Friday 11 AM Leave Halifax Hotel.
Friday 12 PM Arrive Halifax Airport.
Friday 2 PM Board plane bound for Toronto.
Friday 5 PM Spend some time in air and on tarmac on detour to Montreal.
Friday 8 PM Disembark in Toronto after 45 minutes circling airport and 45 more on tarmac. Connecting flight has been cancelled.
Friday 8:15 PM Get in Wrong Line Number 1.
Friday 9:15 PM Get in Wrong Line Number 2.
Friday 10 PM Exhange angry words with Air Canada ticket agent but procure reservation for next day.
Friday 11 PM Shuttle to hotel reserved by Air Canada.
Friday 12 Midnight Register at Hotel despite no call having been forthcoming from Air Canada. We are fully equipped for the evening with toothbrushes and little else of use.
Saturday 9 AM Hotel Limo drops us at wrong terminal.
Saturday 9:15 AM Get in Wrong Line Number 3.
Saturday 10 AM Shuttle to correct terminal
Saturday 10:30 AM Locate luggage.
Saturday 10:40 AM After 4 tries, find a customs agent who will permit us to go through customs on the basis of last night's boarding passes, enabling us to escape 3 hour line (Wrong Line Number 4) for new boarding passes.
Saturday 11AM Find an efficient and knowledgeable Air Canada rep who zips through several waiting passenger crises in record time. We have boarding passes and our luggage is on its way!
Saturday 12:15 Passengers asked to go back to lounge because the plane's stairs refuse to attach to the plane.
Saturday 12:45 PM We are on our way home.
Saturday 3 PM We AND our luggage are home.
We are grateful to Air Canada and its employees for their caution in dealing with massive lines of lightning storms and torrential rains yesterday.
However, it is abundantly clear that never before in its history has the Toronto Airport been closed due to weather delays. That can be the only possible explanation for the too-limited numbers of poorly trained and dramatically ill-informed staff on duty who sent countless customers to the wrong lines, the wrong terminals, and the wrong phones.
We were not the lady trying to meet "the love of her life" in Boston for his 10 day leave who was informed that she would need to wait 2 full days for another flight, and we were not the couple whose dog had already been abandoned once on a plane in Montreal and whom the airline wanted to send to Edmonton without his humans, who themselves know no one in Edmonton. I think the lady headed for Boston was trying to find a train, and the dog and his humans spent the night on the airport floor, thanks to the heroic efforts of an Air Canada agent in getting him off the plane.
A shower! Clean clothes!
15 comments:
Welcome home! I'm glad you made it safely.
when flying works, it works, but oh, when it doesn't . . . . (we had an extra night in Madison last month!).
I don't know why we we evolved we didn't grow wings...life could have been alot simpler~
Ya made it~
I heard those storms wrer bad..
Hugs
Wishing you health, happiness and laughter.
TJ~
http://journals.aol.com/paisleyskys/PaisleySkys
http://journals.aol.com/vaultofsecrets/MoonDancer
Welcome home. You had a truly interesting peregrination. We begin to wonder why anyone still flies.
Bon & Mal
Welcome home. I'm sorry the end wasn't a fitting conclusion to such a relaxing vacation but at least it was memorable and my bet is you taught your daughter a few things about assertiveness, independence, and how to react when life throws you curveballs.
Welcome back! What a stressful end to a lovely vacation! Stacy
OMG! What an experience! One I hope I do not have to endure sometime, but the probability is high. Glad you're home, safe and sound.
Oh my!! Welcome home!!! Time for another vacation! BEAUTIFUL photo in the next entry - how magnificent. The end of the trip will be something to laugh about in the future, but yesterday, oh yesterday! How awful - glad you both finally made it home safely.
Vicky
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vxv789/32872.html
But still worth it, yes?
Lisa
http://journals.aol.com/lici/AWritersAngst
What a story! Take comfort in knowing that you could not, in this case, have made it there faster driving.
I travel for work and I can tell you that is sort of "adventure" becomes a part of business travel. You are also correct that in these cost cutting days, there is far too few staff at airports to get through crisis like this. On my last trip, I had to fight the airline to get home after the first two flights I was booked on were cancelled. I got on the phone and asked to speak to managers, told them to look at the number of miles I flew on their airline and then finally got transferred to another flight that eventually did get me to the Washington DC area, it just was not the airport that my car was at. I called Judi in the morning when I landed and said, "Honey.... I'm home, sort of... can you come pick me up? My car's about 70 miles from here..."
Business travel is not nearly as romantic as people think it is.
Glad your luggage came with you and glad you spent the night in a hotel vs. the airport (the seat sleeping at the airport has its drawbacks!)!
Peace, Virginia
wow.... that was an adventure you never need to have again:):) judi
Isn't it amazing how air travel can sometimes wipe out the benefits of a restorative trip. Luckily, in a few days the glitches are forgotten and the natural high returns.
Sounds like a nightmare! Gosh, airline travel just seems to get worse and worse. I'm glad you weren't on Northwest, where the mechanics have all gone on strike. Welcome home!
Laura
http://journals.aol.com/hope5555/AmIThereYet/ (you've been added as a reader...)
All I can say is, "WOW!"
Judith
http://journals.aol.com/jtuwliens/MirrorMirrorontheWall
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