The best laid plans of Goblins and Catboys

flickums had booked a cruise, meal and sunset trip for my birthday because she's awesome.

Things did not go quite to plan.

It all started off well enough. We caught the bus to Fira. First time we've done this here but we got on and paid to conductor so we know how to catch buses in Santorini.

Fira was busy! Bustling and full of tourists but lots of places to eat and drink and buy souvenirs. There's also a cable car which we took to the dockside. I enjoyed the trip, and Flickums hung on for dear life. Looked around. Had a beer. Watched people arrive on launches from cruise ships. And then realised that the people arriving on cruise ships wanted to go up in the cable car. There was a very long queue for the trip back.

Eventually we got back, arrived at the pickup point for the cruise, and then Flick checked her phone for specifics. We'd missed several calls and emails where they'd gone to the hotel where they said there was no way they'd pick us up! I listened to Flick repeatedly having to explain that we were at the agreed pickup point, and it seemed they weren't having it. We eventually decided to postpone the trip for tomorrow.

Flick was somewhat distraught at the failure of birthday plans and immediately went into Sadness from Inside Out mode. I channelled my inner Joy, grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her to the bus stop. I was damn well going to do something for my birthday and it wasn't going to be sitting on a bench moping! We'd gone past the Atlantis 9D experience a few times, and seen it advertised on GetYourGuide. It looked promising.

It was quite good fun. Not sure how seriously to take the idea that Santorini was Atlantis but there was an enjoyable "9D" documentary. Not quite sure what the other 6 dimensions were, but it was basically 4DX style chairs, with wind machines, squirting water, "ash" falling from the sky (I think it was soap flakes) and the like.

Other exhibits were a "floor is lava" game, some interactive screens, a diorama and a selfie screen where you could project clothes over yourself and change the background. Not 100% sure it was worth the money but an enjoyable way to spend the evening.

Grillicious was just down the road. Flickums is a sicker for a good restaurant name so we went there for dinner. Nice place, although the cheese pie started Flick ordered was a little too much for a starter leaving very little room for the Black Angus steak (which would have been unfortunate since the steak was done to perfection).

So while it wasn't quite as planned, I had a lovely birthday. And we finished the day by chilling in the pool and drinking cocktails.