The holiday that hasn't gone as planned
By Boingboing
@boiboing (13153)
Northampton, England
February 4, 2019 12:18pm CST
Last summer I booked a holiday for myself and my husband, my sister and her partner, and my friend Gill and right now I'm on the first full day in Morocco. It's fair to say it's all been a bit sub-optimal up to now.
To start with there are only 3 of us instead of 5. My sister's partner is in the middle of a massive emotional melt-down and hasn't left the house in months so they had to pull out. My husband and I flew over yesterday to discover our bag didn't make it. And our friend Gill got hijacked by a taxi driver who delayed her delivery to the airport by almost an hour whilst he tried to bully more money out of her.
We arrived in Essaouira - my 'happy place' - on the Moroccan coast at about 1 am this morning. EasyJet have a special exclusion to their normal policy of delivering lost baggage which means they refuse to do it in Morocco and Egypt. They are hiding behind a customs technicality which means the airport won't release bags to couriers to insist that they won't pay for our transport back to pick up the bag. As it's a minimum of 3 hours each way and a taxi would cost about £120 as well as using up basically the best part of one day of our holiday, we're mighty unimpressed.
Knowing that they refuse to pay and that our insurers say it's the airline's responsibility (which of course it is - they're just not accepting that), we've booked the bus. We'll be at the station at 6.30 am, get in just before 10, get the local bus to the airport, find the bag, go back to the station and find some lunch and then be back in Essaouira about 6 pm tomorrow. I don't know about you, but that's not my definition of fun.
BUT I refuse to let these rotters spoil my holiday. My Kindle has lots of films for me to watch on the way, my husband is coming too, and we'll find something to enjoy about this unplanned trip.
6 people like this
6 responses
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
6 Feb 19
Gill's taxi driver decided he wouldn't take her pounds after all (the ATM machines had all run out of money apparently) so then he took her to several machines to try to get Dirhams and when she refused to tip him, he dumped her at the wrong end of the airport. Took her nearly an hour to reach us instead of 20 minutes.
2 people like this
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
6 Feb 19
Normally we come to Morocco for only 3 or 4 days but luckily this time it's a week so we could sort of 'spare' a day. But day one was wrecked trying to find out what had happened and arranging the bus tickets and day two was travelling up to the big city to get the bag back.
1 person likes this
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
4 Feb 19
Oh blimey what a carry on! I would have gone by taxi surely it would have saved you hours! Perhaps you could try and claim that back off the insurance when you get back. Sorry it has got off to such a bad start hopefully it will get better!
1 person likes this
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
6 Feb 19
The insurers say it's not their responsibility, it's the airline and I actually agree with them. EasyJet just said it 'wasn't covered'. So we spent about £30 and a whole day on public transport. Potentially we could have done it about 5 hours more quickly with a taxi but it would have cost 4-5 times more. Hubby suspects EJ just decided not to bother putting the bag on the plane - probably we were the only 'paid for' bag and by not loading it, they avoided the charges for the loading gang. We'll never know. I'm gearing up for a bit of a fight and a few mails to Simon Calder and Martin Lewis. People need to be made aware that they won't get any support.
2 people like this
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
6 Feb 19
@boiboing Good you go for it. Hopefully they will be shamed. Sorry it has added stress to your holiday! I remember the time we went to Penang. The plane was late leaving LHR we got to Singapore someone was waiting at the door of the plane. They said we have held the plane to Penang for you either you stay in KL or go to Penang now and the bag will come on the next flight in 4 hours. They put us on a cart thing and whizzed through the airport with blue lights flashing nearly knocking two people over. They delivered it right to the hotel about 6 hours later. Brilliant. I guess that is no comparison to EJ
@Fleura (29193)
• United Kingdom
4 Feb 19
That isn't a great start for sure. But you seem to be making the best of it as far as possible - basically you have the options of doing without the bag, or going to get it, so then you just have to do your best to look on the bright side. Hope the journey is reasonably relaxing and the bag is there when you get there. I suspect you might well be back with some interesting tales of fellow travellers!
1 person likes this
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
5 Feb 19
I hope that once you have your bits back, your holiday becomes relaxing and stress-free!
2 people like this
