Temperature: 13 | 24
A coffee in bed before we packed our gear and checked out of the hotel. Connor had found a nearby tech store where we were hoping to pick up an SD card for the drone, and then we’d make our way to the airport where we were collecting a car for the next couple of days. Unfortunately we didn’t have success with the SD card however we continued on our way to the bus station and took a 40 minute bus to just outside the airport where there were hundreds of car rental places.

As the car was in Connors name, Abbey and I waited outside in the heat, expecting it to be a quick pickup and ‘lets go’. Connor called me in within about 10 minutes saying they wanted to charge us $20 Euro a day for insurance because we don’t have a credit card. We have faced this issue twice in the UK where one place accepted a $4,000 deposit instead, and the other waived the insurance as we have our own insurance. We quickly realised this company was going to be incredibly difficult to deal with after we offered to pay a $5,000 deposit which was declined, we then said we had a credit card back in Australia and could we just enter the card number into the machine (knowing our parents would help us out with their card) but apparently their machines do not allow this. We kicked up a massive stink as we were not made aware of this when booking the car and the insurance itself was going to cost more than our 6 day car hire!! The company also refused to guarantee us a refund if we decided not to take the car. We eventually realised that if we wanted this car, we would need to just suck up the insurance fee and attempt to fight it via email at a later date. So youre probably thinking that’s what we did and we went off on our merry way. No. Once we agreed to pay the insurance, with no other option, they decided to disclose that we would need to pay a $300 Euro ‘one way’ fee as we were not dropping the car back to Antalya. We actually started laughing at this point because we couldn’t believe them. When booking the car on the website, we put in pickup Antalya and drop off Izmir which was exactly our plan. While every other booking company (and I mean, literally every other booking company!!!) includes this one way fee in their total amount when you select ‘drop off at other location’, this company hides this fee in their terms and conditions. Again, it was a fee that was not disclosed to us upon booking, or in our confirmation. We were gobsmacked that they could do this, and honestly at this point we were expecting a few other hidden fees…seat belts an extra 5 euro per day. It was incredibly disheartening and honestly felt like our holiday was ruined. There was no way we could afford the $120 euro for insurance, $300 euro one way fee as well as the $250 AUD that we had already paid plus petrol costs. To make matters worse, they still would not guarantee us a refund if we refused to take the car DESPITE this being because they hid the extra fees from us. The staff were incredibly unhelpful and at times very rude throughout this process – treating us as though we were 15 year olds who had never done this before. We did feel better when the family next to us also had a huge amount of issues with hidden costs etc too.

After about an hour and a half of trying to dispute these fees we had to admit defeat and agreed to cancel the booking. While we were risking loosing the $250 AUD we had already paid, there was no way we could afford a whooping $800+ AUD for a car for 8 days. We cancelled the booking and headed outside to reassess and regroup. Fortunately we were all on the same page, knowing that it was no ones fault so the spirits were still relatively high. We did get quite concerned when we couldn’t even get a bus from Antalya to Kas, and we thought for a moment that we may have been stranded in Antalya for another night. We then started to think, what if we got rid of the one way fee by having Connor drive the car back to Antalya once we were done with it and then fly to meet us, however that was going to mean a 7 hour drive across Turkey alone. Then we decided we would take the car for the next 5 days up to Fethiye and then Connor would drive the car back to Antalya and get a bus to Marmaris, while Abbey and I get a bus from Fethiye to Marmaris. We thought through as many options as we could before deciding that is the best option. Somehow despite having the car for 3 less days, it still ended up costing us an extra $50AUD however we were relived knowing we could get to Kas and then would have a few days to think of our next transport options.

By about 2:30pm, after spending nearly 3 hours at the car rental place, we finally had our car and were on the road. We stopped by a nearby McDonalds to drown our sorrows before continuing on our way to Kas. Connor drove the whole 3 hours while Abbey and I controlled the podcasts and music for entertainment.

We were all stoked to arrive to a beautiful little apartment in Kas where we had been upgraded to a sea view room. We had a kitchen, a big bathroom, bedroom and loungeroom as well as a great size balcony!!

We all took a moment to gather ourselves after a stressful afternoon however then decided there was nothing we wanted more than a homecooked meal with vegetables. We decided a stirfry would satisfy these cravings so headed out to grab some supplies.
By 8pm we were sitting on the balcony enjoying our very veggieful stirfry and already nearly ready to laugh about the shit show that today was.

We enjoyed some cards on the balcony before I got stuck into catching up on this blog and we all had an early night.