And we are off for two weeks to learn a little about Greece and Turkey. We thought we had things in order. Our flight would not leave until the evening. This gave us the morning to accomplish the last minute things like putting a hold on the mail and watering plants, etc. This should have made a morning that was not rushed.
However...I received a message from Viator. It seems the taxi drivers in Athens decided to go on strike. Our transportation from the airport to the Grand Hyatt was canceled. Ugh!! I quickly went to my laptop and did some research to find another possible driver for us. I was able to find another service, Blacklane, who, for a very healthy price, could provide this transportation. to do this. Ugh, again!! I felt happy this happened before we left home so I could straighten it out using my laptop instead of just my cellphone.
We made it to the Cincinnati airport in great time and had a leisurely check in of our luggage. The Delta agent who checked us in told us there were 100 empty seats on the first leg of trip, the flight Paris. Wow!! Airlines are not usually that empty anymore.
We would fly out Monday, September 8th on Delta 98 at 6:30pm from Cincinnati to Paris. This flight was to take 8 hours and 10 minutes. We were to arrive at Charles de Gaulle at 8:40am on Tuesday, September 9th. Fortunately, the plane arrived a half hour early. We needed every minute to navigate Charles de Gaulle airport. We were to have have had 1 hours and 14 minutes between flights. With our early arrival, we had two hours.
Tuesday, September 9th, after deboarding the plane in Paris, it was a zoo finding where to go on the reader board. You know how you may drive a highway and it will have a couple or more highway numbers if other highways are sharing that bit of road for a while. Airlines do something similar when they pair with other airlines to get you somewhere. In this case, they would used Air France numbers as well as Delta numbers. The reader board had the flight going to Athens but the wrong number. You had to stand there a bit and wait until it changed to one of the other numbers for that flight. We had no time to stand so this was nerve rattling. Finally we learned we had to find a train to the F Terminal. When we got to the F Terminal, we had to go through a security check. There was a very, very long line of people. You know, the kind that winds back and forth through a maze of dividers on stanchions. After wading through that, we then had another set of these mazes to get thru passport control. The really frustrating thing here was the people trying to get us through opening a section of that maze and rerouting a group of us where they felt the line was shorter. This meant that people behind us who had not been in line as long as us we suddenly in a shorter line and ahead of us. Ugh!! Once we finished, it was a very, very long walk to the F gates to gate F45. We got there 5 minutes before boarding started. We were grateful for that extra 30 minutes. We would have never made it with the original flight schedule. We also never, ever, want to go through Charles de Gaulle airport again!!
We flew out of Charles de Gaulle on and Air France plane with Delta #8753 9:55am. This would be a 3 hour and 15 minute flight to Athens.
Once in Athens, we found baggage claim and gratefully found both our suitcases. This is always a happy moment. What we didn't find was a customs gate and no one to stamp our passports. Hmmm...
We got to the place where baggage claim enters the airport waiting area. This is where all the drivers were located with their signs to say who they were picking up. I walked up and down the row of drivers and read all the signs. No Blacklane anywhere. They were to send me a text when they were on their way. No text on my phone. We waited for a while and I walked up and down reading all the driver's signs several times. Then I sent an eMail to them. It turns out I had booked this transportation for Wednesday, NOT Tuesday. We were at the Athens airport with no transportation and a taxi strike. This meant everyone was booked solid in other transportation companies. We found a place to sit and Claude went to get us a bottle of water. I realized I was sitting by a driver who arrived a bit early to pick up his fare. I asked him if he was a driver for a company. He assured me he was. I explained my situation and asked if his company might be able to provide us transportation to the Grand Hyatt. His company had no one available but he called a friend from another company and this good many came to pick us up. I called and canceled Blacklane. Our driver said he would be happy to pick us up on the Sunday we were leaving Greece. Whew!! He promised to send a text confirming this.
The Grand Hyatt had a nice room ready for us on the seventh floor. How good to have a place to be for a bit.
We were able to use our cellphones in Athens. I was very happy to find the new Dan Brown book had arrived for my Kindle. I pre-purchased it. I was able to download it to my Kindle using the hotel Wifi. Yeah!!
We had dinner in the hotel's bar. Their dining room didn't start serving dinner until 7pm. We needed to have a good meal. The airplane meal left a great to be desired and we needed some good nourishment. We also needed some water to rehydrate. We enjoyed a nice relaxed meal then retired to our room for the evening. We needed a good nights rest.
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