Ultimate Vacation Spots

posted by Travel Cat on Jul 16

What do you do when Kenya ‘closes’?

This was the question I had to ask myself when a friend at work called to say that she had just heard that the UK government had cancelled all flights to Kenya after a security threat in Nairobi. My heart sank, but I was nervous at the same time.

What happens to my holiday??????
Basically we had booked a really cheap deal to Mombasa a few weeks before (to get a bargain of a late deal) and had just got our visa’s, paid for our yellow fever vaccines and had started taking the malaria tablets - all ready to leave on the Sunday morning.

This all seemed less important with the threat of losing everything on the Friday. Obviously all my work mates knew where I was off to and when as I do like to talk about my adventures so when one of them heard the news on her day off - she called me to see if I’d heard.

Thoughts ran through my head of not getting a refund, or the whole process taking about 2 months to sort out with ‘deductions’ for something or other so the travel agents get to keep as much of the loss as they can - and me left in the UK with 1 of 2 choices:

1) Book another holiday somewhere else with extra funds (at least another $2000/£1000) and wait for the other money to come back (if at all)

2) Don’t book another holiday and try to work instead so not losing any more money.

Anyway, I was in a main town, so decided to take an early lunch and visit a branch of the company I had booked through up here to discuss my options. There are always such horror stories about ’small print’ and the like, that I wasn’t hopeful as I trotted across the town centre towards the travel agents.

Why are we so unsure of these things?
There are ‘fine details’ for everything these days, but we never really understand all the jargon - I mean you can read the clauses in the back of the travel brochure over and over again, but until these things happen, you have no idea which way it’s going to go.

A cancelled holiday by the government had never happened to anyone I had known, so I was totally at the mercy of the travel reps details - you make sure they are ATOL and a member of ABTA but we never really know exactly what these acronyms mean!!!

High street travel agents are notoriously bad for giving refunds or compensation after a bad vacation or hotel complaints, but they offer the cheapest late deals, so we are lured into their realm and have to hope for the best! They are not likely to offer the same generous customer service agreements of the more exclusive vacations because we are not paying their prices.

What Happened.
Well, I walked into the store to a bright cheery face, who seemed to know exactly what I was there for. We sat down and she explained what my options were from here - and I was genuinely surprised!

I could either get a full refund, or use the funds to book another holiday with them right now.

Wow! I was gob smacked! Not wanting to mess around with a different holiday slot at work I asked to see what other holidays were available leaving on the same Sunday.

As it turned out, not a lot. There was a ‘room only’ deal to Aruba for the same price (but we would have to eat out all the time meaning extra money), or a 2 weeks all inclusive deal to Cancun. We never fancied going to Cancun due to it’s crowded reputation and giant hotels all crammed into the same place - but this hotel was apparently very ‘mexican’ and quiet - not a giant sky-scraper with a zillion other people crammed around the pool.

It was flying out a day later though, and we had to pay a little bit extra than before, but it was arranged and we hastily got brochures and guide books to find out more about the resort and the hotel - finding Cozumel and Chitchen Itza as possible day trips.

Happy Ending?
As it turns out, there were several people on the flight to Mexico with us who had also been going to our doomed Kenya resort, and one ended up at our hotel with us - freakishly with the same surname as me! It only turned out that they were distant relatives living about 20 miles away from my family in the UK!!!!!

And apart from the whopping prices at the bars in town, it was a fantastic hotel and I had a fantastic time looking at the Mayan ruins and lounging beside one of the 6 smaller pools at the hotel - in peace.

Vacation Facts:

Location: Cancun - Yucatan Peninsula - Mexico - Central America

Accommodation: El Pueblito (3*) - Southern End of the Cancun Beach - 20 minutes from the Airport.
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