It’s Finish the Sentence Friday! Today’s sentence is:
If I could go back and do something over it would be…buying NONSTOP plane tickets to San Francisco.
I alluded to our travel debacle in my vacation post, and if you caught me on Twitter or Facebook I posted some of our misadventure there.
Our first flight was from the East Coast to Phoenix, with a two hour layover before our flight to San Francisco. We get off the plane, my daughter and I get in a huge fight (over who knows what), we eat lunch, and we arrive at our gate. It is one hour before take off, but all flights to San Francisco have been canceled. The line at the terminal desk is twenty people deep, everyone with cell phone to ear trying to get on another flight.
I sprint to a desk that was just opened for business, and manage to get us on a 1:20 flight to L.A. and a 3:40 flight to Oakland. They probably can’t transfer our luggage because there is no time, but our priority is getting to our destination. We run across the terminal to make our flight, looking like idiots. Oh, wait. We didn’t have to run, because the flight to L.A. is delayed by twenty minutes. Our heart rates return to normal, we board, take off, fly for an hour, and land. At least now we are in the right state.
“This is L.A., kids. Enjoy!” I say as we walk to our gate. We board, take off, fly for an hour, and land in Oakland. We walk to the baggage claim in the hopes that our luggage actually came with us. No such luck, and we leave a message at the baggage office about our luggage.
A taxi from Oakland to SF in rush hour could cost $100, so we take the BART shuttle to the BART station, and the BART (train) to downtown. We wait for the trolley, and it drives by completely full. We take a cab to our hotel, and arrive 12 hours after our first flight took off that morning.
But wait, there’s more. We cannot get in touch with baggage claim, so we go to the Ross (Dress for Less) near our hotel and buy underwear and two XL t-shirts for Gwen and me to sleep in. (No, I did not bring anything in the carry-on. I won’t make that mistake again.) We buy deodorant at Walgreen’s, and get toothbrushes from the front desk. We shower and hit the sack. I sleep like crap worrying about what the hell we are going to do if our luggage doesn’t show.
But the new day is looking up. Our luggage arrived in SF, and will be delivered to our hotel between 9 and 12. Oh, and did I mention that we have to PAY for this service? Weather cancellations aren’t covered by Southwest, and we did choose to change our destination airport knowing our luggage wouldn’t follow.
We venture out, putting the clothes we wore for 20 hours yesterday back on our (briefly) clean bodies. I have no makeup and no hair products, so I wear my sunglasses and thank God we are 3000 miles from home. A call to the hotel around 1:00 reveals that our luggage has still not arrived, so we eat lunch and head to Ghirardelli Square to drown our sorrows in milkshakes.
How I managed to smile at this point is a mystery. Also a mystery is why I allowed myself to be photographed in this state, and why I posted it on my blog.
Our bags finally arrive at 4:00. We stroll happily back to our hotel for a tearful reunion with our toiletries, clothes and shoes. I give my bottle of Curl Conscious creme a big kiss and promise to never put it in my checked luggage again.
Misery loves company. Have you ever had a flying fiasco or other travel debacle?
Allow me to introduce you to some of our travel mishaps…
http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/2013/06/last-days-tales.html
I just realized that I didn’t even mention the time our bags arrived two days later at our final destination. Without us having changed flights or anything. And something was MISSING from the bag!
Sounds like a great read – I will check it out!
That’s awful! Especially the part about your luggage. My only fiasco was when we flew back from China after adopting our 2nd son. We flew from Hong Kong to Beijing to LA. Our flight was late getting into LA and we had to go through immigration since we had adopted our son. We missed our next flight to Chicago. We spent five jet-lagged hours in the LA airport, three of us sleeping on the floor while my husband watched over us. We finally made it home to Chicago 24 hours after we took off in HK at 2am. For our 3rd adoption, we flew direct from Chicago to Shanghai and then HK to Chicago – when we got to do it over again, we did it right. ha ha!
I actually thought of you during this whole thing, knowing you’ve made such a long trip a few times. As direct as possible is the way to go!
Oh I feel for you my friend. I think you handled it quite well. I think I would have been slightly hysterical and I might have stayed in bed all day. 🙂 Once we were on vacation at an all inclusive on an island and my brother and my sister in laws luggage got lost. No big deal except did I mention that they had a baby and most of their diapers were packed in their luggage. And there was nothing at the all inclusive and we had no car. It was very interesting.
That is interesting. Thank goodness we could buy clean underwear – it made putting on yesterday’s clothes a little easier!
UGH! to flying fiascos. Yes, we have had several, including missing a flight on Christmas to see my family. Once, on my last Thanksgiving in Colorado before moving to DC, I was in France for a work thing. Flying home on Thanksgiving day, hoping to catch everybody for dinner by 6pm. I boarded the flight in France, and fell asleep. Upon waking, I was so excited to see that I’d killed 3 hours sleeping – I’d be home in no time. Until I looked out the window and realized that we hadn’t left. We were grounded for fog.
Needless to say, when I got to my connecting airport (I think it was Cincinnati), it was like 7:30PM and EVERYTHING was closed. I couldn’t even buy a really nice dinner and charge it to my company for making me work at a meeting that ruined my Thanksgiving. The airport was deserted. Seriously, I have never before or since seen an airport as empty as that one was on Thanksgiving night. I finally got back to Colorado at like 10pm or something. I didn’t bother going to my dad’s to see everybody. I went home and went to bed. Hungry and pissed off. I should have just stayed in France for the long weekend.
I think you look cute in your curly photo! You don’t look stinky at all!
That deserted airports sounds creepy – sorry your Thanksgiving sucked that year. And you’re lucky that photo of me isn’t scratch and sniff 🙂
UGH!!! That is awful! But props to you for making us all laugh with your tales! And your photo caption cracked me up. (And I agree with whomever said it was a great picture- seriously. Go “Au Naturel Dana!” )
It sounds miserable but made for an entertaining story- and next time you’ll choose differently!
Yes I will – no more non-direct flights if my kids are with me!
I’ve had many a flying fiasco, but the scariest one that stands out was on a class trip to Spain when I was in high school. After sitting on the tarmac for 3 hrs, the father of the kid I was sitting next to (not from my class) said he was going to find out what was going on and didn’t come back for quite a while. When he finally did come back, he said there was a problem with the door and that they needed to install a new one … and HE had to HELP THEM read the blueprints. SERIOUSLY?!? It’s bad enough that it happened, but to tell us that before landing safely at the other end???????
Omg – that is terrifying! You see movies where the plane door rips off and people go flying out – who needs to visualize that in their head before baoarding? That is the second class trip story I’ve heard today – what is it with those trips?
O..M..G!!! What a nightmare!! I am *so* impressed that you are smiling in the picture (and a little bit jealous that you look so good without makeup or hair products!!) I’ve not had a disaster of that magnitude, but I will DEFINITELY be putting a few things in a carry on bag from now on!! –Lisa
Me too! I’m smiling because I just had an ice cream soda – chocolate always makes me feel better. And you know how to flatter a girl – thank you 😉
That is a terrific picture! You look wonderful, all things considered! I got tired just reading about your “vacation”…
I know…I don’t usually ramble like that. My kids were rolling their eyes at me when I jotted down things to remember about the experience. If I had to go through all that, I was at least getting a blog post out of it!
Actually I think you look lovely in that photo! But it sounds like, even though it was a fiasco, you guys made a great time out of it.
Thank you! We did end up having a great time despite the rocky start.
OMG!!! My hubby travel a lot for work, so he is used to dealing with these kinds of travel fiascos. Fortunately, he has like Super Platinum status with his airline of choice, so they are usually bending over backwards to keep him happy. When I travel with him, I get to reap the benefits of that status as well. you reminded me how thankful I am for that!!! 🙂
Oh, that would be nice. I’m not a frequent flier so this kind of stuff really throws me for a loop!
You look great! I’d post that picture too.
I don’t think I’ve ever lost luggage but I’ve missed planes. That’s always a blast! (not)
I made sure the picture wasn’t too large – I look better smaller 🙂
Oh my life YES! We were coming back from staying with Husby’s parents in Ireland the day before my wedding dress fitting and the Icelandic volcano vomited ash all over the sky and stopped all planes. So we zoomed through Dublin and caught a ferry with less than a minute to spare. Then one of the engines broke, so we missed our connecting train the other end. Then one of the trains broke too. Our 2 hour journey turned into 12
But I made the fitting.
Whew – that’s the most harrowing story I’ve heard yet! Volcanic ash vomit – now there’s a blog post title for you!
I had my shiny new DS with me and made a comic about it, which Husby later animated – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw6lrXSQ5qI
Oh, what fun! Not.
This is why I loathe air travel–but glad you got there in the end.
Karen
And that’s what I kept telling myself – at least we are here. Our clothes are going to disintegrate off our bodies, but at least we are here 🙂
I got side tracked with Ghirardelli Square. Is there chocolate there? YUM? Anyway, WHAT!? you had to pay for your luggage to arrive. Wow. I’ve had luggage delivered the next day, it was a long time ago but they drove it to our house with apologies one of the times, another time we had to go get it from the airport – the second one was my fault – long story. Yeah there’s no stress in a direct flight. My husband just got home. There’s ALWAYS something going on from Baton Rouge to Atlanta where he misses his Atlanta flight. But there isn’t a choice for anything direct. So I say if you have that option TAKE IT!
Yeah, chocolate distracts me too, Kenya. I was really pissed about paying for delivery, but my wise husband urged me to let it go so we could enjoy our trip. And now that we are home, it’s not worth it to waste time on the phone trying to get our $30 back. Chalking it up to experience!
If nothing else, your trip definitely provided a lot of blog content! I used to be obsessive about buying the cheapest flights- even if it meant multiple layovers just to save $20. Now I have put things in perspective. I’d spent that much on boredom purchases of food and crap at the layover airports, not to mention the price of sanity!
I never book connecting flights, but in this case the non-stop flights were so expensive, and it was for four of us. But never again to SF, and I will be packing a change of clothes in my carry-on from now on!
Oh Dana. It seems most of your trip was a what not to do for the rest of us. But I’m glad you are able to see the humor in it. 🙂
Believe me, Kerri – finding the humor did not happen until much later!
I would never ever fly through SF. It’s just a rule I have…living in Santa Barbara means having to travel through la an sf constantly so I cannot tell you the number of canceled and delayed flights I’ve had in sf. Now that I’m on the east coast I rarely go through there but I still suffer throughy Girly dealing with it. Weather is just an issue every time… Foggy I guess. That being said my son will be taking a flight that gives him a three hour layover in sf next week… No, I didn’t book it and yes his father thinks its good for him to have to deal with SF airport. I don’t recall reading in any parenting handbook that dealing with air travel woes makes you a more mature responsible young adult. Let me know how Gwen and the little bro have grown from their experience. Oh wait did I mention he’s ALOnE!!!
A three hour layover – jeez. I guess he can charge up his electronics and just hang out. And text his mom to check in with her of course 🙂
I once had to endure a 23 hours journey. Although the flight was with many transit, still felt like a non-stop journey! I wished it was one long flight because it was hard getting off, going thru immigration and boarding another flight.
I know – one long flight is better than a few shorter ones. Just get me on the plane and get me there! Going through immigration just adds another layer of hassle, I’m sure.
I’m sorry you had such a miserable day! You just never know what might happen when you fly anywhere. I think we all have horror stories to tell. You are at the mercy of the airlines and I don’t think they really care about anyone.
So true, Betty – I hate feeling helpless, and that’s exactly how I felt. Thanks for reading my rant!
Oh my goodness that made me tired! So sorry it started that way. Oh Ghirardelli Square, I have never had their milkshake. Should this be on my to do list?
Definitely! I actually had an ice cream soda that was fabulous – the boys without an ounce of fat on them had the milkshakes 🙂
I once spent 23 hours in the Atlanta Georgia airport (the old one) on Christmas Eve. My flight left Orlando late, due to mechanical problems, and put me in a flying “stand-by” situation from that point on. Stand-by is never fun, but on Christmas Eve, it’s a nightmare. I did make it home for Christmas, but was so exhausted I slept through most of it. Good post!
That sucks, Rich. At least you were refreshed for Christmas day…but 23 hours? Ugh.
I have never travelled non-non-stop (!) with my children…. I can’t imagine the stress! My worst travel nightmare was traveling to Rome with 40 high school students (and a few other chaperones) – we missed a connecting flight from London to Rome, and were stranded at Heathrow for 8 hours, and since our flights were on two different airlines, neither airline took responsibility for us. It took 8 hours to get 5 different sets of flights rebooked for all of our group, and our travel company was such a crappy company that they refused to provide overnight accommodations, and the chaperones had to put 3000 pounds on our credit cards!!!
As crazy as that was, I cannot imagine a travel disaster with my own children! Glad you were able to recover with milkshakes!!!
That does sound like a nightmare – those poor chaperones. Thank goodness my children are old enough to take it in stride, and thank goodness for the milkshakes 🙂
oh Dana, what a nightmare, I can’t even imagine. It’s tough to go through that, but when you have kids…aaaarrrgghhh. I think you look great in that photo babe…but your comment underneath cracked me up.
I can not live without my curly hair products either.
The sunglasses helped, and the breeze was blowing my hair back. Without the wind and the glasses, I was a fright.
My husband almost was going to be stuck in the Bahamas on our honeymoon. Does that count?? Seriously, they pulled him aside right before we were boarding to go home (he is 6’3″ and more Irish looking then you know) and they still thought he was some threat or something. Thankfully, they realized their mistake and we were on our way, but still was a bit scary. So sorry that happened to you though and I will totally remember never to do layovers after hearing your story. Thank you Dana for sharing though and linking up with us!!
While getting stuck in the Bahamas wouldn’t be so bad, if your groom was stuck there alone it would have been!
We’ve all been there! But I’m still so sorry to hear how long it took you!
Believe it or not, I’ve never had a flight canceled before – I don’t fly a whole lot. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just my husband and me, but the kids were troopers.