"Life Education" time... Here We Come!
Well… it’s Tuesday afternoon… All our plans are in order. Airfare arranged. Accommodations booked. Side trips to nearby towns set. Camera batteries charged. One more sleep and we get up for a very early flight. To some, it may seem that I over plan… however, I don’t actually schedule every minute of every day. It’s just that I want everything to run smoothly. Making the transitions seamless is the goal. For example, we arrive to our destination early. Check-in isn’t until four o’clock. Do we walk around with our things? No, I booked a Bounce luggage storage so we can leave our things and explore freely. This is a company I have used all over the world… so convenient! Also, booking tickets to often sold out experiences is important. Not to be controlling of the travel time but to make sure we don’t arrive in a location and miss the highlights due to having no available tickets. Once that happens a couple of times, you learn to be proactive.
With United discounted confirmed seats to our final destination, all we had to do was fly standby from Houston to Newark. Carefully watching the loads for months, I was comfortable with our chances. With almost hourly flights, there were over 150 available seats. Just before I fell asleep for the night, I checked the loads one last time. Uh oh… the flight we planned to take went from 48 available seats to zero. Turns out it had been cancelled. This ruins all the flights after… I jumped on the purchase side of our app and bought confirmed tickets to Newark. Rather than a 6am flight, we now would depart at 7:20am. Jeremy would be our ride to the airport… We took off in a heavy rainstorm… vacation here we come!!!
Initially, my plan was to arrive in Newark at 9am and stay in a Day Use room at the Hilton. Our departing flight was not leaving until 6pm. Considering we would now be arriving just after noon, it seemed a waste to use the room… leaving the airport, shuttle to hotel, shuttle back to airport, back through security seemed a bit overwhelming for the five hours until boarding. I canceled the room.
Well… in my good/bad thinking, I decided to check my bag when the agents asked for volunteers… as a show of appreciation, we got to board with group two. This would assure Barry got overhead space for his camera suitcase. What I didn’t take into account… I would have to leave security to pick up my bag in terminal A, take a twenty-minute shuttle to terminal C and go back through security. What else would I be doing for my five to six hours???
As we headed to our gate, I noticed a bar called “Wanderlust”. That’s my word!!! I have a picture on my wall with the definition of wanderlust: “A strong desire or urge to travel and explore the world”.
Waiting for our departure time, I noticed New York City out the window. If only we had more time to check it out for a day or two.
A little lunch… a vacation cocktail… a nap… and then it was time to wait by the gate. We decided to divide and conquer for lunch. One area at the airport had a variety of take away restaurants. For me? Pad Thai with rice noodles. It sounded so good… Barry chose a burger joint. We took our lunches over to a waiting area where we were able to order drinks. A Cosmo for me, beer for Barry.
Settled into our seats (aisles across from each other), we picked out movies and settled in for our seven-hour flight across “the pond”. This is where things began to go south… We pushed away from the gate and headed out to get in line for take-off. Apparently, there were forty aircraft attempting to take off. The Captain assured us that he was searching for a way to shorten the time it would take to get in the air. It was a little chilly on the plane, so I snuggled up under two blankets. Taxi… taxi… taxi… it was announced we are heading for an alternate runway…
Settling into my seat, I picked the movie, “Family McMullen”. It looked cute and something that would allow me to escape into a fantasy world… it would take up time, making the red-eye flight seem easier. Well… I watched and was fully aware that we had not taken off. We pushed off of 5:55pm, it was now 8:05. With one movie complete, it made it seem more painful that we still sat on the runway. Now the information was changing. We had waited so long that a thunderstorm moved in. We would have to wait until it passes to take off.
Not really qualifying as a “Travel Nightmare”, it certainly can be considered a giant hiccup! With my second movie running, we were still on the plane.
8:49pm
9:23pm
9:45pm… the captain makes an announcement. He is looking for an alternate route around the thunderstorm to get us to our destination. If an alternate is not found in the next twenty minutes, we would be forced to return to the gate due to federal regulations. Passengers cannot be kept sitting on a plane for more than three hours on a domestic flight, four hours on an international flight.
10:10pm… watching the credits scroll on my second movie coincided with our return to the gate to allow us to stretch and get a bite to eat.
10:45pm… still waiting for a gate…
11:06… we got a gate!!! We had to scan off the plane and would rescan when it was time to take off. In the meantime, we were told not to go too far. We should hear an announcement or get a txt when it was time to reboard. In my mind, this would take care of the long time until check-in, we had in our final destination
11:30pm Flight cancelled. Ugh!
11:40pm With instructions to pick up our luggage, the baggage area was in full chaos! A dozen international flights had been cancelled, and all the passengers were standing around receiving conflicting information. What craziness!!! One thing we were told… look on the United app to see alternate routes to get us to our destination. Only one was offered to us. We could go on May 25 (arriving May 26) or cancel. Nice options.
Waiting for a customer service representative… at his point it was an hour. By 1:08am, a nice agent found a flight for us through Brussels on Friday. This means we will lose two of our days but at least we have the rest of the time, and it was earlier than the five days wait offered previously. It was difficult doing business because everyone in the room was angry… yelling… trying to make arrangements on their phones. It was SO loud!!!
2am… Retrieved my bag. No available hotels. No available seats for an uncomfortable nap. We chose to leave the secure area and make a plan for the next twenty-four hours. My first thought was to see if we could use Barry’s points for a room tomorrow night. Score! We got a reservation at Crowne Plaza Airport hotel but check in wasn’t until 3pm. That meant twelve more hours before we could enjoy some semblance of comfort… So, now it was time to address that issue. After a little research, I found a new “Day Use” hotel. The earliest check in time I could find was 8am. That would have to do. I reserved a room from 8am to 4pm. This would allow us to get some sleep and Uber to the next hotel.
A quick Uber ride to the hotel, we were in the room by 7:55am. Nothing fancy but the bed was extremely comfortable! It was time for a much-needed sleep!
Successful transition from the Day Use Hotel (Hotel Executive Suites) to the Crowne Plaza. Looking at the Uber app, we were expecting a twelve-minute drive… our driver had her map set to avoid highways, so it took about 45 minutes. It really didn’t matter. We have nowhere to go! Our room is nice… Barry is a Gold Elite so we get a late check-out.
Two days have passed, but it feels like one long day… They kind of blended into each other. Tomorrow, we will checkout around three and head for our second attempt at starting our vacation. The bad part is that we have an overnight flight… the irony of this entire situation is that we selected the location based on the nonstop flight out of Newark. Now we end up taking two lets to start vacation. By the time we arrive, we will be so tired! Thankfully, our hosts at the apartment we rented, are happy to save it for us. We easily made changes to a couple tickets we had. Having just finished a salmon dinner, it’s time to get MORE sleep and try again tomorrow!
