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!

[uitlander]

I think I block anonymous poster only because of the spam issue. He's more than welcome to comment.

[sparklielizard]

He has commented below (jonathan tullett!) - he says he has been in touch with the company :-)

[uitlander]

Two way comms established.

[sparklielizard]

:-)

[major_clanger]

Firstly, I'm very sorry to hear about both you injury and your awful trip home.

Holiday law can be a complicated area but I'm of course happy to help if I can.

Was the injury a pure accident (in as much as anything ever is) or could you clearly point to negligence by the company or someone contracted to them?

[uitlander]

Thank you. That's very kind

[major_clanger]

[Disclaimer - these are my thoughts on what you've told me, not formal legal advice

[uitlander]

Thank you. That sounds like an eminently sensible way to proceed.