Tokapeba

My Arctic Adventures Iceland Nightmare started when the flight from SFO-JFK was delayed. Our flight was delayed and we missed our connection from JFK-KEF. While still on the ground in SFO I emailed Arctic Adventures Iceland that we would be late and miss our pickup. I received an auto reply saying it takes up to 3 days to get a response through email and to call.

When we arrived in JFK Delta informed us that there were no seats that night and we would be stranded in NY for 2 days.

I called Arctic Adventures Iceland and spoke to Resna a customer service specialist. She assured me everything would be OK and to call as soon as we landed in Reykjavik.

At 4am the following morning Resna from Arctic Adventures Iceland called asking why we weren�t at our pickup location. I explained to her again our situation. She remembered talking to me and told me again to �CALL� as soon as we landed in Reykjavik.

We landed in Reykjavik at 9am the following morning and called as soon as we landed. The man who answered said there was nothing they could do and we were on our own if we wanted to catch up with our tour. He also said the group was far away and it would probably cost about $2,000US to catch them.

He took our phone number and our guide Bjorn called a minute later and said their next stop was Hofn, Iceland and to get to the main bus terminal.

It took over 2 hours to get out of the airport, but we finally got a bus to to Reykjavik. After a lot of confusion we ended up at the FlyBus terminal. The customer service agent took pity on me and helped me catch a flight and catchup with my tour.

I called customer service the next day and got no help. After 2 days I jot a supervisor. In the end she said there was nothing that would do �NO REFUNDS.�

I realize now my mistakes;

1. If traveling on a tour, have travel insurance.
2. Be proactive. Make sure you understand what your options are.
3. Don�t rely on the tour company to help if you miss your connection. Have a plan of your own.
4. You don�t get a a refund, but they do. They cancel all your room reservation and entrance fees. They profit when you loose.

FlyingUnderTheRadar

You missed the most critical - plan extras days in advance of a tour so not to miss the tour when travel plans go wrong.

With such trips I typically add 2-3 days and use them as backup/decompression/exploration days before the any tour.

moondog

You spent $2k on a bus ticket? I think that's a bit higher than Delta's reimbursement zone.

gaobest

Ugh sorry. Not really sure how the taxi cost $2000. Don’t know your tour cost.

Can you just sign up with another tour company?
any chance that your credit card (used for the tour) has Some form of insurance for the tour?

Else just enjoy the place where you are and where you are staying. Make a FT DO. Take local walking tours. Enjoy. You’re in Iceland. Enjoy it until you fly home.

and as you said now you’re ready for how to travel for future tours!!

CDTraveler

Personally, when it became apparent that the SFO-JFK leg was going to be significantly delayed, I'd have started looking for alternatives, and pushed Delta to transfer me to a carrier that could have gotten me to KEF on time. IcelandAir flies out of SFO, JFK and EWR - did you ask Delta to get you out that way? Multiple airlines fly to KEF from JFK with a change in Europe (BA, SAS, etc) - any of which would have taken less time than the 2 days Delta made you wait.

kochleffel

Eagle Air flies from RKV (Reykjavik city airport), which is only a short walk from the main bus station, to HFN (H�fn � Hornafir�ifor) for €252 if you want to fly tomorrow, less on other days, so I don't see where the $2,000 idea comes from.

Several years ago I had a missed connection from Icelandair to Atlantic Airways, which required a transfer from KEF to RKV, for the Faroe Islands. Unfortunately, it was a Friday, and the RKV-FAE service doesn't operate on weekends. So I had a pleasant, if unplanned, weekend, in Reykjavik and then went on to the intended destination. (Atlantic now flies from KEF.) I happened to have travel insurance that covered the additional fare, but in any case the sensible thing is just to make the best arrangements you can.

StartinSanDiego

This is really the key to non-flexible tour start dates. Build in a little cushion to save yourself stress.

Give yourself a little extra time to be sure that any delays out of your control don't cause you to miss the parts of the trip that have no flexibility. People going on cruises are strongly advised to arrive a day or two early, but you could expand that thought to anything... Important meetings (see recent thread on that here in Travel Buzz), the Superbowl, grandkids birthday, The King's Coronation, etc.

Tokapeba

I did look for alternatives. MSP, BOS, SEA, AMS, DUB. All were sold out. I did find a flight on Virgin that would have gotten me there on time, but it was in business class and the supervisor said �NO�

At this point my problem isn�t with the airline, it�s with the tour company Arctic Adventures. If Resna in customer service had told me �We are sorry that you will be late for your pickup, but you have to catch your tour on your own. The tour will stop in these towns and you can catch them there.� I would been pissed, but I would have have had 2 days to plan and find the flight to Hofn the second stop or Eggildstadir the third stop where we finally caught our tour.
Another problem is all of the towns names are in Icelandic, and just pronouncing them is difficult. I felt like I was mute and had to show people in writing where I wanted to go. It�s not like I had to go to Paris, Madrid, or Dubai. I would say Hofn and people would just give me a funny look.

We did have one night before the the tour. We still would have missed the pickup, but it would have been easy to catch them the first day on the golden circle.

The tour was $2,500 each and all other tours were sold out. The $2,000 taxi ride is what a couple people said it would cost for the 500 km ride to catch the tour that night.

I called the credit card company insurance. They declined my right off. Since I missed the connection due to a Mechanical issue that�s not a covered reason.

After catching the tour we did have a great time. Iceland is a beautiful place. We will have to walk on a glacier at another time in another place.

moondog

Wait, so you didn't actually spend $2,000 to catch up with the tour? (That's what the thread title suggests.)

Tokapeba

We ended up flying from the Reykjavik municipal airport RKV to EGS Egilsstadir, where we were supposed to pickup a taxi for the 185 km drive to Hofn for $500. But when were were picking up our luggage my wife noticed the advertisement on the wall for V�k Baths which was on the itinerary for the next day.
We called Bjorn our guide and he got us a room at the same hotel we would stay at the next night (at my expense) (This was the only help we received from the tour company up to this point)
After we settled in I searched for flights from Reykjavik to Hofn. It was hard to do. Eagle Air flights don�t show up on any searches. I did find the flight by searching the airport website and the directly from Eagle Air.
By the time we found help the only flight to Hofn had already left.
One last note though. My tour guide Bjorn said we was the former director of KEF the Reykjavik airport. Didn�t he know someone who could have easily figured it out and told us what to do?

No but is was an option suggested several times.

Scots_Al

Damn those Icelanders, how dare they!

Tokapeba

Yeah, but everything is soooo hard to pronounce correctly.

gaobest

very glad OP caught the tour and got to enjoy at least some of the tour stuff. Tour travel is both nice and challenging. Maybe stay longer to enjoy the glacier walking with another tour company? Depends on budget.

Tbh I faced this type of problem in China. My grandparents are from China and when I was there in the early 1990s, local citizens couldn�t understand why I couldn�t answer them or understand printed signs. People would speak louder just like American tourists. I also had limited success in Chinese class during college. I struggled with the writing structure.

Tokapeba

Is there any chance I can get anything from Arctic. Advantage for such bad customer service?

Athena53

Check the fine print, but probably not. I love the tour company I use most (Overseas Adventure Travel) but they're pretty firm about it being your responsibility to be at the right place when the tour starts. Most tours spend the first couple of days in the first city, which also gives you a safety margin.

It does sound like their Customer Service wasn't very useful till you got hold of the guide. Rather than just placating you with "everything will be OK", Resna might have been prepared with some boilerplate about how to get from KEF to the next couple of tour stops so you didn't have to hunt for those on your own.

You hit the nail on the head with travel insurance. I buy it but have never used it and that's OK. I rarely look at what the credit card coverage provides- the credit card companies have gutted it so it's not much help when you need it.

I'm glad you enjoyed Iceland- I've been there twice and may go back again. Nice people beautiful scenery and a very interesting language, which I can't speak, either!

Just out of curiosity, how much extra did the Business Class seat that Virgin had cost? I might have gone for that.