Here is a travel journal of our cruise vacation. I will begin before slightly before Day 1. At about 7:30 p.m. we set out for Chicago, to spend the night at Beni's parents' house which is a 7 minute drive to O'Hare airport. His parents had left that morning, along with his sister and her family and our nephew. As is always the case, I had a feeling I was forgetting something, and sure enough, once we got to my in-law's house, I realized it was my anxiety meds and my Prilosec. Beni made a Walgreen's run for the hearburn pills but I had to resign myself to not become anxious and try not to get too cranky by the end of the cruise. Fran without her Lexapro can be like Fran with PMS. Not a pretty picture. The next issue to address was the fact that Beni's parents do not own a normal alarm clock - part of the joys of retirement, I guess. He found an old travel alarm from 1972 and set that along with his wristwatch alarm and we hoped we'd wake up on time to leave the house by 5.
It was a restless night. I'd wake up every hour or so and wonder what time it was. I got up and walked to the kitchen to check the microwave at 2:30 and went back to bed. Luckily, both alarms went off and we were up at 4 to quickly get ourselves ready to leave.
My in-law's neighbor gave us a ride to the airport. We checked in and walked to our gate and were ready by 5:30 for our 7 a.m. flight to Atlanta where we'd have an hour to change terminals if necessary and get to our connecting flight. We boarded our flight on time but were delayed half an hour because Delta didn't start loading our luggage until after everyone was on board.
Not knowing where our connecting gate would be in Atlanta, we were a bit worried. Our flight was originally scheduled to land at 10:10 and the connecting flight was scheduled to leave at 11:10. When we landed in Atlanta, it was 10:30 and our flight attendant didn't have gate information for any connecting flights. We disembarked, went to an attendant in the terminal and she directed us to Terminal E. If you've never been to the airport in Atlanta, it is made up of 5 different terminals that run parallel to each other, named A, B, C, D, and E. We were in A and had to get to E. We had to go down a floor, hop a train system that stopped at D, C, and B before getting to A. We went back upstairs to Terminal E and found our gate. It was 11:02. A few stragglers were standing at the desk. We went up to the Delta employee and presented our boarding passes. Our conversation went something like this:
Attendant: I'm sorry, this flight is closed.
Beni: We just got here. We were on a connecting flight that just arrived late from
Chicago.
Attendant: I'm sorry, but the flight is closed. The doors are locked and we are not taking
any more passengers.
Me: But we have reserved seats on THIS flight!
Attendant: Sorry but this flight is closed. You were supposed to be here 15 min. prior to
boarding and since you weren't, and the flight was oversold, your seats were given
to someone else.
Me: But we were on a Delta flight! You should have seen that we were arriving late!
Attendant: I'm sorry, but I can't let you on that flight or I could lose my job. You'll have to
wait in that line to get another flight.
We turn to see a line of at least 100 people waiting to speak to Delta agents to make other arrangements. We get in line. At this point, Mario's ODD has kicked in and he's blaming Frankie
for our not getting to the flight on time. Frankie is telling Mario to shut up and the typical wrestling ensues. Luckily, a Delta agent sees us and tells us to follow her to the "special" area for "special" travelers. Here they offer the same services as outside, but you get free drinks and snacks and a comfy lounge to relax in. Beni tries to get us on the next flight, but that too is oversold. We get on as standbys. There is one more flight to Puerto Rico that day, but it arrives at 9 p.m. and 9 p.m. is when they pull the gangplank on the ship and don't let anyone else board. The next flight is our only chance of catching the ship before it leaves port. I have taken the boys to sit in the comfy seats and am trying to get them to settle down. Mario is still blaming Frankie and Frankie is livid, ready to scratch his brother's eyes out. Fun times.
Arrangements made, we head back to Terminal A to the exact gate we disembarked the plane from Chicago, which is, in fact, the next plane headed for Puerto Rico. What a coincidink! Perhaps our travel agent could have given us a little leeway and given us a 2 hour layover and none of this chaos would have happened. Nah!
As we wait in line at this gate to check in and report our standby passenger status, a woman who was on the flight from Chicago saw Beni holding the Royal Caribbean pamphlet and asked if we were going to Puerto Rico to catch a cruise. We talked a while and turns out she and her husband and another family of five had also missed the 11:10 flight and were waiting to fly this next flight standby. There went our chances. Eleven standby seats? Don't think so. Sure enough, everyone boarded and they called each standby group by name to offer the ONE available seat left on the flight.
Delta's practices and policies seem completely unethical and illegal. If you are selling seats for a flight that holds 200 people, how can you sell 220 tickets? One of the attendants we spoke to said that usually about 10 to 15 travelers don't show up, so they do that to ensure full flights. What happens when they DO show up? They get bumped.
By the time we went to the "special" lounge area in terminal A, we were ready to hit someone. I went up to the counter upset and raising my voice and of course, the attendant got defensive, so Beni told me to calm down and he dealt with the woman. They told us to go sit down while they called a supervisor down to work with us. At this point we are all bummed because we know we are not going to make it to our cruise on time and will be missing one whole day of our vacation. The kids are cranky and I don't mind. I want them to get on the nerves of all those "special" people in the "special" lounge. Maybe they'll take care of us sooner. After about 45 min. of updates but no supervisor, I go and get the boys some milkshakes and chicken mcnuggets. Upon returning, I am told by an attendant that I can't bring food into the "special" lounge. "Up yours!" I want to yell, but instead I calmly tell Frankie to go get his brother and meet me outside. We sit on the floor outside of the "special" area like homeless people (which at this point we are) and eat. By the time we're done, the supervisor finally arrives.
We are put on a flight for the following day from Atlanta to St. Thomas, which is our cruise ship's first port of call. Our luggage is still in Atlanta, but the supervisor claims it will take a few hours to find it out on the tarmac and bring it in for us, but he promises he will personally see to it that our bags are on our flight to St. Thomas in the morning. He comps us a hotel room and we walk all around the outer perimeter of the god-forsaken aiport to find the shuttle that will take us to Wellesly Hotel.
Turns out it is really a Comfort Inn. Its front doors are locked shut at 4 in the afternoon. Very welcoming. There is a line of about 20 other stranded Delta passengers also checking in, so more waiting. The hotel - which claims to be non-smoking, smells of stale cigarette smoke and mold. Lovely. We go to our room, make some calls, and go to a nearby Italian restaurant named Giovanna's, for dinner. A recommendation - don't eat Italian food in Atlanta. It wasn't inedible, but it wasn't good. The 19-year-old waitress talked too much about her personal life and Beni's seafood pasta had Ragu sauce. We went back to our room to go to bed and hope for a better day tomorrow.
Later, settled happily on the cruise, the Cruise Director made a joke one night during one of the shows. "Delta? Do you all know what Delta stands for? Don't expect luggage to arrive." I think I was the only one applauding from the audience.
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