Yelling down the phone....

I just spent a very irritating 15-20 minutes on the phone to Aegean Air, letting them know I'm a wheelchair user for the flight out to Athens (even bloody Ryanair, who are notoriously bad with wheelies, had it integrated into their booking process for the flight back, but Aegean still haven't quite figured out they can use the internet to handle it to - or even that they need to make it easy for people to find out that they need to phone them). I've no doubt the Greek lady I was talking to is perfectly pleasant face-to-face, but she had a fairly high-pitched voice that the phone was doing interesting things to - mostly making it even screechier, and that wasn't a good combination with her accent. Add in a bad line that was forcing us both to yell to be even partially understood and even plinky-plinky Greek elevator music was a welcome break. I think everything's sorted and I've got the right level of assistance booked (seeing as that's minimal support that shouldn't be an issue - as long as I get to the gate one way or the other I can get aboard under my own power), but to be honest the connection was so bad I genuinely don't know for sure what level she's booked. A minor irritation is that if you're a wheelie they won't let you use online check-in and insist you do it two hours in advance at the airport, though that shouldn't be an issue.

Doubly irritatingly the whole thing has set my headache off again.

There's an interesting contrast between the two hotels in the email replies to the note I tagged onto my bookings - which basically said "I'm a wheelchair user with limited ability to walk, I don't need a wheelchair accessible bathroom, but do need step free access to my room", the one I'm overnighting in at the start essentially said "you'll get what you're given", the one I'm staying in for the four days after sailing said "Dear Mr Gillon, We've booked you into one of our rooms with wheelchair accessible bathroom, all rooms can be accessed by lift and there is step free access to the bar and dining room. We hope you enjoy your stay with us." Guess which one impressed me more! (Not too bothered about the overnighter as we don't arrive until midnight and check out in the morning, I just need somewhere to crash for a few hours).