[Phaedra]

First the good news! I’m still alive, haven’t fallen over, caught something nasty or any other health related problems! 😊

So, 10 day transatlantic cruise from Lisbon to Puerto Rico with (as usual) my ex wife as I’m not allowed to go on my own given my previous holiday  misadventures!.

Flew from Newcastle to Amsterdam then to Lisbon, getting through Amsterdam in just over an hour is almost impossible with the new European ESTA type screening, ended up on a massive quque with only 35m until Lisbon flight, had to flag someone down and luckily they moved us to the front of the queue!.

And that’s the end of the good news!

Landing in Lisbon was delayed over 90m due to local storms, stood waiting for luggage for about 30m until sign said “last bag” 😯
Grabbed a passing airport employee who it turns out was looking for us and other passengers, luggage was still in Amsterdam 🤬

After filing a missing baggage report I range Norwegian Cruises, they basically said our booked transfers were gone and we had to make our way to the port ourselves but that we had missed last boarding time and wouldn’t be allowed onboard, but still had to turn up or we couldn’t prove to them that we did!.

Baggage people were helpful and said they’d get the bags sent to Ponta Delgado our first stop, unfortunately we’d been told the night before we weren’t now  stopping there!. Next stop was Tortola, 7 days later!.

As it turned out the transfer people were still there with about another 30 people who’d been delayed, we got to the ship for 6pm when it was due to depart, luckily we were all able to board.

The shortened version of all this is that we were lied to by KLM about the bags location  every time we or the ship contacted them, the online tracking link they gave me stopped working after 5 days.

Luckily I persuaded the ship to try again in Tortola and they actually found baggage! Unfortunately it was only my ex’s case and even now sat writing this on a return flight from JFK I have absolutely no idea where my bag is, and I suspect neither do KLM, every time they gave us information it was 100% wrong.

We land in Amsterdam in about 8 hours and my first stop will be at KLMs office there to give them a severe bollocking.

All I’ve had to wear for 10 days are the clothes I wore flying out, 2 T shirts I bought on the ship, nothing else would fit me, and a spare pair of boxers I had on my carry on 🤬

I’ll update after tomorrow’s chat with KLM

Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!

Topic

[kezo]

Saw the title and just new it wasn’t all going to be wonderful😂

I thought Etias wasn’t mandatory till April 2027 and passport control could still be used.

Safe journey.

[Jojoe]

Think you need to give up on holidays.

Enyaq EV

[Phaedra]

@Kezo it’s not the full system being implemented they’re trying it out but the queues are huge!

@Jojoe I’m thinking the same thing!, But, I have a trip next Tuesday with my daughter to see some Xmas markets in Brussles, France and The Netherlands, we had to cancel the same trip last December after one of her cats was shredded by two Lurcher type dogs in front of her and she was bitten 🙁

We retrn into Liverpool on Dec 10th and get back into Durham around 2:30 – 3pm, I then have to drop her off at her mums, get home and sorted and then drive to South Shields to have new CT scans of my kidney at 6pm, so another busy day!.  At this point I’ve now been up since about 9am GMT on Sunday morning!, better get to bed I think!.

Spoke to KLM this morning, no help at all, eventually said the case was closed and nothing further could be done!, they suggersted I spoke to lost luggage at Newcastle airport when we kanded.  That didn’t happen as the Swissport desk wasn’t even manned this morning!.

I rang them this afternoon, nice lady looked into it and found KLM had closed the ticket on the 14th, the day after we reported it!  My Ex’s bag didn’t arrive in Tortola until the 20th!!. Mine is now completely lost and they have no way to try and track it due to the case being closed and archived by KLM.

Her advice is to make a claim against KLM directly online, apart fom the cost of the suitcase and clothes etc. to add on the cost of the entire cruise, the distress it caused, the speciality dining we booked and were refused entry to because we were’t correcty dressed to their dress code etc. etc.

She did say that they get bags turning up that have been lost for weeks and even months regularly so there may be a small chance it will show up in the future.

Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!

[Phaedra]

Small update.

Put the claim into KLM online this afternoon.  I started to list what was in my case and look up online for the orders I’d made for most of it with Marks & Spencers, Asda George, Amazon etc.  At the end whan I added it all up it came to well over £500!!!

I was about to send it when my ex asked if I’d put the case on the list?, I hadn’t even thought of that!, having gone over it again there were a few more things I’d also forgotten, it ended up at £680 :0

So, having submitted the claim I realised I hadn’t mentioned the amount of problems it had caused us with the holiday, like not being able to take advantage of the free premium dining package we’d been given as we couldn’t meet the restaurant dress code, use the swiming pool, spa etc. as no bathing suits/trunks or even shorts and other stuff.  I went back and added a note to it.

I started organising my case for next weeks Xmas Markets cruise and kept going, nope!, haven’t got this or that!, had to go internet shopping to try and replace the missing stuff.  With Xmas fast approaching quite a few things were either out of stock or showing long delivery times.  Being 6′ 5 1/2″ (1.97m) tall I can’t just pop into town and pick up clothes that fit me, finding size 13 wide fitting shoes is even more trouble!.

I did manage to order some boxers from Asda George and a couple of pairs of trousers from M&S which were on sale, had to order smaller sizes as I lost just over a stone (7.3Kg) during the trip.  So far in the last year I’ve lost over 4 stones (about 28Kg), I’m down to just under 16 stone (100Kg) which is the lowest I’ve been for probably 40+ years.

Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!

[kezo]

Have you made your travel insurance company aware what you are doing, but ultimately may fall back on them?

[Phaedra]

A job for tomorrow, I’m still recovering from the flights back home and stress of dealing with KLM!!!.

My insurance is through RIAS which like many turns into Axa when you make a claim, they were a real PITA about replacing cash when my wallet was stolen in Majorca 🙁  In the end out of the (roughly) £350 in £s and €s I lost I got £200 back.

My insurance had already doubled from last years quote!, claiming £680 is going to be another PITA, I can get copies for a lot of the stuff I bought in the last year or so but not all of it.

I suspect, from what I’ve read online, KLM are going to be even worse to deal with 🙁

Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!

[kezo]

Do keep me updated, it makes a change and more important than the budget!

[Author]

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