We booked just a 6 day holiday as we were staying in The Atlantis Hotel on The Palm and it's not the cheapest hotel in Dubai.
On arrival at the airport we all said we wished we'd booked for a few days longer.
Confusicious said: "Be careful what you wish for!"
Little did we know the Icelandic volcano was to affect us and so many other air travellers around the world.
It was soon apparent from watching Sky and BBC news in our room that the affects of the volcanic ash were far reaching. But even when the UK airspace was closed we didn't envisage the closure would be more than a day or so.
Our Virgin Holidays Rep, Fares Malaeb, was at our hotel everyday at 11am to book excursions etc but as the situation worsened he was the bearer of the bad news that we were unable to fly home. Initially, there was drama as we imagined the implications but the next day our Rep explained that Virgin Holidays would be paying for our hotel room and breakfast for every day we were stranded!
Fares was incredible. He was excellent and did a very good job keeping us all in touch every single day. Many of the others contacted him day and night by mobile and also text and Fares was unwavering in his service.
On one particular morning, when the situation had once again changed, there were a few, very angry customers who were quite rude to Fares. But Fares was always polite and he was excellent at calming people down. He of course had me there to help too! On a few occasions I argued with some of the Virgin Holidays customers explaining that these were unprecedented circumstances and that Virgin and Fares were doing everything they could etc..
Virgin Holiday, you have an excellent rep. I hope Fares Malaeb receives the recognition he deserves for his tireless hard work and sleepless nights.
As you can see from the photo on the right, the pool was lovely and it became my working office each day. I had my iPhone and free wi-fi from the hotel so I was able to handle emails and phone calls. So I could have happily stayed for a while!
We watched all the doom and gloom on the news and whilst I have a huge amount of sympathy and some empathy with my fellow, stranded tourists; I appreciate our situation was no where near as bad as many of those stuck at airports or those who had to take on a plane, train and automobile type of trip to get back home.
So a huge THANK YOU to Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Holidays and to Fares Malaeb, for looking after us so well and taking the panic and strain and stress out of our situation.
I will defintely be booking ALL future holidays with Virgin Holidays. Any chance you can make sure Fares is our rep each time we travel with you??!! ;-)
Right I'm off to finish opening my 2 weeks worth of post and emails and get back to all my customers' requests.
I love volcanoes and Virgin Holidays!!
P.S. My mate has a video of me whizzing down the "Leap of Faith" slide screaming "I love Virgin Holidays!" I'll upload it here as soon as he sends it to me. :-)
1 comment:
Hi Dickie,
Glad to hear that Virgin looked after you and your family so well. Considering the torrid time that some people had, including myself, whilst stranded overseas its good to hear that one company took the lead and did the best they could to look after their clients.
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