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Was this You.....?
"Three Norwegian tourists who had planned a holiday on the Greek island of Rhodes landed in the southwestern French town of Rodez yesterday after mistyping the destination on an internet booking form.
The trio appears to have been surprised when their Ryanair flight landed in Rodez, which has a mediaeval town centre but no beach resorts. "We were told of the mistake when the three tourists arrived at the airport and we tried to make their stay as agreeable as possible before they decided to return to Norway," the Rodez tourism chief Florence Taillefer said." Anybody want to admit a wrong destination story? Unfortunately I can't, well not yet anyway. Thanks to my wife, the navigator. Heck, I get lost in the shower :) |
Do you mean Norwegians are not smart?
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I don't believe Ryanair even fly to Greece and the Greek Islands.
Shame they didn't look at the destinations map first. Michel TravelNotes.org |
A travel agent many years ago booked me a flight departing from Albany, GA. Too bad, I was leaving from Albany, NY. I did not noticed and went on to the airport as scheduled. A wonderful airline rep noticed and changed it at no cost. I was incredibly fortunate. That was the last time I used a travel agent.
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The French press reported that the Rodez airport authorities claim that about 10 people a year make that mistake.
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Viajero, you are a lucky person. Imagine that you were sent to Albania, during the Maoist regime of Henver Hoxa...
It would have been quite an experience :-) |
Not me, but a co-workers wife boarded a flight and landed at New York LaGuardia thinking the airport code LGA, stood for Boston's LOGAN airport. They put her up in a hotel before flying her to Boston the next day.
I live in Maine and fly often from Portland. A corporate TA once began reviewing my itinerary to Las Vegas and I knew I was in trouble when she said "Alaska Airlines Flight..." |
We were in NYC during a pretty severe snow storm. After we arrived at JFK we found out our flight to Seattle was cancelled. No problem -- the ticket agent told us she could get us on a flight from LaGuardia to Portland and we could just drive home. Not ideal, but better than being stranded at the airport. We head to LaGuardia. The ticket agent there goes over the flight, to Portland Maine! We told her that wouldn't work as it wasn't really driving distance to Seattle! That flight ended up being cancelled as well and we were unable to avoid spending the night in the airport. We were one of the fortunate ones that were given cots! The most annoying part was having news cameras trying to iterview us -- like we really wanted to be on t.v. after sleeping in an airport! I'm saving my 15 minutes of fame for something more important!
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A travel agent wanted to send me to Vienna on a train when I wanted to go to Venice. But "Hauptbahnhof" didn't sound Italian to me.
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We were having an adult beverage in the Chop House Grill when a group of Northruners came in at about 9:30 PM.
Seems that they had been attending a convention in Atlanta. Someone had told them that, when in Atlanta, they should go to Buckhead for a real swinging time. So, one of them got online and looked up Buckhead, GA. They then rented a car and drove out there. Boy, were they upset. ((I)) For those of you not familiar with the area, see www.buckhead.net and www.city-data.com/city/Buckhead-Georgia.html |
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My partner once ended up in Italy when she thought she was in Yugoslavia (yes, long time ago). Interailing round Europe, she'd bought a ticket for Greece, assuming the train went through Yugoslavia to get there. Sleeping in a couchette, imagine her surprise when she was woken by an italian ticket collector in Rimini. Apparently she'd failed to understand that the train ride involved a boat trip from Brindisi to Parga in Greece.
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No switcheroo on places, but I had a date switcheroo once - my dad was making the reservations for all of us on a trip to Ireland in April. It was January when he was buying the tickets. Two were from SFO (where he was) and two were from GNV. He hit the back button somewhere, and bought the tickets for sometime in January instead of April - the date had reset. We didn't discover this until two weeks before we were to leave. Luckily, they realized we hadn't taken the flights, so we paid the difference in fare. I had to overnight the tickets themselves, and by that time, the flight had gone up considerably becuase it was now less than two weeks (by one day). Argh.
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Not Europe, but funny anyway.
Back in the 60s when our family first moved to California, my dad was base commander at a northern California USAF Base. For our first foray into California vacation-land, he decided we should go to Ft. Bragg, where he was assured we would have free officers' family quarters from which to explore the north coast. We all piled into the family car and drove and drove and drove for HOURS up the winding narrow north coast highway until we reached the burg of Fort Bragg ... where there was no fort and barely any people. And the guy at the gas station wouldn't listen to my dad when he kept insisting we were expected at the Ft. Bragg officer's quarters. You guessed it - my father's attache had made reservations for us to stay at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Poor guy, I imagine for a while after that he was probably living in fear of a sudden tour of Viet Nam ... |
LOL... Great stories. Some travel agents are a real worry :(
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Apparently New Zealanders pronounce "Auckland" as we Americans do "Oakland" and a young man in California got a big surprise when his flight was a lot longer than he expected.
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Thank you PatrickLondon. I'd heard this story but didn't know the details - very funny
Sue in [southern] Sydney |
Not a booking mishap story, but a getting on the wrong plane one.
When I was in high school (mid 80's) I was in a marching band and we were flown to Vancouver from Calgary to perform at the halftime show at the Grey Cup (Canadian version of the Super Bowl). Between band members and staff there were over 120 of us, so we they had chartered a plane for us. On the way back, my friend and I were lucky enough to get seats in business class. There were two, very drunk gentlemen in the seats across from us. We thought it a bit odd since the plane was supposed to be a charter, but figured they sold the extra business seats. Once the plane was in the air, the gentlemen asked the flight attendant for alcoholic drinks. They were informed that since the vast majority of the passengers were under-age on this chartered flight, it had been requested that no alcohol be served. One of the men asked something like "Charter, teenagers? What flight is this? Where is this plane going?" They were informed that they were on a flight to Calgary. I don't recall where they wanted to go, but Calgary was definitely not it. I think that those checking boarding passes are more diligent now and the likelihood of this occurring again are pretty small. |
That's why the value of correct spelling should not be underestimated.
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A few years ago, a young British couple booked flights on-line to Sydney, Australia. They ended up in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Here's the story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2172858.stm Readers of this story have left comments on similar geographical mix-ups. |
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