I'm sorry mam you will not be allowed to board


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Oceans and Seas » Indian
April 19th 2014
Published: April 19th 2014
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Well we started our trip with a flight from Wilmington to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Amsterdam. We were in first class lie flat seats on this flight and started out with a toast of champagne. I watched 2 movies and really didn't sleep. We arrive in Amsterdam and head to the airline club for a bit then onto our next flight to Mumbai. We go thru the check in portion up to where they are checking our passports. Shelly makes it thru but the guy tells me, I'm sorry you are not allowed to board this flight, your visa to India is expired. WHAT???? I thought it was good for a year and it says it expires 08-04-2014. That is the European date so April 8th, 10 days before. They yell at Shelly to get out of line as they know she is with me so now we are both denied boarding. They tell us we need to take a train into the Hague and go to the embassy and get a new visa and catch a flight tomorrow, what!!!. Shelly said but we aren't staying in India we are transiting to the Maldives. But they realize we are coming back to India. Shelly kept her cool especially since I was so tired and talked her way right back onto the flight.



Next thing you know we have one of the agents looking up all kinds of info for us. He says we should be able to transit Mumbai but that we might not be able to get out suitcases. Sigh, but if we did the Hague route we would probably miss our sailing trip. But there is also a chance they might not let us transit to our next flight. Shelly convinces me it's worth the chance. So we board. Now, I am really bad about not being able to sleep when I'm stressed. I tried for 9 hours, I was dead tired and we had our nice lie flat seats, but no sleep for me. :-( Shelly sleeps like a baby. My mind just kept bouncing back and forth on options.

So now we land in Mumbai, they tell us all passengers have to go thru security and customs. We head to see what our fate will be. But low and behold there is a transfer desk. We get to it and explain we are transferring to SriLankan Airlines. We had to wait almost 2 hours but they got us boarding passes and even got our luggage checked onto Male. Wow, we did it. Thank you Shelly for telling us to gamble.

Our next leg was from Mumbai to Colombo SriLanka. This flight took off at 3:10am. You would not believe how busy the Mumbai airport is at 2-3 in the morning. The flight was good and we even got a meal. It's amazing how well airlines (outside the US) can get a meal service done with good food too. Then I slept. Oh it felt great but too short.

The next flight was to Male and we arrived at 8:30 in the morning and our hotel was there to take us by water taxi to Male. We arrived at our hotel around 9:30. This has been a long stressful day and I'm beat.

Our room is ready and we take a quick nap then Shelly heads off for a surfing lesson. I decide to nap a little more. I'll be up by noon. Wrong, the maid rings the bell at 12:30, thank goodness. I really didn't want to sleep the whole day away and want to convert to the time zone as quick as possible.

Now we have to call American Express Global Assist to help in getting the Visa so we can get back into India for the remainder of our trip after the sail boat trip. There is an Indian Embassy here in Male. The agent at the Delta counter in Amsterdam gave us all the information. His other agent was supposed to email the Maldives indian embassy but I see they haven't. We plan on hitting the embassy to get our new visa after our sailing trip. If we run into complications, we may have to shorten the India portion but we think we will be able to get the visa.

Shelly just got back from surfing on a board and loved it and caught a bunch of waves. She's going out again tomorrow and wants me to come to take pictures.

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19th April 2014

Oh my
I am glad you were able to get there. Let me know if you need help with the new visa on this end, and try to relax and have a great time. Love you bunches
19th April 2014

Adventures with Claire & Shelly
WOW! All day I thought of the two of you relaxing and being stress-free. I'm glad you made it and finally got some rest ;-) I hope the rest of the trip is smooth sailing. Say hola to ShellBell.
20th April 2014

Glad you made it!
We're glad you made it. We've also had a lot of confusion with the European dates!!! Love you!

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