<p>EPTR & Justamom…
:(</p>
<p>Yep, I was just skyping with my son and he said Rome airport is open, but nothing heading north is flying. However, he did tell me that he thought maybe he could get with a Finnish freighter. Or be a begger on the streets of Rome.</p>
<p>Well, …apparently John Cleese found a solution to his being stranded.
After not being able to get on a train, he took a taxi…from Oslo to Brussels.
15 hours and $5100.
I guess he may be spending another 15 hours waiting to get on the Chunnel train back to London, unless he took a private boat taxi.</p>
<p>Transatlantic Cruises:</p>
<p>[Trans-Atlantic</a> Cruises - the complete schedule of crossings](<a href=“http://www.cruisetransatlantic.com/cruises.html]Trans-Atlantic”>Transatlantic Cruises 2023 and 2024 - the complete schedule of Atlantic crossings)</p>
<p>I’m not a travel agent or anything, but found this site that shows transatlantic cruises, in case this can help anyone out.</p>
<p>lololu,</p>
<p>Believe it or not, I was actually looking at the freighter routes, too! Thank you for letting us know Rome is open. If H & D can’t get out of London on Tuesday as hoped, maybe they can find a way there.</p>
<p>Lafalum,
Thank you. I am sad about our situation but humbled by the power of nature, if that makes any sense.</p>
<p>I miss my girl but will see her mid-may when she comes home. Who knows? Maybe there is a reason these things happen. What can you do? Except drink a minimum of 2 margaritas a day.</p>
<p>One thing that has been disrupted is mail and Fed Ex service to northern Europe. D’s application to U of Helsinki for next fall is due on May 15, and she and I agreed that she is going to get it in the mail in the next couple of days. They don’t usually accept electronic copies, but she is also going to image everything and also send them an electronic copy with a note about her concerns about mail delivery.</p>
<p>If she is accepted (odds are good) and the cloud is still there… well, we will deal with that. Tuition is free, and her plane ticket is already paid for (though Reykjavik :rolleyes:, with me for a vacation that hopefully will end with settling her in for the semester). But our tickets are on Icelandair. If this keeps up, who knows if we will get a refund, since I suspect Icelandair will have trouble staying in business if this goes on for months. We will have to make a decision regarding whether to move forward to get a housing contract and pay the deposit on that in late May. Here’s hoping that the volcano settles down and goes back to sleep.</p>
<p>Comment in the British newspaper Financial Times a day or so ago- “we said send cash, not ash”. Iceland isn’t suffering, the winds are blowing all of the ash to Europe.</p>
<p>DH reports that fine ash was falling in London this afternoon. Aaarrgh, as the problem “settles” the on-ground transportation will be more affected. Of course the French have been pre-emptive, having a partial rail strike already going on before the eruption started…</p>
<p>Ah, the French & their strikes! I think they have more than most countries! I have also been making calls about options regarding the volcanic situation.</p>
<p>As expected, the insurance purchased NOW will NOT help for volcano cancellations as they are now “pre-existing” and therefore not covered. I did speak with Hotwire, with whom I purchased many hotel rooms and they told me that they will “work with me” in the event we can’t fly to Europe due to the volcano. Not quite sure what this will entail, but they said they made a notion in my chart about my concerns and will be monitoring the situation and help make sure that we don’t “eat the cost” in the event we can’t fly due to all flights being cancelled due to the volcano. That was the best they could manage.</p>
<p>I also called the airlines we are scheduled to fly on to get to Europe. They said they want me to work with Orbitz (whom we booked on), but will work with us as well. They urged me to contact Orbitz and basically sit tight for a while so we can all figure out what the volcano will be doing & what everyone will do in response. They said that they will likely try to reschedule us for different flights/dates if we can’t do the ones we are currently set for. </p>
<p>I’m on hold on Orbitz, waiting to talk with Customer Service, just trying to get an understanding of the options. Sheesh! Who woulda thought? Just spoke with them and they said that they take direction directly from the airlines and keep their site as updated as possible. To date, they are NOT charging any penalty or cancellation fees on impacted flights and have a long list of airlines you can contact. Many of the airlines are also offering rebooking with no penalty.</p>
<p>All of this had me really worried, as my daughter is studying abroad. While she doesn’t finish at her uni until the third week of May (how do the rest of the kids here finish so early?), then is staying until early July for an internship in the SA city, her return flight goes through Copenhagen.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I checked with the credit card that we used to pay for the flight, and flight insurance is one of its perks, so maybe some of you have flight insurance and don’t realize it. Good Luck to all.</p>
<p>BCN is now closed too. Dangit!</p>
<p>[EU</a> ministers schedule urgent meeting over air traffic chaos - Haaretz - Israel News](<a href=“http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163874.html]EU”>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163874.html)</p>
<p>"Barcelona on Sunday became the latest city to succumb to air traffic chaos as an Icelandic volcano continued to spew ash into Europe’s skies. </p>
<p>Spanish authorities shut down the city’s airport, along with 12 others in northern Spain…"</p>
<p>Need to come up with a plan B.</p>
<p>Thank you gloworm about the reminder for credit card travel insurance! I think I booked travel with our card that has it. So far American Airlines has been very good about working with us.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yikes! Just called S, who had left Barcelona to travel to Grenada for the weekend. He was sitting in the Grenada airport. Barcelona has re-opened and he was told his flight is going but will probably be delayed. He also said his program sent out an email telling students if they are stranded somewhere to just bring documentation when they come back and they won’t be charged with unauthorized absences from their classes. He has friends stuck in Croatia. (Didn’t realize that was a tourist destination!)</p>
<p>Guess my “back up plan” wasn’t that great after all…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know what hysterical reports you are reading in the US media, but the situation on the ground, outside a very small part of Iceland (which is 1000 miles from mainland EUrope) is completely normal. For me personally it’s a lovely sunny day in fact. There is NO ash falling anywhere but the islands of Scotland and Denmark, and for enough ash to fall to stop ground transportation, there would have to be an eruption of cataclysmic proportions. At that point, travel would be the least of our worries. </p>
<p>Don’t believe me (of course not). Check out some webcams</p>
<p>London</p>
<p>[EarthCam</a> - London Cams](<a href=“Live Network of Webcams and Streaming Video Cameras - EarthCam”>Live Network of Webcams and Streaming Video Cameras - EarthCam)</p>
<p>Paris</p>
<p>[EarthCam</a> - Eiffel Tower Cam](<a href=“http://www.earthcam.com/france/paris/]EarthCam”>http://www.earthcam.com/france/paris/)</p>
<p>Here is Reykjavik - unharmed and fully functional apart from air travel.</p>
<p>[EarthCam</a> - Imagine Peace Tower](<a href=“http://www.earthcam.com/cams/iceland/reykjavik/]EarthCam”>Live Network of Webcams and Streaming Video Cameras - EarthCam)</p>
<p>Lafalum, your back up plan may still work. It’s hard to tell what the status of the cloud will be on the 30th. Good luck!</p>
<p>(and, yes, Croatia is a great tourist destination. Son went last year for a week. Along the coast is BEAUTIFUL!))</p>
<p>I found myself in a very unexpected situation today of coming in contact ( through my business ) with a group of 14 stranded Brits who had spent the last few days stranded at JFK Airport waiting to be allowed to go home…somehow, they ended up renting a beach house in my area while they wait for the travel bans to be lifted…I really felt bad for them so my daughter , her friends and I went to pick up a few things for them since they sounded exhausted and stressed.
We really wanted to get there before they arrived , but it happened to conicide with their arrival…I tried to put my self and family members in their situation and since they have no car , we brought them some snacks, drinks and some good old California wine and Sam Adams beer…also the numbers of the local taxi service, grocery store , restaurants and such. I thought about offering to drive them to the store , but left my number to call if they need any help while they wait this out</p>
<p>lje62 - how kind of you. I watched a little video on the weather channel and it showed 22 eleven-year-olds from Paris stranded in Minneapolis; I hope they are benefiting from some “Minnesota Nice.”</p>
<p>lje62 - so thoughtful. It must be terrible to be stuck here in limbo…</p>
<p>As this drags out, the disappointment about S’s cancelled trip is turning to a little bit of relief. The cloud is still shifting, it seems, and I can’t really tell from the news when things will be back to “normal”. The kids were supposed to fly in to Paris, and out of Nice. (Is Nice open?)</p>
<p>One of the alternative plans that they tried to make work, was to fly to Barcelona…which I noted above was closed at least for a while.</p>
<p>Hotels, rails, etc, must be crazy.</p>
<p>S made it back to Barcelona, it’s reopened. They were delayed a couple of hours but arrived safely. Can’t complain!</p>