A busy month. We had planned a ten-day holiday in Malta in October, but suddenly heard from our close friends in St Louis that Bob was diagnosed with terminal cancer and hadn't been given a great deal of time. So we flew out to St Louis for a week in September, not only to give our support to him and his family, but also to celebrate our two wedding anniversaries. Ours on 20th, theirs on 22nd, a celebration we have kept together several times. Our departure was a sad one for obvious reasons, and since our return Bob has started chemo, caught an infection and is back in hospital, hopefully for just a short time.
A week at home and then we were off to Malta. We had been there before, some 25 years ago so researched well where we would like to stay. We chose a hotel in Sliema so that we were central to towns, transport, events etc. All went to plan till we arrived in Malta! Bearing in mind we had booked this holiday in May, paid up front for it by end of June (as instructed), we were informed on arrival at Malta airport that our Sliema hotel had been overbooked, no other Sliema hotel was available, and we were taxied 17km away to Qawra, which was not where we wanted to be. The afternoon of arrival and the next morning were spent phoning our travel agent, the tour company, hotels with no joy. We resigned ourselves to spending our ten days in Qawra, not a bad hotel with a sea view, but had to hire a car for nine of those days in order to get about and visit places we wanted to see; and we strongly informed the tour company (SUNSPOT TOURS/MERCURY DIRECT) we would sue them for the car hire and inconvenience they had put us to on our return home.
Fortunately the rest of the holiday was unspoiled but take note for your holidays, your tour operator should inform you of any changes to a holiday prior to boarding the plane, so you have a choice to accept or refuse and this SUNSPOT did not do, although they were informed by the hotel in question there were no rooms before we took the flight.
This has put us off ever taking a package holiday again, something we haven't done for 25 years, and we'll go back to arranging everything ourselves!
A week at home and then we were off to Malta. We had been there before, some 25 years ago so researched well where we would like to stay. We chose a hotel in Sliema so that we were central to towns, transport, events etc. All went to plan till we arrived in Malta! Bearing in mind we had booked this holiday in May, paid up front for it by end of June (as instructed), we were informed on arrival at Malta airport that our Sliema hotel had been overbooked, no other Sliema hotel was available, and we were taxied 17km away to Qawra, which was not where we wanted to be. The afternoon of arrival and the next morning were spent phoning our travel agent, the tour company, hotels with no joy. We resigned ourselves to spending our ten days in Qawra, not a bad hotel with a sea view, but had to hire a car for nine of those days in order to get about and visit places we wanted to see; and we strongly informed the tour company (SUNSPOT TOURS/MERCURY DIRECT) we would sue them for the car hire and inconvenience they had put us to on our return home.
Fortunately the rest of the holiday was unspoiled but take note for your holidays, your tour operator should inform you of any changes to a holiday prior to boarding the plane, so you have a choice to accept or refuse and this SUNSPOT did not do, although they were informed by the hotel in question there were no rooms before we took the flight.
This has put us off ever taking a package holiday again, something we haven't done for 25 years, and we'll go back to arranging everything ourselves!
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