Greece 2010, Thumbs-down for Ixian Grand Hotel but Thumbs-up for Booking.com

On the day we arrived at the Sofia Pension there was a message from Booking.com to get in touch. I did so immediately and was told that there was a problem with our next hotel, the Ixian Grand in Ixia, which we had chosen for our last two nights, because due to a mix up they were double booked and they couldn’t therefore fulfill our booking. We were disappointed about that because we had been looking forward to stopping in a four star luxury spa hotel but now it was cancelled and there was nothing we could do about it.

Actually I never believed it for one minute because we had booked the room nearly three months ago and I suspect that what really happened was that they had received a better offer or had had to find accommodation for one of the holiday package companies and although it was nice of them to offer me an alternative, once I had established that there would be no cancellation charge, I turned it down out of principle and immediately called the Caravel where we had stayed for the first two nights and arranged accommodation there for only €50 a night.

I was surprised however when I checked my emails in a bar a couple of days later that there was correspondence that suggested I had been charged by the Ixian Grand a €135 on night’s cancellation fee and there was an explanation that this was my fault because I had not accepted their alternative. Naturally I was fuming but could do nothing about it until I could visit the Ixian Grand in person a couple of days later.

So I resolved that this would be my very first job when we returned to Ixia in a couple of day’s time. On the last morning we had a final breakfast and said our farewells and then we walked to the bus stop. The sensible thing to do was to call a taxi but I argued that this would be a waste of money so we took the cheap option instead. Kim complained most of the way because it was uphill, the cobbled pavements made it difficult to drag her suitcase and it really was quite hot. By the time we reached the bus stop I was feeling quite guilty but the bus arrived quickly and soon we were booking back into the Caravel and being allocated room 101 again and while we waited for it to be ready we had a drink in the bar with the 15% discount for guests.

While Kim rested I went looking for the Ixian Grand fully prepared to trash the place if I had to! It wasn’t far away and to be fair it was very busy. At the reception I introduced myself and demanded an explanation and whilst they stuck to their double booking lies they did agree that I shouldn’t pay a cancellation fee and they assured me that they wouldn’t so there was no need for any rough stuff after all. (When I returned home, just to be doubly sure, I emailed them and once again, to be fair, they quickly confirmed that there would be no charge).

Before I left I had a little look around the place and to be honest I was rather glad our booking had been cancelled. The pool area was busy, the lobby bar was expensive and the restaurant was corporate and pretentious and I was pleased that we were at the Caravel instead.

So, thumbs-down to the Ixian Grand but a big thumbs-up for Booking.com. I was really impressed that after I hadn’t responded to an email notification that they took the trouble to track me down at the Sofia Pension and make sure that the matter was resolved. I think good customer service generally deserves a mention and my favourite hotel booking web site certainly didn’t let me down on this occasion!

Greece 2010, a short walk from Ixia to Rhodes Town

I had stayed in Ixia before in 1997 and on the next morning I assured Kim that it was just a short walk to Rhodes town so we skipped breakfast and set off along the coastal walk.

Now, I know that I am getting older and this might start affecting my memory but this little walk turned out to be much further that I ever remembered. For a start it took quite a while to get to the hotel where I stayed previously at the Rodos Palace and then the little bar that we used to use, the Surf Bar, which I remembered being right next door but was in fact about five hundred metres further on. I really did genuinely believe that it was just a five minute stroll and the odd thing is that I don’t remember my teenage children complaining once but after half an hour Kim was in full whinging mode. I had allocated her a maximum five whinges a day for the holiday but by mid morning she had used up almost all of the first week’s allowance.

As it turned out it was a five kilometre walk from the Caravel apartments to the town of Rhodes and the day was getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Through the haze of heat we could just about make out the coast of Turkey and the island of Symi, where we would be going tomorrow, as we walked past old fishermen’s houses now long converted into holiday homes at the side of a rather untidy black gravel beach. Every few metres Kim would enquire how much further I thought it was and as the walk continued the truth began to dawn on me that it was an awful long way. ‘Not far now’ and ‘just around the next corner’ were the sort of encouraging words that used to work well with my children but Kim wasn’t fooled by my false optimism and I began to sense that I wasn’t too popular this morning.

Eventually we reached the beaches of Rhodes with their rows of umbrellas flapping limply in what little breeze there was and people laid out in search of the all over tan and then we were in the shady streets of the new town and were heading for the harbour.

Not only had I forgotten how far it was to walk from Ixia but I was also surprised by the size of the city which turned out to be much bigger than I ever remembered. We were on the western side and we reached the part where the new town gives way to the old where we stopped for a drink and purchased a map to help us with our navigation.

One reason for bothering to walk to Rhodes today was to collect the tickets for tomorrow’s early morning ferry to Symi and as I looked at the map there was a terrible realisation that there was still a long way to walk and this was likely not to be well received by Kim so for now I just kept this bit of bad news to myself and enjoyed a glass of beer.

After this short break we carried on and walked around the walls of the old fortress competing all the time with impatient traffic and reckless drivers who made no allowance for pedestrians. On the busy main road there were occasional zebra crossings but these were only there for highway decoration and certainly not to provide any sort of priority to people on foot. If you used one of these things carelessly there was a very high chance of being knocked over and the only compensation, as you lay in a hospital bed in great pain, would be to know that the man (or woman) who put you there would probably, technically be in the wrong!

Inside the city walls the main squares and shopping streets were really busy, In Ippokratous Square noisy waiters were pestering people to go inside the high level balconied tavernas and it was impossible to look at a menu without a high pressure sales pitch and an unnecessary run through the picture menu which was always exactly the same as all of the others. Off the square was the main shopping street of Socrates stretching away to Sulliman’s Mosque at the top of a gradual climb and in the other direction was a maze of narrow lanes snaking away and crammed on either side with shops and bars.

I was anxious to get the ferry tickets so I left Kim to poke about the shops and I followed the map to where I thought the ticket office was. I walked quite a way and then stopped to enquire and was directed all the way back to a harbour side kiosk close to the Marine Gate and actually only fifty metres from Ippokratous square so I was back a lot earlier than the thirty minutes rendezvous time that we had agreed which gave me time to look for a suitable place for lunch and I found a nice taverna with blue check table cloths in a shady street behind the main square with better prices and a much less frenzied atmosphere.

After lunch we walked through the old town and past the Palace of the Grand Masters but we didn’t want to stop and see anything today because we were due back in Rhodes in a week’s time for a three night stay so now that we had the ferry tickets we walked through one of the city gates and back to the new town where being completely lost we asked directions back to the seafront where Kim was determined to find a bus stop for the journey back to Ixia. We found one and only had to wait a few minutes for a green and cream bus to arrive and take us the short ten-minute drive back to our hotel.

Back at the Caravel Kim had a sleep to get over the rigours of the walk while I read on the balcony and then in the late afternoon sunshine went to the small hotel swimming pool which we had completely to ourselves for an hour or so. Later we walked to the beach for the sunset which didn’t let us down and then took advantage of the 15% discount offer in the hotel restaurant again. After dinner we sat on the balcony of the room and even though this wasn’t the greatest hotel bedroom view in the world by any stretch of the imagination we agreed that we liked it anyway.

Rhodes 1977

Greece 2010, Ixia

After four consecutive years island hopping in the Cyclades this year it was time for a change. Not because we are tired of this picturesque ring of islands and not because we were robbed in Athens last year on the way home but mainly because the flight schedules had changed and there was no Luton to Athens option this year. Instead we found cheap flights from Liverpool to Rhodes for just £82 each return which were too good to miss so we agreed that this year we would visit the Dodecanese islands instead.

The drive to Liverpool was a long one and as it was bank holiday weekend and not having made this journey before we gave ourselves plenty of time to get there for the early afternoon flight. As it turned out the journey was especially straight-forward and we arrived in Liverpool with more spare time than we really needed. The only minor hitch was with the car parking because although I had booked a space in advance the car park was full so the attendant had to make alternative arrangements which luckily for us included an upgrade to a short stay car park right outside departures. The car park charge for fourteen nights was a very reasonable £48 but a friend of mine, from Liverpool himself, said that he thought this was because although I had booked fourteen nights I was only being charged for two because after that the car would most likely be stolen!

We now had three hours to wait for the flight and I felt as though I was in a different country already. We usually fly from Stansted so are used to the familiar voices of Essex whine or the home counties la-di-da but here we were surrounded by Manchester accents as brittle as a frozen dime bar and the unmistakable adenoidal scouse.

The flight was almost on time, which is unusual for Easyjet but as soon as we were all on board the cabin crew announced the inevitable thirty minute delay. There were some moans and groans around the cabin but then something unusual happened. I know Liverpool is the home of comedy but I didn’t expect the captain of the plane to come out of the cockpit and do a fifteen minute stand up routine! At first most people were a bit unsure just what was going on but after a while everyone relaxed and he had everyone chuckling and giggling with a sequence of well rehearsed gags about delays and routings which settled everyone down. Eventually we were off and thanks to a strong tail wind we still arrived on the island of Rhodes well ahead of schedule.

Although it was nine o’clock when we arrived it was still hot so we were anxious to get to our hotel and change. Because we had wanted to avoid the hold luggage charges this year we were attempting a two week holiday with hand luggage only so we were quickly through passport control which was just as slack as I remembered it from previous visits to Greece and into a taxi for the short drive to Ixia just a few kilometres away. Generally speaking I don’t like using cabs because most taxi drivers in Greece are highway robbers but at least on Rhodes the prices are fixed by the city council so at €17 for the short journey at least we knew we were being officially ripped off.

The Caravel Hotel apartments were along a side street off the busy main strip of Ixia and didn’t look too promising at first and I began to fear the worst when we were allocated the Orwellian sounding room 101 and I wondered what terrors might be behind the door. Actually although it overlooked a car park and was within close ear shot of a karaoke bar it was a very nice room indeed, spotlessly clean, generously spacious and with refreshing white linen on the beds.

And things got even better when we were invited to eat in the dining room and take advantage of a hotel guest’s 15% discount and already I was beginning to like this place more and more. The food turned out to be excellent and we had a window seat in the dining room and ate Greek specialities and drank house wine and Mythos and both agreed that actually we had made a very good choice indeed.

We watched the holiday makers promenading back and forth and we began to realise that this year was most likely going to be different in another sense because Rhodes is just the sort of airport island that we have recently being trying to avoid and there were a lot of people in lycra and football shirts wandering from one big screen sky sports bar to the next looking for English beer and food served with tomato sauce! We were only here for two nights so this didn’t really matter a great deal so after our meal we went back to our room and sat out on the balcony until quite late playing cards, chatting and listening to musical crimes being commited as one by one classic songs were being murdered in the karaoke bar.