Today was a travel day, involving two flights and one road trip.
Morning in Mykonos
We woke up in Mykonos at our awesome Petinaros Hotel. It was a great spot, and the pool especially was a massive hit with the girls. It was a bit out of town (small downside), but fortunately still walkable (about 15/20 minutes) into Mykonos Old Town and nearby restaurant Oregano. It had an old school motel kind of vibe, but with modern, Mykonos white & blue decor.
Breakfast was included so we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and the girls clocked one final swim session (this was how all three mornings went). My parents and I alternated between packing up our stuff & lounging at the pool. Doug & I also worked on a blog post or two; even 15 minutes helps make progress!
Shuttle to JMK
Our flight out of Mykonos (JMK) was at 1:20pm. The night before we arranged the airport shuttle with the hotel staff. Doug & I have differing opinions on how early is appropriate to arrive for a flight. I'm of the mindset that earlier is better; I'd rather have more time to kill at the airport (especially in a nice airport lounge), than be rushed & anxious about having sufficient time for check-in/security/passport control/etc. Doug is more laid back; he doesn't cut it close or anything, but he also thinks I tend towards excessively early airport arrival times. For this year, he's already said he's going to let go of airport timings & follow my lead. Fine by me!
In the case of our Mykonos flight, I suggested we request an 11:30am shuttle to the airport. Bear in mind the Mykonos airport is only about 10 minutes away and is a ridiculously small airport. Nonetheless, I felt 11:30am was appropriate. When Doug & my Dad went to reception to request the shuttle, they guy literally laughed out loud!! He said he would typically suggest 12:30pm pick-up for our 1:20pm flight. Doh! I stuck to my guns and we left at 11:30am :)
ATH Arrival & Logistics
The flight from Mykonos to Athens is only about 40 minutes. Not minutes after you've reached cruising altitude, they've announced it's 10 minutes until landing! We arrived into ATH after a smooth flight. The girls were a bit stir crazy giddy, but it was otherwise uneventful. We flew Volotea (a first for us all). It was virtually our only option to the island. Volotea is a low cost airline and - as we learned through the process - nickle & dime you for every friggin' thing! Need your boarding pass printed at the airport? No problem, we (Volotea) can print it for you at the airport for €30! Need to check luggage? It's €50 per bag at the gate or €38 each way prior. Nuts! We got over our shock of it all and it all worked out. It was actually a great airline experience, in spite of all those bits & bobs.
Given the steep luggage fees, we had consolidated all our stuff for the three days in Mykonos into one single checked bag. My parents did the same. We stored the rest of our stuff at Luggage Storage in the Athens airport. We did the math and it was a much better choice. We collected our checked luggage from Volotea baggage carousel and then collected the rest of our luggage from the airport storage lockers area.
Tips Please!
All the while, the girls were completely crazy & giddy. They were scheming on how to earn money "without embarrassing ourselves" (their words, not mine); apparently they want money to buy little souvenirs. At several points Sadie was holding out a hat (for money collection) and Paige was singing. The whole thing kept them in stitches on the floors of various airport locations. We just let them do their thing; sometimes it's better not to intervene :)
Europ(crap)car
We rented our car through Europcar. They didn't have a counter in the rental car section of the airport. Upon calling we were told to find an employee carrying a Europcar sign at Arrivals. We found him without much fuss. He called into HQ and we were escorted to a shuttle pick-up point. A few minutes later we were in a shuttle headed to some off-site lot where Europcar was located. OK, no biggie.
The issue came when we arrived to Europcar and there was one person working at the counter and a line of five people ahead of us. We spent ONE HOUR in that darn place waiting for our turn to get the car. Insane. I have a short fuse for inefficiency, and this kind of thing drives me particularly nuts. Why are there no other employees that can help check people in? Why does it take 15 minutes to check each person in? Why did the Europcar guy at the Arrivals gate call in our names to HQ and our car still wasn't ready? Who knows! At a certain point all we could do was laugh & make fun of it all, because it clearly wasn't going to get more pleasant on its own :) On the bright side, the girls were playing calmly in a corner, now selling "friendship bracelet lessons" to help earn money :)
Family Bus
The moment we'd all been waiting for . . . Doug finally rolled up in our rad rental car, a MASSIVE van! We needed a vehicle that could comfortably seat 6 people and all our luggage, and this is what we got. No driver's test for Doug this time (read this post to get what I mean); we just rock & rolled outta there.
The drive from Athens airport to our rental home in Nafplio was just under 2 hours. The drive itself was easy, but Paige & Sadie were behaving soooo poorly. They were constantly bickering with one another, hitting each other and generally not listening to anything we said. It was frustrating beyond belief. No more sitting next to each other the rest of the time in our mega van.
Here's to a great week ahead on the Greek mainland!
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