The Saga of The Lost Luggage From Norwegian

Last month my husband and I were fortunate enough to go on a little holiday by ourselves to Ibiza. My amazing mum had kindly volunteered to look after all 4 kids for us.

Of recent months, stress levels have been high, with Justin needing to find a new job as his current one is coming to an end and last month our landlord deciding to sell our house,  this holiday was really about us having time to relax and unwind and forget about day to day life for a little while.

Now we're not new to Ibiza, this was my 4th time going and my husbands 6th time going however this was the first time that we didn't book it as a package holiday.

As we opted to stay at the Ibiza Rocks hotel, flights had to be booked separately. Not knowing what any of the airlines were like, the decision was made to book the flight purely on best time, date and

price.

Norwegian airlines fit the bill and after a little research, it seemed that they had a good reputation. So with flights booked, all that we needed to think about was getting some spending money and of course the dreaded packing of the luggage!!


The day before our holiday, we checked in online and printed out our boarding passes. This meant that upon arriving at the airport, all that needed doing was checking in the luggage itself.

Tuesday came and I won't lie, I was nervous, worrying that something would go wrong but if I'm honest, I was impressed at how quick and simple check in was, no hanging around in queues, it was the perfect start to our holiday as we had plenty of time to enjoy a nice dinner and a cheeky glass of wine before boarding started.

Our flight was delayed by thirty minutes, however the pilot still managed to get us to our destination on time, a pleasant surprised, looked like luck was on our side…..

That all changed when it came to collecting our luggage. After waiting over 30 minutes, our bags still hadn't cam out on the conveyor, but we weren't alone, I estimated around a quarter of the flight were still waiting for their belongings too.

Panic time!!! All we were left with was the clothes we were wearing, our phones (no chargers) and most of our money.

The airport in Ibiza is small, this in turn means not a lot of people working there, infact just one person was sitting at the customer service desk. All we could do was wait our turn in line to log our missing luggage.

Almost 3 hours later with our lost baggage logged and a promise of a phone call in the morning, we made it out of the airport. Our transfer had long since gone and we were left with no option but to pay for a taxi to the hotel.

Wednesday morning was spent trying to find places to buy underwear, clothes and toiletries, holiday money was quickly vanishing!!

Our promised phone call never came and it was left up to us to contact them to find out the status of our luggage, only to be told to ring again later as there was no news.

I sent tweets out to Norwegian on twitter, only to be told to ring up who I was already ringing, no apologies at all.

After another phone call in the afternoon, it became apparent that our luggage was not going to be arriving that day and we were left to enjoy our holiday, well as much as you could in those circumstances.

We woke up on Thursday to make yet another phone call, baring in mind our phones were now running seriously low on battery. Our luggage had been found.

Hooray I hear you cry.

Yes good news but I was rather annoyed that there was no sorries and no explanation, just our luggage would be with us at some point that day, no rush then!!!

I've never been so happy to see a pile of clothes when my belongings finally arrived late Thurday afternoon. I wanted to wear everything all at once.

Our saga was not to end there though.

As mentioned previously, we missed our transfer to the hotel. Turns out they thought we weren't there so when it came time to pack up and go home, our names were not on the coach list and we were left to pay out more money for a taxi to get back to the hotel, ending how we started in seemed.

Of course when back home, we wanted to log a complaint and get some compensation. Not even this could be straight forward.

Despite there being English phone numbers to call, apparently there was no English address to send our letter and receipts to, no it had to be sent to Norway.

Another £6.45 on postage, I paid for the fastest signed for option. This was last Monday, the 23rd of June. I was told it would arrive 3-5 days later.

Despite the tracking never changing (thanks royal mail), we received a reply yesterday asking for further bank details and the original report from the airport.

Not quite sure what report they mean because I sent all paper work that I had over to them.

So does this mean I won't get compensation because I can't provide them with the paper work they want?

I'm now left with expensive phone and credit card bills to pay all because Norwegian managed to lose our luggage.

A 4 day holiday which was meant to be fun and care free turned into a stressful nightmare. I think I will be sticking with package holidays from now on!!

xxxx