Doug and Aunt Wendy the next day. We walked across the parking lot and got a room at the airport hotel. I cried. I'm cool with traveling until something goes wrong. I was also really upset that I had family coming to visit me and I wasn't going to be there to pick them up. Thankfully, our roommate picked them up for us with a sign and everything. To top it off, Ronny was supposed to be on shift for work the next day. Joe took his shift too. That night we purchased two more tickets with British Airways (who were on strike) out of Heathrow. There were no flights with Easyjet until Wednesday (it was Monday). If we were on the continent of Europe we could have rented a car or taken a train; in London we were stranded without a plane. We had to take a bus to Heathrow, but we managed to make it back. Our friend Chris picked us up from the airport and we met Doug and Wendy at our house.
Lessons learned: DO NOT fly Easyjet; ALWAYS have a day buffer when you travel; be THANKFUL for great friends.