When Everything Goes Wrong!

“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out.” Unknown

Sometimes you plan a trip, and then everything seems to go wrong.  In 2007 we were planning our trip to Greece.  It was number one on my list of places to visit, and I was excited that we were going.  I started planning the trip in January of 2007 and we were going to be there in September. 

Rethymno on the island of Crete, Greece

Our friends from Scotland told us they would meet us on the island of Crete the third week of our trip.  They were able to trade their timeshare for 2 condos on Crete for one week.  So we would be on our own for the first 2 weeks of the trip.   I knew we wanted to see some of the mainland, and definitly several islands.  I looked at doing the islands on our own, and then discovered that there was a 3 day cruise that went to Mykonos, Rhodes, Patmos and then over to Kusadasi, Turkey (with an excursion to Esphesus).  I thought that would be a great way to see several islands in a short amount of time.  I booked the cruise with Louis Hellenic Cruise Line.  We were booked in an ocean view room on the Sea Diamond.  That taken care of I planned the rest of the trip, which included several nights in Athens, one night before the cruise and several after we returned.  I also booked a 3 day excursion with a small company in Athens, that would take us over to Delphi and then to Meteora.  And I booked 2 nights on the island of Santorini, before taking the ferry over to Crete to meet our friends.  Everything was arranged, we just had to wait till the date of our trip.

The Sea Diamond sinking near Santorini*

In April I was watching the news, and there was a report of a cruise ship sinking off the coast of Greece.  As I watched the news report, I realized that the ship that just sank was the Sea Diamond.  Our ocean view room had just become an underwater view room.  That was  a bit disturbing.  I contacted the cruise line, and they told me that by September they would have a replacement ship and that our cruise would still go on schedule, so not to worry.  Thank goodness no lives were lost when the ship sank.  It was very near the coast.

Then in August we started seeing news reports about fires all over Greece.  According to the news, all of Greece was on fire.  They were having record heat, and there were fires in quite a few different areas, including in Olympia - the original home of the Olympics.  The report said that the smoke was making it hard to breathe, even in Athens.  We got a little concerned, since we were only a week away from traveling.  But I looked into it, and at that time none of the fires were actuallly burning in the areas we were planning to be.

Baxter & Sadie at home

Then just 3 days before we were to leave, our housesitter cancelled on us.  We have 2 dogs, and we do not board them, they would be so traumatized if we boarded them for 3 weeks.  I didn't know what we were going to do.  Thank goodness one of my co-workers came to me and said she would be glad to stay with them.  She saved our trip.  I couldn't have left without knowing they would be well taken care of.  I was thinking, what else can go wrong?  I shouldn't have asked that.

We took off on Delta airlines the morning of our trip.  We were suppose to change planes in Atlanta.  As we were approaching the Atlanta area we noticed the weather was pretty bad.  The pilot came on an announced that because of bad weather we would not be able to land in Atlanta.  We were being diverted to the Birmingham airport.  We landed in Birmingham and we were not allowed off the airplane.  We sat on the runway for several hours, along with quite a few other planes who had also been diverted.  During that time we got refueled.  We were suppose to board our flight to Athens at 4PM, that time came and went.  We knew we weren't going on to Athens that day.  Finally around 6PM we took off for Atlanta. 

When we arrived in Atlanta, we were shuffled into the terminal and told to wait in line to get rebooked.  Since there were 11 planes that had been diverted, the line to rebook was very long.  While George waited in line I went off to call Access America.  I had purchased travel insurance, and since we were having a trip interrruption, which was covered, I thought I should call them and let them know. They said to keep receipts for everything, food, taxi, hotel and anything we had to purchase because of the delay.  We would be reimbursed.  Then I went and bought sandwiches for dinner, we were both starving.  We ate while in line.   Finallly we got to the front of the line.  The good news, they had a hotel room for us (at our expense - since it wasn't the airlines fault the weather was bad), and it was the very last hotel room available in Atlanta.  Everyone behind us would have to spend the night in the airport.  It was across town, so a long taxi ride, but it was a bed.  As for re-booking, they told us it looked like it would be 2 days before we would get out.  I let it be known that I was a travel agent, hoping that would help, and I told them we had a cruise booked, and if we didn't get there for 2 days, we'd miss the whole cruise.  Luckily a supervisor had come on just as we got up there, and he took pity on us.  He actually put us on the flight the next day, and he bumped someone else to do it.  I felt bad for whoever they bumped, but we took it.

So we spent the night in Atlanta, in a not so great hotel, and we came back the next day and spent a good portion of the day at the airport waiting for our flight.  I used that time to contact the cruise line, and our hotel in Athens - where we had missed our first night stay.  We did board the flight that afternoon.  I know a lot of other people weren't as lucky, they were stranded for another day. 

Mykonos, Greece

We arrived in Athens a day late.  We landed at 10AM, by the time we got our luggage and cleared customs it was almost 11AM.  We were suppose to be at the pier and already on our ship, it sailed at noon.  I went to a travel agency in the airport and asked about transportation to get to the cruise ship.  She said we would never make it in time.  I asked about flights to Mykonos, which was our first port of call.  She informed me they were all sold out.  But, she told me, there was a ferry to Mykonos.  She got us tickets on that, and told us where to catch the bus to the port.  We got the bus and went down to the port.  We had lunch at a nice little seafood restaurant before boarding the ferry.  It was a nice ferry ride, with stops on several islands along the way.  We arrived in Mykonos, found our ship and boarded. 

Me in front of Parthenon, Athens

I have to say that the rest of the trip went very smoothly.  We were beginning to believe that this trip was just not meant to be.  But once we arrived in Greece, it was wonderful and we had the best trip.  We saw no evidence of fire or smoke, we had a wonderful cruise and the new ship was great.  We met our friends on Crete and spent a wonderful week with them.  And the flight home was uneventful.  When I got home I filled out the claim forms with Access America and we were reimbursed for all food including the seafood lunch in Greece, the hotel and taxi in Atlanta, the one night hotel in Athens that we didn't get to stay in, and the bus and ferry in Greece.  It was good we had travel insurance because all of that was well over $600.  Travel insurance is a good thing to have!

So, sometimes it seems like everything is going wrong, but you just have to persevere.  Does anyone out there have any travel horror stories they would like to share?

*Picture of Sea Diamond sinking was taken from the internet.