Déjà Vu

*warning: really long post.  For a quick and dirty (but boring) spoiler, skip to the bottom.

10 years ago, the day Eric and I got married, we said goodbye to our family, and left the hotel where we were staying.  We drove to the east side of the island to start our honeymoon in a new hotel.

Things did not fare well from the beginning.  The taxi driver was either completely insane or had a death wish.  We were quite nauseated and terrified by the time we arrived at the new hotel.  We checked in and found that their restaurant was set up in shifts, and we had been assigned a very romantic 5:30 dinner time.   The waiters and food were presented well, but the waiters’ personalities were flat and the food was tasteless – or tasted more like cafeteria food.  Instead of doing Greek food well, they tried to copy some unknown European country, and it ended up being really bad. 

Our honeymoon suite was a small room set up with two twin beds, which they helpfully pushed together when we told them we were hoping to sleep in the same bed on our honeymoon.

We spent hours sweating while we waited for the air conditioning to begin working.  We were assured (twice)  that the unit was functioning properly despite no actual temperature change in the room.  At midnight we finally demanded a room change or a repair..  A 1am repair – that wasn’t much more than opening the front panel of the air-conditioner and banging it with a wrench for a few minutes – resulted in the same warm air being spewed into our room.

We checked out the next morning, and weren’t sure quite what to do.  We finally decided just to return to the original hotel where we were married (Akrotiri).  Our families had all gone home, and it seemed like it would be a bit lonely there, but we wanted a sure thing after our disastrous “honeymoon” night.  So, we gritted our teeth for the return taxi ride.

When we got back to the hotel, we found that my dad and my sister had not left, but had changed their tickets to fly home and extended their holiday at Akrotiri Hotel.  We were too tired to try to figure out somewhere else to go, so we spent our honeymoon with them!  It was actually really fun and we had a great time.

Fast forward 10 years.

Today, our family drove back to the main town in Corfu to pick up a car that we would drive to the private villa that we rented to make our anniversary really special.  It has it’s own pool, a beautiful kitchen, and several bedrooms.  We were very much looking forward to this part of our trip.

A few days ago we got an email from the rental agency saying there was some nearby construction that was going to cause problems with our villa, and they offered us another villa that looked beautiful, but was out of walking distance of  restaurants and stores.  To compensate for this, they offered a free rental car for our entire stay.    We weren’t too happy with the new place as the kids were on a different floor in the house and there was no kiddie pool.  We also were not to keen to drive anywhere on the island as they are crazy drivers here.  But we agreed to try it out.

I got a call yesterday saying that the construction had been halted for the summer and we could stay at our original villa.  As a gesture of good will they would allow us to keep the car and would refund a portion of the money (we have prepaid the entire week already). Ok.

When we picked up the car rental, it came with two not so useful toddler seats.  Jack was only 2 pounds over the limit, so  I spent  ages reconfiguring and reinstalling the seat in 90 degree weather sweating profusely  (though it might be slightly wrong to complain about the weather…) Owen had to sit in a regular seat until we could drive 20 minutes to pick up a booster seat.  There are really no alternatives here. 

After a frustrating 15 minutes driving on harrowing roads with cliff drops on the other side of 3inch road shoulders, Jack threw up all over himself, the carseat, and the back of the seat in front of him.

When we finally arrived at our villa, there are exactly 72 steps and landings down from the parking space.  The pool was beautiful, but the house smelled, had ants crawling over the kitchen counters, and was not particularly clean.  There is no way we could walk on the road to any restaurants because of the narrowness and cliff edges, and the boys were unlikely to want to walk anywhere after climbing 72 stairs to get out of the house.  Eric and I emptied the car anyway, trying to be cheerful and open, but after 40 minutes (and opening the shutters and discovering various other insects and arachnids crawling about) we call to see about our other options. 

The villa that we were offered a few days ago is available, and while we are not keen on having to drive every time we want to go somewhere, we agree to try it.  After a few more confusing but very polite conversations, we are told that the other villa is not yet inhabitable for the season?? but that we cannot be refunded any of our money.  We just don’t care at that point, and leave anyway.  We have spent several frustrating hours at this place, we are starving, hot, and don’t know where we will sleep tonight.

We head away from the villa frantically calling Akrotiri – no answer, no answer, no answer…Finally we get in contact with them, and they have a room for us.  I want to cry, I am so relieved.  The manager stays after her shift to make sure everything is ok with us.  She gives me a big hug when we arrive and gives us our old room back.  In two days we have to move to another room, but it will be bigger – not bad news.

Eric and I are giddy with happiness – so relieved that our actual anniversary will be in a place we love.  We find it pretty funny that we have had bad experiences on the east side of the island on our wedding and anniversary trip, and both times found ourselves going back to the comfort of Akrotiri. 

We are pleased with ourselves for being so positive after a very frustrating experience.  We were a great team in dealing with this whole situation, and it could have easily gone another way. I love my baby!

 

*quick and dirty spoiler: We tried to move to the new villa and hated it.  No refund on our 2k, but it was that bad.  We are back at Akrotiri Hotel.  (SO glad noone came with us to that place!)