Today is day two of our trek back to Grenada. It was supposed to be a one-day trek, but there were . . . complications. Our plane that was to take us from Dallas to Miami was delayed two-and-a-half hours for maintenance, which just so happened to be exactly how long our layover in Miami was supposed to be. Thus, we landed in Miami ten minutes before our next flight was to leave for Grenada. I sprinted to our next gate while Jared lagged behind to ask a flight attendant if she could radio the Grenada flight and ask them to hold on for just a sec. They couldn't.
I did the Home Alone dash all the way from one side of the Miami airport (my least favorite airport) to the other in nine minutes flat. I arrived, panting, and asked the ticket checker guy if I had missed it. À la Home Alone, the ticket checker guy told me I had just made it, and I should get on now. He didn't look at me, and he didn't smile. Relieved, I said, "Ok, I have my husband's passport too and he's running right behind me. He'll be here in just a minute." The guy grunted, without looking up.
I looked around, waiting for Jared to sprint around the corner, but after a mere 45 seconds the ticket guy said, "The plane just shut its doors. You can't get on anymore." Baffled, I told him that my husband would literally be 20 seconds, and right on cue Jared arrived, but they wouldn't let us on, and the guy still wouldn't look at us. Great customer service, American Airlines. THANKS A BUNCH. I think I wouldn't have been so frustrated if we had missed the flight by an hour and didn't stand a chance, but man, that whole 20 seconds thing had me seething. 25 people missed that flight because of delays in previous flights, and yet, no delay for the flight to Grenada, which runs on island time and where no one had a connecting flight to catch. Yes, I'm bitter.
Generously (humph), we were put up in a hotel in Miami for the night and given meal vouchers for a nice dinner and breakfast. By the time we got to our hotel we had cooled down and realized that, hey, it was the exact day of our 18-month anniversary and so we might as well pretend we were on a free anniversary getaway for the night. Our room had a king-sized bed after all, and hey, one more day of American food for the win!
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| An elevator selfie in our Miami hotel |
So here we are. In the Miami airport, once again. We'll head to the island St. Lucia in a bit, and then have a short layover there before hopping on over to Grenada. We'll arrive a little after 5:00 tonight (Grenada time). Hopefully our six giant duffle bags stuffed full of Costco goods make it! Man, these adventures. They certainly are unforgettable. Looks like 2015 will keep us on our toes after all.
And now, enjoy these completely unrelated pictures of the epic front-yard laser tag battle my husband and his siblings waged in Washington. They're a pretty rad bunch of humans.
At least you were given nice lodgings. I experienced something like that going to Wales for study abroad. I flew from Vegas to Atlanta (but it was delayed a bit due to storms in the east). I had to run across the airport, but realized I was going the wrong way, so I turned around and thankfully my friends were able to hold the flight for me. My friends' and my flight in Atlanta to Dublin was delayed 3 hours due to a thunderstorm. We made up the time over the Atlantic and arrived 5 minutes AFTER the flight from Dublin to Cardiff left. It was a local airline, not Delta (which were the previous two flights), and they said, "Sorry, that's the risk you take flying our airline. There is nothing we can do. You can buy another ticket if you'd like." So, we bought a ticket for a ferry and train which would be 300 pounds cheaper, but added 10 hours of travel onto it!
ReplyDeleteAre you serious?! Ok, that's nuts. Now I feel waaay better about our mishap. As dumb as it was, at least they got u s another ticket and paid for our hotel. Wow, that is seriously authentic. At least it was probably really cool to ride a train into Wales!
DeleteI'm not convinced your in-law's house isn't the same as Kevin McAllister's house. I hope when they go on vacation they have a tarantula to defend the place.
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