I was talking to a client last night who has parents on a cruise on the Celebrity Solstice at the moment.
He had received a number of texts from them telling him that unfortunately their scheduled stop in Piraeus had been cancelled due to striking taxi drivers blockading the port of Piraeus.
I thought this needed an investigation and yes indeed not only was the Celebrity Solstice unable to dock but also the Voyager of the Seas.
Although the cruise lines were aware of what was going to happen and had tried to put contingency plans in place, unfortunately the taxi drivers had other plans and decided to stop any passengers from leaving the ships to travel on their sightseeing trip to Athens.
The good news however was that the Seabourn Odyssey was allowed to disembark their passengers who were travelling home for the airport and take their new passengers on board so at least the taxi drivers did have some compassion.
The yellow cab drivers are protesting against deregulation of their industry as part of the economic reforms demanded by Greece's international creditors
Thankfully the strike was due to end at 5am tomorrow so normal service can be resumed with at least 3 cruise ships a day visiting the port of Piraeus the cruise lines will be feeling relieved that for the moment this industrial action has finished and I am sure with all the recent troubles in Greece they are keeping their fingers crossed that no further troubles will affect their passengers especially now we are into the peak summer weeks.
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