Scary gulet cruise passport story and how it was solved
I have to admit it. This scary story actually happened to our company. I was in complete shock when I learned about it and it was not a good situation. Sometimes things that happen can be out of your control and this was one of this things.
The cruise and the booking procedure was the same as always.
Clients sent us an inquiry for a gulet charter holidays in Turkey. They told us their wishes, their budget and what they would like to do in Turkey. We suggested them very nice gulet, got a great deal on it and advised them to make a combination of Turkey gulet cruise with some Greek Islands along the way.
The gulet was tested. Clients were happy everything was going smooth. The charter started. Everything was okey. Clients went to Greece, checked also some islands there and they enjoyed their holidays. At the end of the cruise, they disembarked the gulet, tipped the nice crew and went home.
So where was the problem?
The problem started at the LAST STEP OF THEIR HOLIDAYS. They first had a domestic flight from Bodrum – Istanbul and then they should fly from Istanbul further to their home country. They arrived to CHECK IN terminal in Istanbul and wanted to go on a plane…and then the nightmare started!
The police took their passports and told them to wait.
After some time passed they told the group they can not pass the custom because from the passport it shows they were illegally in Greece!?!?
They, of course, had no idea what the person was talking about so they double checked what happened!
And the info was not good!
When the group went to Greece the custom marked this in their passport but when they came back the captain of the gulet (who has this duty) forgot to make all the arrangements! So it looked like the clients never even came back to Greece!
These rules are very strict in Turkey and the problems were big!
So what happened then?
Clients had to fly back to Bodrum to make proper arrangements! They missed the flight back home! They had to be accommodated for 1 more night in Bodrum! The penalty of more than € 5.000 had to be paid because of this mistake! The new flight tickets back to Istanbul had to be paid! The new flight tickets had to be paid from Istanbul to the home country of this clients.
All because of 1 stupid mistake of captain that forgot about a part of procedure!?!
The situation was super uncomfortable for our Turkish partner (who did an amazing job in assisting the clients) for the owner of this gulet and of course for the captain, who had (at the end) pay more than € 10.000 total costs from his own pocket to cover all these costs that occurred.
And it was the most uncomfortable for our clients of course, that had to go through all this mess because of 1 silly mistake!
Sometimes you can plan everything to the smallest detail but things can still go wrong. But you have to know you would have to be incredibly unlucky that something like that might happen to you.
In last 10 years in the business, we had thousands of people traveling with gulets and this is the only time something like this has happened.
The bottom line is even if some bad situations do happen it is our duty to assist you in the best possible way when it comes to this.
They say your success is not determined by the problems that happen – but how you solve these problems!
And you can be sure we will always do our best to assist you during your gulet cruise holidays!
