What a vacation... (apologies in advance for the post's length!)
I'm currently writing this via laptop in an airport terminal in New Orleans. More on that later.
Our vacation to Florida was fantastic. The weather was great, I got to see my family, and I had a wonderful St. Patrick's day. Well... sort of. Turns out I was driving that night, so I didn't even get a sip of anything. Bummer.
We left on Monday morning and had to connect from St. Louis to Tampa, which was really lame, but it was the best deal we could find. We arrived in Tampa late that afternoon, and called it a day with sushi at the neighborhood Japanese joint I used to frequent as a freshman in high school. On Tuesday, I finally got to see a Yankees game at Legend's Field in Tampa. It was Spring Training, but baseball is baseball. They ended up losing 4-3. Most of their star players were participating in the World Baseball Classic, so that definitely didn't help. That night the whole family got together and had a fantastic dinner at Maggiano's. Good stuff.
Wednesday we played minitature golf in Clearwater Beach, which is always fun no matter how old you are. Thursday, I bought a new pair of shoes and went restaurant/bar hopping with my dad, uncle and aunt. A lot of new places had opened up all over Clearwater and Tampa, all of which were begging to be explored. Friday was the big day: ol' St. Pat's. Being as Irish as I am, as well as the rest of my family, St. Patrick's day is a pretty big deal for us. It isn't just about getting drunk and having a good time... for us, it's about being proud to be Irish, remembering our ancestors, tales of visiting Ireland... and THEN getting drunk and having a good time.
Like I said, I was DD'ing it that night, so I was under strict orders by my dad not to drink. We visited my uncle Chris at his new house that he was fixing up, where everyone (except me) had drinks and laughed like hell. Then it was on to Flanagan's Irish Pub in Dunedin for more fun and excitement. I've gone there on several St. Patrick's Days in the past, and not many people were there. Just a couple dozen, at most... all drinking, eating, and listening to Irish folk music. This year, the crowd topped nearly 2,000 people. It was madness... a gargantuan mass of people all jammed on one little street in Dunedin, Florida all trying to get drinks with their friends and have fun. Now, one would expect with an event that big, some misbehaving is bound to be had. But surprisingly, there wasn't. There were hardly ANY police around, and pretty much everyone was well behaved, even with how much alcohol was being served. People brought their kids, too... it was a family thing!
(Continuing on from yesterday... the battery on my laptop ran out while I was in the airport, so I'm currently home.)
With St. Patrick's Day being a predominately Catholic holiday, it was quite upsetting for it to be on a Friday this year, since the Catholic celebration of Lent is currently underway, meaning no consumption of any kinds of red meat on Fridays... including corned beef, the traditional Irish food of St. Patrick's Day. However, there was some good news... the archbishop of St. Petersburg, FL officially said the consumption of red meat was allowed this year! What a relief that was. For Irishmen like myself, no corned beef on St. Paddy's is a sin itself!
Saturday was supposed to be our day of return to Dallas, but it was announced at our terminal gate that our flight had been over-booked. So, American Airlines compromised with anyone whom was willing to voucher their seat for 300 dollars, and get them the next available flight. My dad perked right up when he heard this, since there were three of us... and 900 bucks sure sounds mighty nice. He was the first one to the check-in counter, and they went ahead and gave him the vouchers, as well as a flight for us the next day. This was perfect for us because we really wanted to spend an extra day in Florida. The flight we were then given had two connections through Miami and New Orleans, which was a big letdown, however... we'd be put in first class. That ALSO sounded mighty nice! It seemed like a sure-fire win-win situation for us. Boy, were we dead wrong.
Prepare yourselves, for I am about to rant of one of the worst airline nightmares ever experienced.
Our first connection to Miami went off without a hitch. I never realized how short of a flight it is from Tampa to Miami: just under 40 minutes. We landed in Terminal D, and our next flight was in Terminal A - a 30 minute walk through the airport, which is roughly a mile. Being so used to terminal-linking trains and buses like I am, I wasn't too thrilled about walking that far through a busy airport. It wasn't too bad, but still felt very inconvenient.
From Miami, it was off to New Orleans. It was quite possibly one of the worst flights I've ever been on, even while sitting in first class, due to this child sitting in coach who was SCREAMING bloody freakin' murder for well near an hour. Luckily, I had my iPod with me, but even THAT couldn't drown away the horrible sounds of this child's screaming. What was even worse were the child's parents who literally did not lift a finger to pacify their kid. I wondered how these people were able to deal with the complete humiliation they were experiencing... if it were my kid, I'd have done something about it.
Upon decending to New Orleans, just about every passenger in the plane peer out their window in unison to see what destruction still remained from the wake of Hurricane Katrina. From what I saw, much has been cleaned up, although I did see some destroyed homes and trees. The levees also appeared to be repaired and operational once again. Then again, this is just from what I saw while on an airplane. I didn't get to see it first-hand.
We landed in New Orleans around 4pm, and got off the plane. We got back on the plane and back out the gate to Dallas, soon being informed by the captain that one of the plane's engines had a faulty starter. We then pulled back into the gate and the maintenance team had a look at it. We were required to stay on the plane for the time being.
It took them over an hour until they finally determined that the starter could not be repaired, and needed to be replaced. Unfortuneately, New Orleans did not have the required piece of equipment, and the closest place that did was Dallas. It couldn't be delivered until 9:30pm that night - nearly 5 hours later. So, we de-planed and expected to be put on another flight. Afraid not, folks - that was the only available flight that evening going to Dallas. So we had to sit and wait in the airport for nearly 5 hours to get back to Dallas. During those five hours, my father, brother and myself weren't given very many options on how to occupy our time. New Orleans' airport is probably the worst airport I've ever been to. There was trash all over the floor, and overall the entire place wasn't very well taken care of maintenance-wise. There were hardly any shops in our terminal, and they closed a little after we were told to wait there. We couldn't leave the terminal without first showing proof that we had a flight that left New Orleans in order to bypass security, and our proof showed we had a flight from Tampa to Miami. They didn't issue us a new ticket on each connection since we were in the same seat on the same plane for the entire duration. It wasn't long before the place began to look like a refugee camp. Blankets sprawled all about with people sleeping on them, kids running around aimlessly, people yacking back-and-forth to each other, etc. The battery on my cell phone and laptop then died out, leaving me hopeless for means of entertainment.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, everyone boarded the plane and headed back to Dallas. Of course, the staff and crew were "sincerely" apologetic, and promised to issue more vouchers and hotel rooms to those who needed them. The flight ended up taking longer than normal, due to the severe weather that was going on in Dallas at the time. We had to flight south over Houston, then enter Dallas from the west... taking nearly 2 hours as compared to the direct flight time of just 1. They also showed one of the worst movies ever made... "The Family Stone". I didn't even bother watching it entirely; just five minutes of it made me want to jump out the damn plane. My only escape from this hellish night was my iPod. I ignored the "fasten seatbelt" sign, slumped back, turned on some Pink Floyd, and boy did I sleep. Pink Floyd is quite possibly the best music to fall asleep to.
After about two hours, or in my case two minutes (since I was asleep... that's how long it felt) we landed in Dallas... at around 1am. That meant we were the last plane to land that night, which also meant that every available gate was occupied by other planes, so we had to wait ANOTHER FREAKIN' HOUR for a gate to become available. Finally, at 2am... everyone got off the plane for the last time.
At this point, the only thing I had on my mind was to get my bags, grab a cab, and get home. Well, I only managed to do two of those three things... because American Airlines lost our bags. We were told to go to baggage claim C12 to claim them. Upon arriving at C12, we found ourselves amongst a sea of unclaimed luggage. The three of us skimmed through as much as we could to find our bags, but had no luck. We then kindly asked where else they might be, and were directed to C15. Like a couple of zombies, we shuffled along to C15 and repeated the process... and got the same result. THEN, we were directed to C25. Rinse, lather, repeat... no bags. The representative C25 told us our bags were in C12... C12 told us they were at C15... C15 told us C25. That was enough BS for the night... we caught a cab and headed home.
All of my clothes were in my bag, which is still at the airport as I write this. Along with my shaving razor, so I haven't shaved in a few days. As well as my cell phone and iPod chargers. And digital camera. And my sanity. That whole night I kept it cool like it wasn't a big deal at all, but inside I wanted to go nuts. For 14 hours, I got on and off airplanes, became stranded at filthy airport, and then the cherry on top - they lost my stuff. Seriously, doesn't American Airlines develop any sort of prevention strategy for crap like this? Is it any question why they, along with the rest of the airline industry, are hemmoraging money? Outrageous airfare rates, amateur management, and piss-poor baggage handling... you call that quality customer service? For pete's sake, how absurd!
I'm drivivng next time. You can count on that.
Our vacation to Florida was fantastic. The weather was great, I got to see my family, and I had a wonderful St. Patrick's day. Well... sort of. Turns out I was driving that night, so I didn't even get a sip of anything. Bummer.
We left on Monday morning and had to connect from St. Louis to Tampa, which was really lame, but it was the best deal we could find. We arrived in Tampa late that afternoon, and called it a day with sushi at the neighborhood Japanese joint I used to frequent as a freshman in high school. On Tuesday, I finally got to see a Yankees game at Legend's Field in Tampa. It was Spring Training, but baseball is baseball. They ended up losing 4-3. Most of their star players were participating in the World Baseball Classic, so that definitely didn't help. That night the whole family got together and had a fantastic dinner at Maggiano's. Good stuff.
Wednesday we played minitature golf in Clearwater Beach, which is always fun no matter how old you are. Thursday, I bought a new pair of shoes and went restaurant/bar hopping with my dad, uncle and aunt. A lot of new places had opened up all over Clearwater and Tampa, all of which were begging to be explored. Friday was the big day: ol' St. Pat's. Being as Irish as I am, as well as the rest of my family, St. Patrick's day is a pretty big deal for us. It isn't just about getting drunk and having a good time... for us, it's about being proud to be Irish, remembering our ancestors, tales of visiting Ireland... and THEN getting drunk and having a good time.
Like I said, I was DD'ing it that night, so I was under strict orders by my dad not to drink. We visited my uncle Chris at his new house that he was fixing up, where everyone (except me) had drinks and laughed like hell. Then it was on to Flanagan's Irish Pub in Dunedin for more fun and excitement. I've gone there on several St. Patrick's Days in the past, and not many people were there. Just a couple dozen, at most... all drinking, eating, and listening to Irish folk music. This year, the crowd topped nearly 2,000 people. It was madness... a gargantuan mass of people all jammed on one little street in Dunedin, Florida all trying to get drinks with their friends and have fun. Now, one would expect with an event that big, some misbehaving is bound to be had. But surprisingly, there wasn't. There were hardly ANY police around, and pretty much everyone was well behaved, even with how much alcohol was being served. People brought their kids, too... it was a family thing!
(Continuing on from yesterday... the battery on my laptop ran out while I was in the airport, so I'm currently home.)
With St. Patrick's Day being a predominately Catholic holiday, it was quite upsetting for it to be on a Friday this year, since the Catholic celebration of Lent is currently underway, meaning no consumption of any kinds of red meat on Fridays... including corned beef, the traditional Irish food of St. Patrick's Day. However, there was some good news... the archbishop of St. Petersburg, FL officially said the consumption of red meat was allowed this year! What a relief that was. For Irishmen like myself, no corned beef on St. Paddy's is a sin itself!
Saturday was supposed to be our day of return to Dallas, but it was announced at our terminal gate that our flight had been over-booked. So, American Airlines compromised with anyone whom was willing to voucher their seat for 300 dollars, and get them the next available flight. My dad perked right up when he heard this, since there were three of us... and 900 bucks sure sounds mighty nice. He was the first one to the check-in counter, and they went ahead and gave him the vouchers, as well as a flight for us the next day. This was perfect for us because we really wanted to spend an extra day in Florida. The flight we were then given had two connections through Miami and New Orleans, which was a big letdown, however... we'd be put in first class. That ALSO sounded mighty nice! It seemed like a sure-fire win-win situation for us. Boy, were we dead wrong.
Prepare yourselves, for I am about to rant of one of the worst airline nightmares ever experienced.
Our first connection to Miami went off without a hitch. I never realized how short of a flight it is from Tampa to Miami: just under 40 minutes. We landed in Terminal D, and our next flight was in Terminal A - a 30 minute walk through the airport, which is roughly a mile. Being so used to terminal-linking trains and buses like I am, I wasn't too thrilled about walking that far through a busy airport. It wasn't too bad, but still felt very inconvenient.
From Miami, it was off to New Orleans. It was quite possibly one of the worst flights I've ever been on, even while sitting in first class, due to this child sitting in coach who was SCREAMING bloody freakin' murder for well near an hour. Luckily, I had my iPod with me, but even THAT couldn't drown away the horrible sounds of this child's screaming. What was even worse were the child's parents who literally did not lift a finger to pacify their kid. I wondered how these people were able to deal with the complete humiliation they were experiencing... if it were my kid, I'd have done something about it.
Upon decending to New Orleans, just about every passenger in the plane peer out their window in unison to see what destruction still remained from the wake of Hurricane Katrina. From what I saw, much has been cleaned up, although I did see some destroyed homes and trees. The levees also appeared to be repaired and operational once again. Then again, this is just from what I saw while on an airplane. I didn't get to see it first-hand.
We landed in New Orleans around 4pm, and got off the plane. We got back on the plane and back out the gate to Dallas, soon being informed by the captain that one of the plane's engines had a faulty starter. We then pulled back into the gate and the maintenance team had a look at it. We were required to stay on the plane for the time being.
It took them over an hour until they finally determined that the starter could not be repaired, and needed to be replaced. Unfortuneately, New Orleans did not have the required piece of equipment, and the closest place that did was Dallas. It couldn't be delivered until 9:30pm that night - nearly 5 hours later. So, we de-planed and expected to be put on another flight. Afraid not, folks - that was the only available flight that evening going to Dallas. So we had to sit and wait in the airport for nearly 5 hours to get back to Dallas. During those five hours, my father, brother and myself weren't given very many options on how to occupy our time. New Orleans' airport is probably the worst airport I've ever been to. There was trash all over the floor, and overall the entire place wasn't very well taken care of maintenance-wise. There were hardly any shops in our terminal, and they closed a little after we were told to wait there. We couldn't leave the terminal without first showing proof that we had a flight that left New Orleans in order to bypass security, and our proof showed we had a flight from Tampa to Miami. They didn't issue us a new ticket on each connection since we were in the same seat on the same plane for the entire duration. It wasn't long before the place began to look like a refugee camp. Blankets sprawled all about with people sleeping on them, kids running around aimlessly, people yacking back-and-forth to each other, etc. The battery on my cell phone and laptop then died out, leaving me hopeless for means of entertainment.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, everyone boarded the plane and headed back to Dallas. Of course, the staff and crew were "sincerely" apologetic, and promised to issue more vouchers and hotel rooms to those who needed them. The flight ended up taking longer than normal, due to the severe weather that was going on in Dallas at the time. We had to flight south over Houston, then enter Dallas from the west... taking nearly 2 hours as compared to the direct flight time of just 1. They also showed one of the worst movies ever made... "The Family Stone". I didn't even bother watching it entirely; just five minutes of it made me want to jump out the damn plane. My only escape from this hellish night was my iPod. I ignored the "fasten seatbelt" sign, slumped back, turned on some Pink Floyd, and boy did I sleep. Pink Floyd is quite possibly the best music to fall asleep to.
After about two hours, or in my case two minutes (since I was asleep... that's how long it felt) we landed in Dallas... at around 1am. That meant we were the last plane to land that night, which also meant that every available gate was occupied by other planes, so we had to wait ANOTHER FREAKIN' HOUR for a gate to become available. Finally, at 2am... everyone got off the plane for the last time.
At this point, the only thing I had on my mind was to get my bags, grab a cab, and get home. Well, I only managed to do two of those three things... because American Airlines lost our bags. We were told to go to baggage claim C12 to claim them. Upon arriving at C12, we found ourselves amongst a sea of unclaimed luggage. The three of us skimmed through as much as we could to find our bags, but had no luck. We then kindly asked where else they might be, and were directed to C15. Like a couple of zombies, we shuffled along to C15 and repeated the process... and got the same result. THEN, we were directed to C25. Rinse, lather, repeat... no bags. The representative C25 told us our bags were in C12... C12 told us they were at C15... C15 told us C25. That was enough BS for the night... we caught a cab and headed home.
All of my clothes were in my bag, which is still at the airport as I write this. Along with my shaving razor, so I haven't shaved in a few days. As well as my cell phone and iPod chargers. And digital camera. And my sanity. That whole night I kept it cool like it wasn't a big deal at all, but inside I wanted to go nuts. For 14 hours, I got on and off airplanes, became stranded at filthy airport, and then the cherry on top - they lost my stuff. Seriously, doesn't American Airlines develop any sort of prevention strategy for crap like this? Is it any question why they, along with the rest of the airline industry, are hemmoraging money? Outrageous airfare rates, amateur management, and piss-poor baggage handling... you call that quality customer service? For pete's sake, how absurd!
I'm drivivng next time. You can count on that.