Will you still come on holiday?

[Andy777]

Would be quite nice to get stuck an extra few weeks!
Just dont want to be delayed getting out there!

49 days to go................
4 million 233 thousand seconds to go

[marina]

3 days to go!! And that ash has come back and getting perilously close to Manchester airport - though not quite yet!!  

Fingers crossed it doesn't!!

[pookie]

Well, its sounds great doesn't it ?  but being stuck wasn't fun.  I don't usually do 'stress', but I found our weeks delay very stressful.  The lack of communication from our airline was NOT funny and we simply didn't know what was going on.  We are due another visit in July....and Yes I am thinking twice.  Both Mr Pookie and I had to take the extra week as unpaid leave and that hit us hard.  To suffer that again in July would be pretty painful.  But i can think of worse places to be stranded !!  Hopefully if Ironworks keeps puffing back towards iceland, the ash will retreat....

[marina]

We weren't affected last time but knew a few people who were and, to be fair, they all said it wasn't quite as good as it sounded.  The lack of information from airlines, complete inability to get through on phones and just not knowing when or how you could get home was actually quite stressful.  Add to that losing pay from being away from work longer than your original holiday and it becomes a bit of a nightmare.  

My OH has said he'd be happy to be stranded out in Calis as long as we get there but there can be a downside.  But it won't stop me going out on Saturday providing Thomson are flying!

[Karennina]

I am totally with you on this one Pookie, I never in a million years thought I would be worried about 'being stranded in Turkey'! To us it was a whole different ball game to being on a holiday.Like you said trying to phone up numbers and not being able to get through for at least an hour and a half, running out of money and worrying about our boys back home although they had watched the news they still thought we were just never returning home and I felt so guilty and helpless every time we phoned them, I have been lucky workwise that I am getting paid and can make up the extra hours when I can, hubby not so lucky he has to take the extra week as unpaid leave or use an extra weeks leave which we had not planned to do! To top it all we had to call out a recovery truck from Gatwick as the alternator on the car had gone and that cost us £220!
Having said all that we are back out in just over three weeks time and hope the flights are all ok for that trip!

[puma]

i agree with pookie i found it stressful, we lived on edge for 7days waiting for the go ahead.if it happens again i will just go with the flow and wait for the airline to contact me

[nichola]

It's been interesting reading the feedback about the impact of getting stuck in Turkey was for those who experienced it.

Many people who were on package tours got put up in hotels like the Hilton and Likia World but if you were flight only and didn't have your own place here it was much more difficult.

This also happened before the season really started so most places had the bed space to let people stay longer than booked.

If this happens again in a couple of weeks time many hotels are claiming booked to capacity and there will definitely be some overlap beween those arriving as others can't leave creating a potential lack of accomodation.

We were wondering about having some sort of contingency plans in place! For example we have a spare room (and a pool) so we would be willing to take a couple of people in the event that there were people with no where to stay!

What do you think about starting a new topic where we could plan ahead to help out in the event that people get stranded and have no where to stay?

[Robw]

Please pencil me in from the 12TH September Nichola :

[nichola]