They may be cheap and cheerful, but far from bargaintastic, when things go wrong, you really do get what you pay for. I'm afraid this is a long story, but if you persevere, you'll be glad you did.

We left home at 3am to reach the airport for 4am to check-in for our 6am, 4-hour flight to Santorini. At check-in, we queued with the other expectant but sleepy holiday-makers and were told that the flight was delayed by three hours and duly handed our £4 vouchers to spend on airport nutrition. Not particularly thrilled at our prospective five-hour wait, but nonetheless unsurprised by the delay, we were even less ecstatic to hear that we were no longer flying to Santorini anyway, but to the nearby and much larger Crete. This was necessary as the new 767 chartered by Golden Sun to take us there was the biggest plane ever to fly to Santorini and the previous night the Greek Aviation Authority had refused the plane landing permission as they didn't have the legally required fire-cover. We were also informed that in order to get to Santorini, we would have to endure a 3-4 hour ferry trip on arrival.

Now, let me tell you that it took us 33 hours to reach Santorini, knocking 2 useable days off our 7 day holiday. To explain what happened...We left Gatwick at 8:45am, having been told by the pilot that our delay was due to the cabin crew needing a legal three hour rest before flying again. However, we arrived in Heraklion, Crete 4 hours later, got taken to a hotel en masse for lunch whereby we were informed there'd be a 4 hour wait at the hotel until a volley of coaches would shuttle us to the port for a 7pm sail. Chaos was evident when it came to the coaches - our bags went on one coach and having been assured that the next coach would leave almost immediately, we let them go. Forty minutes later we were still at the hotel and when we eventually arrived at the port, our bags lay sorrowfully unattended, stranded in the middle of a carpark. Disgusted to find them like that but relieved we still had them, we boarded the ferry and once again let our bags go into the ever-increasing mountain of luggage nestled at the edge of the cars, just behind the stern doors.

Grumpily trudging back onto dry land into the fine Cretan sunshine, more coaches took us back to the hotel where we breakfasted and were told precisely nothing.

On the coach to the resort the poorly-spoken rep complained that she'd been waiting for us for two days and joked that she expected we were all dying for a beer. She failed to realise that sleep and a shower after our ordeal were the two things we all craved and one passenger apologised for keeping her waiting, although I think his sarcasm was lost on her.

Our impression of Golden Sun was one of imcompetence. Their reps were unidentifiable and unconcerned for the holidaymakers in their care. The resort rep gave it the talk but knew little of any help, provided an unhelpful map and inaccurate information when advice was sought. No body seemed to know what was going on or have any kind of procedure in place. No compensation has so far been offered or is immediately obvious. In comparison, those on a First Choice holiday received £150-250 cash compensation on the first day, free sun-loungers and a meal.