They changed their travel arrangements from air to road and finally arrived at their hotel at 1am in the morning almost 12 hours after they had left Devon.
But this disruption certainly did not affect their performance and they ended a run of two successive away defeats to pick up a well-deserved draw.
They enjoyed the better of the first half and went ahead on eight minutes, when veteran striker Marcus Stewart chipped keeper Phil Barnes after a quickly-taken free kick from Manny Panther.
And the Grecians were in control for most of the first-half only to be undone in added time when midfielder Nathan Jarman tapped the ball in after striker Adam Proudlock headed a free-kick from Jamie Clarke goalwards.
This changed the game and Grimsby came out strongly in the second period, going ahead on 53 minutes when a free-kick from full-back Joe Widdowson was smartly controlled by Jarman and fired in with his left foot.
So 2-1 to the good on 53 minutes it was looking good for the Mariners with midfielder Jean-Paul Kalala hitting the bar twice in seconds, before Town boss Mike Newell was sent to the stands after upsetting the fourth official.
But then there came a bizarre situation with Newell up in the stand issuing instructions to the bench via chief scout Brian Stein.
Grimsby continued to be in charge and a Stuart Elliott free-kick was smartly pushed round the post by keeper Paul Jones.
But Exeter gradually came into it and substitutes Richard Logan and Ryan Harley combined for the latter to smartly volley in the equaliser from outside the box.