ANCONA «We were tossed around, between endless queues and lack of communication. In Ancona you call this hospitality?”. Nicola’s eyes are filled with anger and marked by fatigue, after the journey from his native Bologna. He runs from one front office to another in motorcycle gear, with the ticket to Igoumenitsa in hand, in a terminal on fire in every sense, swollen with exhausted passengers, some resigned, many others enraged. They are the 500 of the Superfast, left stranded after a sudden stop to the ship imposed by the Captaincy.
The alt
The technical problem, explain the port authorities, emerged during a routine check: not a fault, but an anomaly in the water expulsion system which required further investigation and a precautionary halt. The Superfast Around 2pm, all the tourists waiting to board were sent back to the passenger terminal, where a wild hunt for the ticket to exchange broke out, amidst protests, arguments and insults. Not the best self-image offered by Porto Dorico: he dreams big, but stumbles in everyday life.
The repositioning
In the end, with difficulty, a solution was found for all the passengers: a good part were welcomed on the Minoan (thanks to the collaboration of Grimaldi Lines), which set sail at 7pm, but there were those who had to leave in a hurry to Bari to quickly board the twin Superfast. Some, however, preferred to stay overnight in Ancona and wait for the ferry the next day. But for a couple of hours it was chaos at the passenger terminal. «To change the ticket we queued for an hour and a half at the Superfast front office and another hour in front of the Minoan, only to be told that we had to go back to the Superfast and start again», complain Claudio and Nicola, on their way to Greece for a motorbike tour. «Someone suggested we go to Bari – they add -. Are we kidding? In the end we found a compromise: we board the Minoan, giving up the cabin.”
At 4.30 pm a couple of 80-year-olds arriving from Pisa and heading to Kefalonia still didn’t have the solution in their pockets. «They offered us to leave tomorrow (today, ed.) leaving the car in Ancona. But how is it done? Rather, we prefer to board immediately and sleep on deck.” A kind lady offers to help them. «You have to insist with that blonde ticket agent, she’s the one who gets busy and speeds up the stages». Do-it-yourself assistance. The anger of the 500 is shattered by the absence of guidance and communication. “Nobody told us anything and we don’t know what to do” complain Michael and his friends, who travel from Austria to Greece by bicycle. “It’s a disaster” says Mustapha, from Germany to Turkey with his brother. “Do you really treat tourists like that?” Welcome to Ancona.
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