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Odyssesy from Venice Back Home
FOREWORD
Mom and Dad generously took our entire family (my family of 5, my sister, and themselves) on a week-long Tauck Bridges tour of Italy, in celebration (5 years early) of their golden wedding anniversary. The tour, which visited Rome, Orvieto, Florence and Venice, was fantastic. To describe it, I feel unable to find summon words that don’t sound trite (see? It’s happening already.), but it was perfect in every way, truly a dream vacation (you can read, and see, much more about it on Noelle’s weblog). I am certain that our children (10 and 8) will remember it is a great highlight of their childhood.
The tale that follows, then, should be interpreted along the lines of (paraphrasing a famous quote from Tolstoy) Happy travel memories are all alike; every travel disaster is disatrous in its own way. That is, while the entire vacation, up to the last half of the trip home, was a perfect, splendid joy; it is the tail-end of the vacation, the almost bizarrely unlucky return, of which it is within my powers to make a reasonably interesting narrative. So just to be clear: Outoing flight; Rome, Orvieto, Florence, Venice; the weather; the tour guides; the food; being with my family; our kids’ behavior; everything about Italy—between GREAT and SUBLIME. Return trip from Kennedy airport on—filled with mishap, to the point of farce.
Onward, then.
OUR ODYSSEY
We flew home from Venice on Delta. Our flight plans had us arriving in Kennedy (NYC) at 15:00, and flying from there to Cincinnati at 19:00, finally connecting in Cincinnati at 23:10, to arrive home in Minneapolis shortly before midnight. By the time we collect our luggage and drive home, that would be 24 hours of total travel. I point this out to the family.
We arrived almost 1 hour late to Kennedy, but that wasn’t much of a concern, since we had several hours to give. Even after it took a full hour for our luggage to be disgorged, and for us to go through customs and then back through security, we still had plenty of time for a calm meal before finding our gate. We ate over-pricedly (NYC is lovely that way; it made Rome and the horrible Euro exchange rate, look reasonable in comparison), noting that our flight showed on time, and also that a mild summer thunderstorm was beginning.
At the gate by 17:30, we were happy to see that our flight was still showing on time. 20 minutes later, Beth notices that the gate agents have thrown a blanket over the gate monitor. What’s that all about? The Departures monitor still shows on-time. Beth checks with the gate—turns out our plane was delayed in Tallahasee, due to storms. They don’t know when it will arrive, but are guessing 20:45. That would get us to Cincy around 22:45, making our 23:10 connection look not so good.
Much time passes. The gate monitor remains shrouded, and still no general announcement regarding the status of the flight. We know something of the status only because we waited in line to ask.
18:30, and the Departures monitor is now showing 20:15—that would give us a fighting chance of making our connection.
19:00. My family are all sleeping in chairs in the waiting area. Departures monitor still shows 20:15.
19:40. Still showing 20:15. Also still no announcements of any kind from Delta.
19:50. No new information, no hint of a plane to board. I get in line to inquire.
20:05. Waiting in line, I overhear various frustrated passengers, traveling elsewhere, vainly pleading their cases. (I know too well that airlines do not take any responsibility for weather-related delays.)
20:15. I finally get to the counter. I politely ask when the flight is boarding. Agent checks the computer, replies “20:15”. I respond “Really?”. She walkie-talkies an inquiry, and passes along the intelligence that the plane is here, probably being cleaned, and should board any minute. I return to give the family an update.
20:20. The flight starts to board (there never was any announcement regarding the delay); concurrently, my son Seth, starts barfing. There had been no prior warning, so we have a mad scramble to get him a makeshift barf-bag, hurriedly clean him (lacking a bag, he instinctively tried to catch it in his hands), cover the spot on the rug, and finally get him to a bathroom, and still board the flight. Not that there seems, any longer, much chance that we will make our connection. Still, it would be nice to be out of Kennedy and NYC, closer to home, in a city where hotels are cheaper.
20:30. Aboard the plane. There will be a wait to taxi, due to the combined delays from the t-storms in the southeast, and those in NYC.
20:30-21:50. More barfing from Seth. Much waiting, endless taxiing, more waiting. Trying to sleep on a very chilly plane, with 1 thin blanket for each of the rest of the family, none for me. Hungry now, too.
22:00. Finally airborne. No question but that we will be spending the night in Cincy. Now just hoping for a good night’s sleep and a quick flight home the next day (Sunday).
22:50. Landing in Cincy. The obvious is officially confirmed—there are no more flights out this evening. Delta has secured us a $50 room (at our expense, of course).
23:00-23:115. The Cincy gate agent explains that we are re-booked in the morning, via Atlanta. Atlanta?! Not only is this a terrifically ridiculous way to get from Cincy to Minneapolis, it is also another horribly congested airport, in the path of collateral weather from the hurricane that is due to hit Florida the next day…visions of spending the entire day, and perhaps the night as well, in the Atlanta airport pass through my head.
I point out the sheer insanity of this proposal to the gate agent, who agreeably concedes the point, apologizing that “it’s late”. I plead vainly for seats on either of the direct flights leaving the next morning. I even offer to split up my family of 5, but there are only 4 seats between the two flights, so that won’t work. She consults the computer for other options. She offers LaGuardia. LaGuardia? Back to infernal NYC?—you’ve got to be kididing! (I thought the airlines drug-test their employees??) She concedes that argument, too. More tapping, she comes back with Detroit at 08:30. That sounds safe enough, so I take it.
She laboriously hand-writes the flight coupons. As an afterthought, she offers to print the boarding passes. She prints only those for the first leg of the flight; she explains that the connection from Detroit is on United, and she can’t print those.
11:15-00:30. We spend the next hour hiking, waiting and busing the length of the vast, empty Cincinnati airport. Finally at the other end, we call for the Drawbridge Inn shuttle, and wait a good 20 minutes for it to arrive. Minor, unproductive barfing from Seth while we wait.
00:30. We finally board the motel shuttle. We discover that part of the reason for the good rate is that it is 10 minutes from the airport.
00:45. We check in at the hotel. 5 people, 2 double beds, no roll-away available—the claimed excuse being that it is a fire hazard. Arrange for an 06:30 wake-up call.
01:15. To sleep. Relief that the night passes with no more barfing from Seth, and no new barfing from anyone else.
06:30-07:15 Catch the motel shuttle to the airport without incident. Skies are clear, we have one of the first flights on a Sunday morning—seems like we can begin to breath easily. I say as much, aloud to my family.
07:30-08:30. In the terminal, through security. I observe that we should be done with security, finally (this had been the third time through, in just over 24 hours). Flight boards and departs uneventfully.
09:30. Land in Detroit. We have a comfortable hour to find the gate for our connecting United flight. Upon exiting the plane, we check the monitors for our gate. Hmmm, why don’t the monitors show our flight? For that matter, why don’t they show any United flights?
09:30-10:10. Ask a Northwest gate agent where the United gates are. She says United is in the other terminal, and gives us instructions for catching the terminal-to-terminal shuttle. Other terminal?!
The instructions involve hiking the length of the Detroit airport’s main terminal, and emerging to catch the terminal-to-terminal shuttle by the Westin hotel. This will obviously consume most of our slack time, so there is no room for a mistake. Therefore, I ask another gate agent for directions, and she gives the same ones. Feeling a little more secure, we continue our hike.
We come by an airport information booth, so I ask one more time about the directions, to make sure we haven’t taken a wrong turn. The agent repeats the instructions to the Westin hotel. Then, just as we are walking away, she calls out “Oh, wait. The shuttle isn’t by the Westin anymore, it’s with ground transport” (where it should have been all along, it seems to me). Proceeding on to ground transport, we find the shuttle without difficulty.
10:10. We get in the short security line (yet again) at the Smith terminal. Then we remember that we don’t yet have boarding passes. Out of security, over to the counter. Obtain boarding passes.
10:20. Back in security line. Because we ticketed less than 24 hours before the flight (or so it appears to United), all 5 of us automatically “qualify” for the full security inspection. That consumes 10 precious minutes. Nonetheless, I’m fairly confident we should make the flight; or at least I would be confident, except for our seemingly un-ending run of bad luck.
10:30. Through security, don’t remember our flight number and gate, but there are only 3 possible gates. None of which, it turns out, show a flight to Minneapolis. We consult the tickets—they indicate gate 1. The monitor at Gate 1 says Chicago, not Minneapolis. The gate agent overhears our consternation-suffused spousal conversation, and explains that the flight goes through Chicago and on to Minneapolis. “So we don’t even have to get off the plane in Chicago?”, say I; to which she replies “Not if you don’t want to”.
So we make the flight, though the agent collecting the tickets remarks that she was wondering if we would. I again tempt fate by observing, guardedly this time, that it really seems like we should be safe now.
10:40. Airborne. A bit paranoid by now, I feel slightly childish and plaintive when I seek confirmation from the flight attendant that the plane does indeed continue on to Minneapolis from Chicago. Not exactly, it turns out—the flight continues, but there is a layover and change of planes. Still, it is the very same crew, so it doesn’t seem like we can go wrong…meanwhile, I congratulate myself on remembering to secure our boarding cards, since we will need them for the continuation.
11:10. In Chicago, with a 1-hour layover. Even though we are hungry, we proceed to our gate first, just to verify that our boarding cards really are all we need to get on the continuation. (I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t be, but at this point, I am very much of the mind-set that only the paranoid will survive.)
I am second in line at the gate counter. After a couple of minutes waiting, the gate agent, with a note of annoyance, states that she isn’t ready to start working on the Minneapolis flight, that will be in another 10 minutes. Unwilling to be put off, I voice my query regarding the sufficiency of the boarding cards. Without looking up, she responds affirmatively.
11:10-11:40. An over-priced lunch (rivaling NYC) and, for me, another Venti from Starbucks (to their credit, Starbucks’ airport premium is only about 10%). As a bonus, Seth’s appetite has returned, vigorously, and he holds lunch down.
11:40. From the same gate agent who previously said we were good to go, Beth somehow determines that we need to get seat assignments. She retrieves me, and we present our previous boarding cards to her. From her, knitted brows, the usual tedious pecking at the keyboard, and intermittent questioning. More frowns, muttering. She asks if they took all our paperwork in Detroit (the hand-written flight coupons is what she means; and yes, they did).
She makes a phone call, the expression on her face slowly eases. She hangs up the phone, explains that the Detroit flight was “not closed out”, so the system still thinks we are in Detroit. While not fully comprehending the mechanics of this, I do understand it is her way of explaining that we don’t, at the moment, have seats on the flight from Chicago to Minneapolis.
At this point, I am very paranoid. With the airlines flying so full now, it strikes me as a real possibility that they may not be able to find 5 free seats. Particularly since this has involved a handover from Delta to United, I am expecting the worst, in the way of finger-pointing and refusal to compensate, should we be unable to take this flight. So I am relieved to hear her instruct us to come up when she calls Zone 1 (boarding by “zone”, rather than explicitly by rows, appears to be the new thing), and she will “take care of it”.
CONCLUSION
By some miracle, everything else goes smoothly, the plane doesn’t crash, and we finally arrive at the Minneapolis airport at 13:15, and thence home by 14:00. For a total of 36 hours and 5 flight segments since leaving Venice, including a single-morning grand tour of the Midwest (Cindy-Detroit-Chicago-Minneapolis).
At some point late Saturday night (or maybe it was very early Sunday morning), I became resigned to the whole ordeal, and even found it slightly entertaining, in the way a writer might come to embrace an unpleasant but un-dangerous experience that will serve as good material. Lacking computer access, I spent over an hour hand-writing notes, which I am just now (1 month later) typing up for my weblog.
In hindsight, I think I was able to achieve this “Zen” perspective, partly because there was no alternative, and partly because the rest of the trip had been SO wonderful. That part simply can not be over-emphasized. Everything had gone splendidly, it was a dream vacation, the vacation of a lifetime, in every aspect. So I came to feel it would be almost churlish, in a cosmic sense, to get too exercised about the difficulties in returning home. (But I did experience a nagging, unexpressed foreboding, which caused me to drive extra-slow and carefully, and did not leave me until we pulled in the driveway, having escaped vehicular mishap and obtaining visual confirmation that our house had not burned down while we were away!)
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