A difficult start

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In July of 2023, we’d tried to acquire the required admittance visa for both Kenya and Tanzania, the two tour locations that this trip covers. The Tanzanian visa was straightforward, despite a variety of government photo requirements requiring additional editing, but those came through.
The Kenyan visa (also required) was unavailable because the online system had been shut down due to a hack at some point in July 2023, presumably stealing guests personal financial information such as passport and credit card numbers.

After contacting our tour company to discover what our next step should be, we were sent an official Kenyan government document stating that until October 24th 2023, the country would allow visitors to acquire the required visa upon landing at any Kenyan airport - for us, Jomo Kenyatta in Nairobi.

With this information in hand, we packed, printed our boarding passes, arranged transport and were excitedly shuttled to terminal 3 at Pearson airport in Toronto. With luggage in tow, we made our way to the gate, where we were greeted by a pleasant check-in officer. We presented our flight documentation and explained when asked, why we didn’t have a Kenyan visa.
We were then directed to another woman at the gate who challenged us about the visa and said bluntly, that without it, we were not allowed to board (this flight which was flying to Amsterdam with an eventual leg to Nairobi). We stood around at the gate for approximately an hour and a half, waiting for a different airline supervisor to arrive.
We finally spoke with the new, very distracted supervisor who took our documentation after our explanation, and disappeared to verify the situation.
The official Kenyan government document says very clearly, that visas could be acquired at all airport in Kenya upon arrival, until Oct. 24th. The current date is September 23rd. One month prior to the official deadline date.
The official documentation also specifically suggests that airlines respond to their passengers accordingly - namely, allowing them flight access to Kenya without a visa.
After some time (15 minutes prior to final luggage drop), the supervisor finally returned and confirmed that we couldn’t board.
During this time, we’d initiated a 24 hour rush Kenyan visa application and submitted it before the woman returned. Three days afterward, we had yet to see if the 24 hour guarantee was realized.
After a recommendation from the tour group,we rebooked the flight to Amsterdam for the next day, with the hopeful expectation that the visa would have arrived. That rebook cost us an additional $1300.00 EACH.

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