ruined holiday
My wife and I and two daughters, one of whom is only 3 years old, often travel. In order to get maximum satisfaction from your vacation, we fly only regular business class flights. We also choose hotels according to our increased requirements and opportunities.
In the summer of 2017, we decided to visit Cyprus. A normal country, there were no complaints about the hotel and service, although 14 years ago the attitude towards Russians was much better. Now everyone fawns over foreigners, and the Russians seem to be hated. They returned to Russia on June 21. The transfer took us to Larnaca airport just 1.5 hours before departure. While going through customs, our large family for no reason attracted the attention of Cypriot customs officers. Without checking the passports full of stamps about flights around the world and the time on the tickets that boarding would soon end, seven customs officers with a zealous predilection first undertook to sort out our suitcase with medicines and baby food and ended up with all the luggage. Yes, there are a lot of medicines, as the head of a large family with underage children, I always take a supply of medicines for different occasions, because. I travel a lot and a lot can happen on the road, especially for my little daughter.
They ruined everything for us! Closely examining every blister of pills and jars of baby food with a factory seal, which then had to be thrown away. We offered to take everything from us, if these stupid examiners like these medicines so much, but they silently continued to dig and spoil. After making sure that there was nothing to dig into, they began to take scrapings for the presence of drugs. And again by !!! . As a result, all four suitcases were turned inside out (each family member has his own suitcase for more comfortable trips). Even a three-year-old girl was deprived of milk and a suitcase with toys, and everything was also turned upside down. I could not look at it calmly and went off to smoke, occasionally returning to look at all this disgrace.
Customs officers did not calm down. They asked me to get money and began to count banknote after banknote slowly. Then all seven stared blankly at the unopened packs of cigarettes, as if seeing them for the first time, they stared at them for 25 minutes!
And as time went on, we began to get nervous and understand that we might be late for boarding, because. the search lasted more than an hour, the little daughter was tired and started crying. Well, a passing girl who knew the language helped and asked to call the elder in the “big” pagons and explained to him that we were not terrorists with a small child, but ordinary tourists. He casually looked at us, gave the command to lower and left without even apologizing. Following him, the airport workers disappeared without even apologizing, leaving us with the scattered contents of our suitcases, which it was not possible to stuff back 15 minutes before the end of boarding. At the last moment, we managed to board the plane at a run, it’s good that the flight was delayed a bit. In the bustle, during the inspection, valuables were lost (maybe even stolen) (expensive glasses, a bank card, a Swiss watch)
Any more ten minutes of delay and my family and I would have to stay at the airport with tickets for a departed plane, with a small hungry child on my sleep schedule. It was good that I had money with me (carefully counted by customs officers) to find a new plane ticket and a hotel. If an ordinary tourist with 50 euros in his wallet got into a similar situation, he would have to spend the night at the airport on the floor and wait for alms from relatives until they send money for a new ticket home.
This is the first time I've encountered such an attitude in many years of flying. England, all European countries, the United Arab Emirates, etc. - I have never seen such disrespect anywhere. Our holiday was overshadowed and spoiled by the return flight. On the plane from Cyprus, many complained that their suitcases were gutted and disrespectfully inspected. For ourselves, we concluded: - NO MORE FOOT TO CYPRUS. For those who value themselves and their vacation, I strongly DO NOT recommend visiting this country in any case !! !