We made it to a dream destination of ours: Dubrovnik, Croatia, however that was not without an extremely stressful and frustrating day at the airport.

We were supposed to leave on Monday, April 11. Our flight was to leave early afternoon and after 13 hours we were to land in Istanbul for our 18 hour layover and private tour of the big sites of the city. Well, none of that happened.

At first, the ariline (Turkish Airlines) just announced the flight was delayed about an hour. Usually the pilot makes up time en route, and even if we lost time, we had such a long layover, we were not worried. Then they just kept announcing further and further delays. They said it was a technical problem with the heating system on the plane. It was very frustrating because after hours of them announcing further and further delays, after about 5 hours they finally announced the flight cancellation. Everybody had to leave the terminal to go back out to ticketing to get rebooked on future flights.

We surprisingly both kept calm but the airline was very unorganized and waiting in line to get rebooked was unbelievably chaotic. And all of that was only to find out that since we booked our flights through Priceline, so Turkish Airlines would NOT refund or rebook us, we had to contact Priceline to do so.

Ok, so during all of this, we were checking online to see if there were other flights we could catch that evening. LAX is not a convenient airport to get to to, so we did NOT want to come back home. We were close to booking one, but missed the window to book/check in so even thought I had the tickets in my cart, they denied our purchase. That got our hopes up.

We eventually decided to leave the airport and come back home. That was after being at the airport for almost 8 hours. We were tired, stinky, and disappointed beyond belief. This means we missed our entire layover in Instanbul and our day there was not going to happen.

We had parked our Jeep at Jaime's parent's house so his sister came and picked us back up from the aiport and we hung out at his parents house for a while before driving home. I was able to book a one way ticket for each of us via Lufthansa Airlines the following day (Tuesday) at 5pm. That meant our trip started 28 hours later than planned, and we missed a whole country on our itinerary.

When we got back to our place, we found the return flights home. And here is the bummer. Our replacement tickets were THREE TIMES the price of the tickets we originally booked. Luckily, we did get a FULL refund from Priceline for our cancelled flight. Although that was also NOT without hassle. We were told by Turkish Airlines that Priceline would have to refund us. So when I called Priceline to ask for refund, and they told me since Turkish Airlines are the ones who cancelled the flight, that they would have to refund us. So when I called Turkish Airlines, they said they don't even have the capability to refund us since we did not book through them, so then I called Priceline back AGAIN. Finally, an agent refunded our tickets no problem. But the back and forth was quite frustrating.

So we did not have to rush to the airport on Tuesday since we had an evening flight. I was able to get up and go for another run (my marathon was just one week after we returned home!) So that was nice. And we were very lucky that we had the means and flexibility to rebook our own flights and leave at a later time. There were some very frustrated travelers at the airport who NEEDED to get to Istanbul ASAP and were at the mercy of waiting for Turkish Airlines to rebook them. I filed a claim with our travel insurance company but I am not holding my breath for any reimbursements for the additional travel expenses since we did get refunded from Priceline.

We got to the airport early enough to enjoy some drinks and snacks at the Mexican restuarant, and our flight left on time and was a smooth trip. We were so happy with the service and friendliness of Lufthansa Airlines after the chaos that was working with Turkish Airlines. We even got a whole row to ourselves on the flight. The meals were also delicious. For airline food, anyways.

We arrived in Munich safely for our very short layover. A bit of a bummer for me as I have never been to Germany, and still can't officially say I have been since I did not leave the airport. But it was just about a 2 hour flight from there to Dubrovnik, and we were more than ready to get to our destination.

We actually ended up in Dubrovnik only a few hours later than originally planned. That is because our layover in Instanbul was so long. So we got to Croatia the same day as originally scheduled. We were a little frustrated that our transportation was not there to pick us up, however we did get a taxi no problem, and got reimbursed for our ride not being there. But given our ordeal in arriving, it was disappointing to not have our scheduled ride.

BUT, at the end of the day, we know we are lucky and blessed to be able to even afford or have the time to experience such a trip, so we did not let any of these snags get us down because we were just SO HAPPY to be in Croatia finally. This was to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary, so we made the best of every frustrating situation.

We got to our hotel, and our room was ready. We dropped off our stuff and walked to Old Town Dubrovnik. We were exhuasted from so much traveling and time at airports, but we got a second wind after getting to our hotel. It was starting to get dark, but we managed to see some cool coastal views and a tiny look at Old Town.

We are fans of the show Game of Thrones, and much of the series was shot in Dubrovnik so we found a souvenir shop that had an Irone Throne replica and were able to get some fun photos. We also ate what might possibly be the best meal overseas that either of had. We found a pretty fancy restaurant just outside the walls of Old Town. Jaime enjoyed a local beer, I got some white wine, and were finally able to sit, relax and just let the stress fade away and truly acknowledge that our vacation had started. Pictures of our dinner is in the photo album: First Day - Dubrovnik, Jaime had a grilled veggie and fresh fish dish and I had a beetroot risotto. Both were out of this world.

We were out pretty late, and by the time we got back to our hotel we had no trouble falling asleep. The next day we booked a trip across the border to Montenegro and the transportation was leaving early.

So, incredibly LONG story short (I realize this was not actually short) after a LONG and STRENUOUS journey, were so thankful and relieved and grateful to finally be in Croatia. And Dubrovnik ended up being so much more beautiful and amazing than we could have imagined. But more on that in a future Blog. Next up: Our day in Montenegro.