Why you should never travel with Blue-O-Two

[uitlander]

Travelling to and from a holiday is usually quite grim and stressful. The trip out caused jennyh and I to leave Cambridge at 4 am, deal with the lemon sucking check-in clerk at 6 am, be rammed into cattle class for ~6 hours and then faced with 2nd world bureaucracy and queues for 2-3 hours at Hurghada airport on arrival before exiting and finding that

Comments

[sparklielizard]

Good grief!!!!! There's shit customer service, then there's.. uh, it sounds almost like wilful malice. I do wonder if because they knew they were negligent that they've given up caring figuring they're going to be sued anyway.

Are you going to pursue them legally?

And I thought nPower were bad, heh. This is a whole new ball game. I am sure you could get some support from the media with this if you so wanted.

[uitlander]

I intend to pursue this with them. Their administration before the accident was woeful:

* Wrong figures charged to credit card.
* Booking staff incapable of answering questions.
* Booking staff do not return phone calls.
* Booking staff screwed up jennyh's request for extra leg room, and when that was unavailable her request for an aisle seat reservation. Only told (after repeated chasing phone calls) the night before we flew out.
* Quick to take money from my credit card, very slow to refund it when they got things wrong.
* We had the worst room on the boat, next to the engines. A shit experience for jennyh on her first liveaboard. When she complained she was told 'tough, live with it'. It turned out later there was an empty, quieter room we could have been moved to.

And then we have all of the issues about the injury and how they dealt with it. The company is crap beyond belief. I will never travel with them again. I will be investigating the legal action path; I remain furious.

[sparklielizard]

That's all absolutely appalling.

I wish you lots of luck with the legal route, although it's such a clearcut case it seems you won't need it! Will your travel insurance help with legal costs?

Looking forward to hearing them get their come-uppance because they bloody deserve it!

[sparklielizard]

btw I let another of my friends know about your experiences - he is also a very very keen diver. He says:

"I've pinged a few people to see if someone can get insight into this (no promises, but worth asking); it sounds dreadful!"

He's on LJ but I don't think he's posted in years. I don't know what your posting permissions are on public posts, but if he can't post here I can get you both in contact if needs be! Not sure quite who it is he knows!

[vinaigrettegirl]

My gut reaction is that they treated you two like shit from start to finish because you're female and they thought you'd put up and shut up. 20 large out of this shambles, minimum. Bastards.

[motodraconis]

This is an unbelievable and a horrifying read. Quite apart from the remarkable incompetence demonstrated by Blue-O-Two, the way you were treated at the airport and by the airline makes me worry for disabled passengers. Unacceptable and downright nasty all round.

[altariel]

Awful. So sorry and I hope you screw them for a fortune.

[uitlander]

Now that I've got through the "blind fury" stage and am moving on to the "revenge is a dish best served cold", the most important thing is to warn other divers about how they handled this. No-one goes on a dive holiday expecting to have an accident, but you want to know that you'll be looked after if that happens.

That's why I *had* travel insurance and had gone with a company that seemed to have an excellent reputation. Silly me. Some sort of compensation would be nice, but how do I put a price on my mobility, whether I can dive again, whether I can get to work and keep doing my job. The ruined holiday is actually the least of my concerns.

[cleanskies]

Ouch, ouch and ouch again. I am so sorry