This post is a tale of two halves. First the nightmare……Poor Sheena and family. They have had the journey home from hell…. They left Eve’s by taxi to go to the airport around 3am on Wednesday morning for a 7am Air India flight to Mumbai to connect with a Virgin flight back to Heathrow. Unfortunately the AI flight was delayed and then cancelled altogether. AI put everyone on a later flight but too late for many connections. And this is where the tale turns cautionary….. Their tickets were booked seperately ie the Ai flight not on the same ticket as the Virgin one. So…. AI’s attitude in Mumbai was “we’ve fulfilled our contract and got you to Mumbai”. Virgin’s was “you were a no show for our flight”. All they would do was offer them four seats on the Thursday flight at £999 each. Sheena managed to get them booked on a Lufthansa flight to Heathrow via Frankfurt at somewhat less but not much….. They then had a hideous wait in the airport till 0235 Thursday morning (24 hours after leaving Eves). Unfortunately the Lufthansa flight was also late and they missed their connection in Frankfurt but at least in this instance the two flights were ticketed together so Lufthansa took responsibility and put them on a later flight to London…. They got home late Thursday night utterly knackered and with a major battle with airlines and insurers ahead. We all felt so bad for them to have such a horrible end to their lovely family holiday.

I guess what we can take from this horrendous experience is that air travel is still in a recovery mode from the pandemic years. It’s always safest to book a direct flight route. If you can’t do that, book all flights on the same booking so they are linked by PNR number. This means contractually, the airlines have to get you to the end destination. And of course check your travel insurance and never travel without it. Not all travel insurance covers missed connections in the standard policy but offer it as an add on. Know what your situation is. We certainly went back and checked. The other thing you can do to help guard against this situation is to book through a travel agent like Trailfinders and add 3 or 4 nights hotel into the booking if that works for you, thus creating a package They then safeguard you against many of the issues that can arise when travelling.

Now for some happier news…..

We have had a couple of very hot beach days. We met some new friends for dinner on Wednesday night, Caroline and Rick. They are old friends with our friends from Cyprus, Heather and Chris. We had a lovely dinner and much chat at Dropadi in Palolem. I have been having a pair of trousers made by the tailor on the beach road. It’s been a bit of a faff because the first pair he made weren’t right but these ones are just perfect. Lovely cotton. I wore them with a funky Indian style top Lucy bought me for Xmas.

Thursday was Joe’s birthday which we celebrated with a big dinner at Eve’s. They put out a lovely long table for us decorated with flowers and gave Joe a birthday cake with a special candle on it. We had a lovely time. Candy, Marylyn and Clive’s adorable 3 year old daughter joined us for the cake cutting. Joe was on great form and there was much laughter as usual. Joe is looking so well. Goa is quite a health regime for him as he walks miles every day and eats very healthy choices. Happy days…