Travel Woes
Well, we were over 19 hours late to our destination in Hawaii, but at least we made it! It was a stressful and somewhat depressing two days, but at least we made it, and our luggage too, which we were somewhat surprised about.... Ryan, who was most wonderful in dealing with all the stresses, is writing up something more detailed, which he may or may not post somewhere like Facebook, but here's my *slightly* shorter take:
We got to the airport in Raleigh and our flight to Chicago was close to an hour late. Well, cool, we had a decently long layover. We get up to the front of the baggage line and by then our flight was an hour and a half late. No longer cool, we wouldn't make our connection. So, Ryan called their customer service (the woman at the counter apparently couldn't find anything and told us to call them), got rescheduled on a new flight from Chicago to LA that would still get us there in time for our flight to Kona (on the Big Island), with a much shorter layover. Our flight ended up being much later than that, even, including time spent just sitting on the runway because we weren't allowed to leave yet. Apparently there was a big storm near Chicago that was delaying a bunch of flights...our plane had even had to go all the way back to the airport for more fuel before making its way to North Carolina. Anyway, we eventually took off and I retained hope that maybe our flight to LA would also be delayed, just the right amount that we'd still make our connection to Kona.
No such luck. We missed our flight to LA. So, Ryan got on the phone at one of the Rebooking Centers and we eventually got new flights. Chicago to Las Vegas, spending the night there, and then Las Vegas to Honolulu, and then Honolulu to Kona. And a schedule change request was sent for our suitcase...assuming they could find it. We had a big break before our flight to Las Vegas, so I tried calling my mom to maybe do dinner with her, since she happened to be in Chicago at the time. But alas, no dinner with mom, she was busy and didn't even get my message until after our flight left. But we did eat a big, slow, relaxing dinner in the Chicago airport.
The flight to Las Vegas ended up being a little late, but we didn't care, as we had about a nine hour layover. We ended up sleeping in the Las Vegas airport for about three hours (sadly couldn't find anywhere dark), and then looking for our next flight a bit after 4:00 when people started being around the terminal (excluding the others trying to sleep or the few staff) and making noise. We looked at the monitors...flights said D13, D6, D...lots of stuff. Ours? Said "4". We had checked D4 the night before, since there was another flight to Honolulu at 1:15 I think that was also out of gate 4. D4 was not the gate, it was empty. So, we took the tram to gates A, B, and C, hoping we might find something. We kept walking and found nothing before meeting the security exit. Back-tracked to find a security guard lounging around and asked him. Apparently gate 4 is in the other, international, terminal. Cool, thanks for posting signs (NOT). He told us how to get to the shuttle. We waited for a while, the economy parking van went by four times, Ryan finally asked the guy driving about the shuttle. Apparently, it starts running at 6:00, but he was awesome and offered to drive us over.
We got over to the other terminal and found out that you're not able to start checking in until 6:20 AM. I guess that's why the shuttle doesn't run until 6:00...but you'd think they'd note that on the sign or something. So, we chilled in the lobby until 6:15, then went and stood in the line with the other people who had arrived. We eventually got up to the front...and they couldn't find our flight records (American had done the rest of the flights and then put us on Hawaiian for the last two legs). After being those customers everyone else in line hates because three of the staff had to help us and we took like ten or more minutes, they found our records (not attached to our names), and got us tickets. Yay! But apparently they couldn't give us boarding passes for the flight from Honolulu to Kona because it's an inner-island flight and this one was international? (We assumed it was just "agriculturally" international.) Anyway, we were to pick up our boarding passes at the first gate desk after entering the inner-island section of the airport in Honolulu.
The flight to Honolulu went fine, it was even about on time for once. We got to Honolulu, and rushed to the inner-island section. We even found our gate (and there were no others nearby), but the line for the counter was huge. Eventually, when they were finishing up the last rows of boarding, Ryan went and asked the person taking tickets while I waited in line, and she said we weren't checked in, but that there was a flight like 35 minutes later at a different gate and to try to get on that one. We left the line we'd been standing in and walked to the other gate, where we waited in a much shorter line. We finally got to the counter and she searched around for a while and told us she couldn't do anything for us and to go back to the gate we'd previously been at. So, we went back and stood in the super-long line. We missed the next flight too, but he put us on standby for the one after that. We didn't make it, got automatically transferred to the next flight (close to an hour later), which they didn't actually tell us until Ryan went and waited in the now-depleted line again, and sat some more. They got as far as final boarding and we heard them call out for missing people. Ryan ran over and asked if they might *now* have spots (he'd asked quite a few times for both that flight and the one before), and she said yes, last two spots on the plane (nowhere near each other, but at that point we didn't care, plus the last flight was pretty short)!
So, we finally made it. And, more astoundingly, perhaps, our baggage change worked out too, so it had come in on our post-Chicago originally-scheduled flight, rather than on the next-day equivalent of our first day's flight, which would have gotten in five hours later, or stranded in Las Vegas because they couldn't find our records. So, we had our bag, we went and got our rental car, and we are situated. We woke up a little after 5:00 AM this morning, so I think our bodies are super-confused. But, we're here, and for now we're taking comfort in that fact. :)
We were thinking of trying to change our flights out next Friday to be early early morning and go to Boston, so we could attend my grandmother's funeral Saturday morning, but I think after the travel stresses and losing a day in Hawaii, that I just can't bring myself to call American Airlines. I just want our trip home to run smoothly. With our current luck, we probably wouldn't make it to Boston until Sunday anyway.
Now...to relax.
We got to the airport in Raleigh and our flight to Chicago was close to an hour late. Well, cool, we had a decently long layover. We get up to the front of the baggage line and by then our flight was an hour and a half late. No longer cool, we wouldn't make our connection. So, Ryan called their customer service (the woman at the counter apparently couldn't find anything and told us to call them), got rescheduled on a new flight from Chicago to LA that would still get us there in time for our flight to Kona (on the Big Island), with a much shorter layover. Our flight ended up being much later than that, even, including time spent just sitting on the runway because we weren't allowed to leave yet. Apparently there was a big storm near Chicago that was delaying a bunch of flights...our plane had even had to go all the way back to the airport for more fuel before making its way to North Carolina. Anyway, we eventually took off and I retained hope that maybe our flight to LA would also be delayed, just the right amount that we'd still make our connection to Kona.
No such luck. We missed our flight to LA. So, Ryan got on the phone at one of the Rebooking Centers and we eventually got new flights. Chicago to Las Vegas, spending the night there, and then Las Vegas to Honolulu, and then Honolulu to Kona. And a schedule change request was sent for our suitcase...assuming they could find it. We had a big break before our flight to Las Vegas, so I tried calling my mom to maybe do dinner with her, since she happened to be in Chicago at the time. But alas, no dinner with mom, she was busy and didn't even get my message until after our flight left. But we did eat a big, slow, relaxing dinner in the Chicago airport.
The flight to Las Vegas ended up being a little late, but we didn't care, as we had about a nine hour layover. We ended up sleeping in the Las Vegas airport for about three hours (sadly couldn't find anywhere dark), and then looking for our next flight a bit after 4:00 when people started being around the terminal (excluding the others trying to sleep or the few staff) and making noise. We looked at the monitors...flights said D13, D6, D...lots of stuff. Ours? Said "4". We had checked D4 the night before, since there was another flight to Honolulu at 1:15 I think that was also out of gate 4. D4 was not the gate, it was empty. So, we took the tram to gates A, B, and C, hoping we might find something. We kept walking and found nothing before meeting the security exit. Back-tracked to find a security guard lounging around and asked him. Apparently gate 4 is in the other, international, terminal. Cool, thanks for posting signs (NOT). He told us how to get to the shuttle. We waited for a while, the economy parking van went by four times, Ryan finally asked the guy driving about the shuttle. Apparently, it starts running at 6:00, but he was awesome and offered to drive us over.
We got over to the other terminal and found out that you're not able to start checking in until 6:20 AM. I guess that's why the shuttle doesn't run until 6:00...but you'd think they'd note that on the sign or something. So, we chilled in the lobby until 6:15, then went and stood in the line with the other people who had arrived. We eventually got up to the front...and they couldn't find our flight records (American had done the rest of the flights and then put us on Hawaiian for the last two legs). After being those customers everyone else in line hates because three of the staff had to help us and we took like ten or more minutes, they found our records (not attached to our names), and got us tickets. Yay! But apparently they couldn't give us boarding passes for the flight from Honolulu to Kona because it's an inner-island flight and this one was international? (We assumed it was just "agriculturally" international.) Anyway, we were to pick up our boarding passes at the first gate desk after entering the inner-island section of the airport in Honolulu.
The flight to Honolulu went fine, it was even about on time for once. We got to Honolulu, and rushed to the inner-island section. We even found our gate (and there were no others nearby), but the line for the counter was huge. Eventually, when they were finishing up the last rows of boarding, Ryan went and asked the person taking tickets while I waited in line, and she said we weren't checked in, but that there was a flight like 35 minutes later at a different gate and to try to get on that one. We left the line we'd been standing in and walked to the other gate, where we waited in a much shorter line. We finally got to the counter and she searched around for a while and told us she couldn't do anything for us and to go back to the gate we'd previously been at. So, we went back and stood in the super-long line. We missed the next flight too, but he put us on standby for the one after that. We didn't make it, got automatically transferred to the next flight (close to an hour later), which they didn't actually tell us until Ryan went and waited in the now-depleted line again, and sat some more. They got as far as final boarding and we heard them call out for missing people. Ryan ran over and asked if they might *now* have spots (he'd asked quite a few times for both that flight and the one before), and she said yes, last two spots on the plane (nowhere near each other, but at that point we didn't care, plus the last flight was pretty short)!
So, we finally made it. And, more astoundingly, perhaps, our baggage change worked out too, so it had come in on our post-Chicago originally-scheduled flight, rather than on the next-day equivalent of our first day's flight, which would have gotten in five hours later, or stranded in Las Vegas because they couldn't find our records. So, we had our bag, we went and got our rental car, and we are situated. We woke up a little after 5:00 AM this morning, so I think our bodies are super-confused. But, we're here, and for now we're taking comfort in that fact. :)
We were thinking of trying to change our flights out next Friday to be early early morning and go to Boston, so we could attend my grandmother's funeral Saturday morning, but I think after the travel stresses and losing a day in Hawaii, that I just can't bring myself to call American Airlines. I just want our trip home to run smoothly. With our current luck, we probably wouldn't make it to Boston until Sunday anyway.
Now...to relax.