I see, gentle reader, that you noticed the "supposed to" there above. Things, of course, went awry.
The four of us went out to breakfast, swung back by the house to get something we'd forgotten and then Tracy and Owyn dropped us at the airport. Rhys and I had the two big bags with almost everything for the trip. One of them was 52 pounds, two pounds over the limit. I used my military ID card and we didn't have to pay the overage charge. The one positive thing I'd have to say about United that day.
We were a couple of hours early but we headed through security and then down to the trains. Rhys enjoyed the train ride. He was so excited for the trip he could hardly stand still. "Where are we going?" "When do we leave?" "I love you Daddy." We got to the gate and settled in to wait the hour and a half until we could board. Rhys pulled out a Star Wars book for me to read to him. After that we just sat together and waited.
On the plane we had two seats together, I sat by the window, then Rhys, then a nice teacher who was taking a bunch of students to London. Rhys and I both have colds and I had run out of the travel tissues I was handing him. She dug some more out of her bag to give to him, for which he was duly grateful. The flight went quickly with Rhys playing on his iPad and playing with Star Wars skweenkies. He was very shy when the teacher asked him to tell her about them.
The landing was terrible. Any landing you walk away from is a good one, they say, but this was rough. We got off and found our gate. No issues there. Rhys was hungry. Mama had packed us each a bag of snacks and Rhys had eaten some vanilla wafers on the flight but now he wanted real food.
Dulles is a terrible airport for finding food on the concourse. We finally found a seafood place and I got Rhys a salad and french fries while I had a couple of the local IPAs and some clam strips. We talked to a nice older couple who had both done 20 years in the Navy. They were tickled when I told them that Rhys' mama had been a Corpsman.
As we were leaving dinner I got a text from Tracy that things were not going well in Denver. First their flight didn't have Flight attendants. They would be in around thirty minutes late. Then they were told they didn't have pilots and they were running an hour late. Tracy and Owyn's flight was supposed to land in Dulles one hour before our flight to London.
I went to the gate agent and she informed me, in a nasty voice, that they wouldn't hold the flight and that the next one was in the morning, leaving at 0930 and arriving in London at 2200. As I stood there texting with Tracy the agent looked up at me and said "Do you need something?" again in a nasty voice. Rhys and I went and got in the "customer service" line.
After forty minutes we had moved forward eight spots. Rhys had to go potty but the man behind us held our spot for us. When we got back Rhys plopped down in a group of seats, pulled out his skweenkies and started to play, laying in the middle of the floor and making pew pew noises.
While I waited in line Tracy was in the same ineffectual line in Denver and also on the phone with customer service. Mostly on hold. She got through to a human long before either of us got to the front of the line. They were going to get her and Owyn on the flight the next morning and would waive the change fee for their two tickets so they could stay an extra day. Tracy pointed out, oh so gently, I'm sure, that there were four of us affected by this and they were messing up our entire vacation. She eventually talked them into a hotel room for her and Owyn, food vouchers and waiving the change fee for all four of us so we could all stay an extra day.
The key thing to understand, to explain why this is all so annoying, is that we are not staying in London. We are staying near Exeter, in the far South-West part of the country. The plan is for my folks, who have already been in the UK for four days, to meet us at the airport. We are then all going to the rental car place where they turned in their little Vauxhall and were picking up a van for the six of us. We would then all go hurtling across the country to Exeter.
With Tracy and Owyn arriving twelve hours after Rhys and I we were in a bit of a dilemma. Add in the fact that we had no way to communicate, other than email, once we were in the UK and the planning got a bit more important.
We knew there was a train from London to Exeter so we quickly made plans that Tracy and Owyn would take the train down and we would pick them up. If there were any changes Tracy would email Andy, the cottage manager and he could pass us the message.
With that, Tracy had to get on her plane and we were cut off. Rhys was worried and missing Maman and Owyn. We headed back to the gate and began our three hour wait. From time to time we got up and wandered the airport but for the most part we sat and waited. Rhys got antsy and kept saying "I want to go!" "Let's get on the airplane." "We have to wait buddy." "They'll let us know when we can get on." He wasn't having any of it.
We finally boarded, waiting until everyone else was on. Rhys was distressed that we might miss the flight since other people were getting on and we weren't. Our seats were all the way in the back, second from the last row. Imagine my joy when I discovered that the seat backs didn't recline. This is for good reason, of course. The folks against the bulkhead can't recline their seats so if ours went back then they would have been squashed.
Again, Rhys was in the center seat, next to a giant woman. I was on the aisle. We got settled, I pulled Rhys' favorite orange blanket out of his pack, he settled in and went to sleep, laying on my lap. He pretty much stayed in that position for the entire flight; sleeping for six of the seven hours. Between the small boy perched in my lap and the seat back not reclining, I didn't sleep at all. I caught up on some movies and finished my book.
No comments:
Post a Comment