A Failed Trip to Iceland

It’s February 2022 and whilst walking by a Hays Travel shop window in Northwich town centre, an advert catches my eye: “Northern Lights & City Lights”. Consumed with abandon, I think what the hell and head inside to book a bit of a dream holiday to “celebrate” turning 30 – 3 nights in Reykjavik and 3 nights in New York City.

2022 thus becomes a holiday-less year as Aimee and I save up for two of the most expensive places in the northern hemisphere – Iceland and Manhattan. Friends jet off to warmer climates and return with sun kissed skin, memories made and even engagement rings. But we endured, for our time would come in the dark depths of January 2023.

With the holiday paid off, many moneys saved and our Iceland excursions to the Blue Lagoon, the Golden Circle and a Northern Lights trip already booked with Reykjavik Excursions, we arrived at Manchester Airport on Sunday 22^nd January full of excitement.

As I always like to do, I arrived super early cos I’m scared of something going wrong – even after all these years of nothing going wrong…

LADY LUCK SLAPS ME IN THE FACE #1

The reason: snowy conditions and high winds in Reykjavik.

I don’t remember having a plane delayed, let alone completely cancelled. It was doubly heartbreaking as there was an easyJet flight leaving for Reykjavik just 25 minutes before us, and yet that was still going ahead. Their check in desk was just a few down from us, so we got to watch them all hand over their luggage and head on to security.

There’s a common joke in Britain that our infrastructure cannot cope with wintery conditions. Trains get cancelled due to a light dusting of snow, schools shut cos it’s too frosty etc. And yet on this Sunday morning the easyJet (British) flight was going ahead, the Flybe (British) plane had already left earlier, and the Icelandair flight was the one that was cancelled. I could not ignore the irony.

So here we are, the early birds catching the worm – except this worm was poisonous and making us sick. The check-in crew had no idea what was going on. Around us, a few other passengers were receiving emails from Icelandair offering replacement flights, but Aimee and I had not once had contact with the airline – all our communications had been with Hays Travel – who I couldn’t ring until 10am because it was a Sunday.

When 10am finally hit and we were still without any information whatsoever, I rang Hays Travel pleading for help. I’ve never had a flight cancellation before and tbh I had no idea what to do. All I knew that travel insurers and airlines love to refuse refunds if cancellations occur due to “acts of God” – for example, weather. Branch manager Leanne answered the phone and was very sympathetic and vowed to get onto Icelandair to sort something out.

Just a little shout-out to Leanne and the team at Hays Travel… Whilst I was stressed trying to listen out for updates at the airport, they were on the chat rooms to Icelandair, and Leanne was calling me up with updates. It was like having a support team back at base, keeping me from going insane. Leanne informed me that Icelandair did have my contact details, and that they should get in contact ASAP.

It very soon became clear that there would be no replacement flights to Iceland on this day, so I knew I was going to have to cancel my bookings with Reykjavik Excursions. I was supposed to be seeing the Northern Lights at 9pm that Sunday night, the Golden Circle at 9am on Monday morning, and the Blue Lagoon at 9am on Tuesday morning.

LADY LUCK SLAPS ME IN THE FACE #2

To get a full refund, I needed to give 24 hours notice to cancel the Northern Lights and the Golden Circle, and 48 hours notice to cancel the Blue Lagoon – WHICH MEANT BY THE TIME I KNEW I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO THESE EXCURSIONS, I HAD MISSED CHANCE TO GET REFUNDED BY 40 MINUTES.

The timing was literally perfect to ensure Aimee and I lost over £700.

At 11:20am, Icelandair finally thought to email through some replacement flights for the next morning at 6am from Manchester to Paris Charles de Gaulle and then onto New York City JFK… So I was thinking… Are we not going to Iceland, Icelandair? Are you gonna sort us out some New York accommodation cos we aren’t supposed to arrive for another three days…

I called up Leanne to inform of her of the new tickets that completely bypassed Iceland, and she told me she would get back in touch with Icelandair. I felt sorry for her – I felt like I was taking up her whole day.

Meanwhile, the check-in staff had sorted the waiting passengers some accommodation for the night at the Clayton Hotel across the road. At just after 12pm when we should have been taking off for Iceland, we checked into our Manchester Airport hotel.

This is not how I expected this day to go.

Leanne phoned up to tell us that the only other offer of a flight to Iceland by Icelandair, was Tuesday evening flight to Paris followed by a Wednesday morning arrival in Iceland – meaning we’d be spending just one night in the country with literally no time to do any excursions. Good job, Icelandair.

I agreed with Leanne that the best option was to fly to New York early – but I had to pay for the extra two nights at our hotel and HOPEFULLY Icelandair would refund us that (btw I’m writing this blog 01/02/2023 and I’m still waiting). So, another £250 later and Aimee and I finally had somewhere to stay in New York.

Shockingly, Icelandair did cover our costs for the airport hotel, and even bought us dinner and tea. We enjoyed a lovely traditional Icelandic meal of chilli con carne…

And a lovely pint of Icelandic ale…

Which I did have to pay for at £5 a pint. My wallet was taking a battering.

That evening, instead of hunting for the spectacular Aurora Borealis, I got to watch the Manchester Metro trundle on by.

And to cap off an incredible first day of our holiday, Aimee got to enjoy the thrill of her vape dying a death.

At 4am the next morning we arrived back in the airport and thankfully, this flight had not been cancelled. It was nice to just get on the plane.

And off we took, heading for Paris – the absolute opposite direction of where we had planned to go.

At Charles de Gaulle, Aimee bought herself a disposable vape to keep her going, and we headed to the smoking pit which was like a bus shelter indoors with ventilation fans in the ceiling.

You came out of one stinking like an ashtray. Ew.

At 10:30am French time, 9:30am British time and 4:30am New York time, our second plane left the runway for an 8 and a half hour flight. Aimee and I were sat next to a lovely but smelly American lady, and directly behind two annoying young French lovebirds who found comfort in leaning their seats back as far as they’d go. I don’t know the regular custom here – would I have been within my right to ask them to put their seats forward, or would I have looked like the tit?

The flight was long and dull and even those of us who are adamant they cannot fall asleep on a plane were feeling drowsy….

With nothing to look at out of the window other than cloud and occasionally Atlantic Ocean, the minutes dragged by. But hey, we were on our way to New York City, the Big Apple, the City That Never Sleeps, after such a spellbinding Icelandic adventure.

Massive thanks to Icelandair for an experience I’ll never forget.