First off, we left on May 25th, Ben’s first Birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!!
Well, women don’t forget labor. I didn’t go through labor with Ben, but his first Birthday tested my sanity. It started out well though…
So I was awake early. I had the weather channel on around 6am and could see there was weather moving through causing delays. I hoped that it would be moved through later as I did not need to be in Chicago until about 3p that afternoon. As we packed and organized and rapped things up, I continued to check my flight status and all was still showing on time.
WELL
At 10:30am I got an email that my flight had been cancelled. I immediately got on the phone with Erle (our trusted travel agent for most Holt traveling families and who I used before). Erle worked his Erle magic and got me on an alternate route that would take me through Memphis later in the afternoon and get me to Washington late that night.
BUT… then tornado Armageddon just HAD to start in Kansas City. My friend Paula arrived early to take us to the airport, but we spent the next 2 hours sitting there a little stunned as a tornado touched down south of downtown Kansas City and slowly worked its way north towards the children’s hospital where my husband was running the ER… so if you can picture it.. in that moment I’m sitting there going “My husband is in danger and I can’t get to my son”. After the tornadoes had moved a bit and we were sick of listening to the tornado alarms we got in the car anyway to head for the airport.
Look how brave we look.
Once at the airport, I was instructed to go to the United ticket counter and have them simply transfer my tickets that were already booked with Delta which was the only option available at the time. After waiting in like, United said “Okay you’re all set” so we re-loaded the car and drove to the other terminal. We waited in line again.. and then stood there for 20 minutes while Delta tried to find me. Delta says I don’t exist. I get back on the phone with Erle who says that my stuff wasn’t transferred properly. At this point, time is ticking away due to the tornadoes and we had already sent away our ride.
We are back to waiting for the transit bus for all of our luggage to ride BACK to United to stand in the line… this is where things started to unravel. The line was going nowhere and I was running out to catch back up flight. While waiting for United, I got on the phone with United. United on the phone said (very nicely by the way so they get half a point for that) I paraphrase “Very sorry… blah blah blah.. in this situation.. blah blah blah.. it needs to be done differently… blah blah blah.. when you get to the front of the line tell them to simply print your ticket. I can see it in my system. You can use that to check luggage back at Delta.” (which I have to catch a bus back to get to). It was at this time when half of the people processing “stepped away” from the United line and the first class lady wouldn’t take anybody that wasn’t first class. That left 1 GUY working, who had been working with the same family for over half an hour and there were still people in front of us. When first class lady continued to take first class, we and others in front of us were like “can’t you just take a couple to move the line?” and at that point we got yelled at very rudely by this woman. I was going to miss my 2nd flight plan and time was running out to get me to Washington. At that point, I did… I finally broke down and cried. For what it’s worth, Mom was pretty impressed I made it that long given the reason we were traveling. It was at this point that I got BACK on the phone with my travel agency and talked to one of Erle’s peers to see if there were any other options. ANY. OPTIONS. Not much I wouldn’t do at this point and cost is not an issue. They were able to find me a late direct flight from KC to Dulles that was on United which would make them much more likely to work with me with space on it.
It was at that point that the red sea of United airlines customer service finally parted and we made it up to the gate. I presented my case, and the guy had me on the direct flight about 2 minutes later (as I was already missing my 2nd flight at that point anyway). We gladly handed him luggage.
There were two glasses of wine promptly downed at that point and I ain’t ashamed of it.
The first flight was supposed to leave close to 6pm. We got checked in.. we waited. Delayed an hour. Okay… we can work with that. I just need to get to Washington by 10:30am the next day so “delay” is fine. Then it became a 2 hour delay… whateves… then it became a 3 hour delay… whatever. Just DON’T CANCEL THE FLIGHT. Finally, after attempting to get out of KC for 12 hours, we finally caught our break at 10pm at night and were on the plane. The rest was travel in the way it was supposed to be. Luggage obtained, shuttle taken to Best Western where we napped for 3 hours and got back up to head back to the airport
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