Visiting Charlotte, NC

But not by choice. We’re stuck after storms mangled all air traffic in the northeast. So the first day of vacation was spent in the airport. Let’s see, it started with car service giving us repeated assurances that they would be there in a few minutes (4-5 minutes, then 4-5 minutes later it would only be 3-4 minutes, hmmm). We gave up after our neighbor offered us a ride to JFK.

Once we got on the road, the fog tipped us off that we might not be going out on time. And when we got to our gate, it listed the plane as boarding. Except there was no plane at the gate. Hmmm. We were only about 20 minutes late boarding, but then we were over an hour late getting off the ground. There went out connection which had only about a 30 minute window in Charlotte.

Then we waited nearly two hours in the "special services" line to get rebooked. Actually, the 800 number folks rebooked us, but when I went to a gate to get boarding passes they couldn’t because, in spite of having a confirmation number, we did not have confirmed seats. So I returned to the special services line (where Maria had held our place). When we got our turn, they had to split our booking so we were all listed separately, then during this funny window when there were suddenly four seats available where there had only been three, the agent printed our boarding passes, then there were only three seats available again and I was told I was standby. But, she assured me, there would be no trouble getting on the flight since several incoming connections wouldn’t make it in time and there would be seats. So we were on for a 10:05 pm flight instead of our 2:40 pm flight.

At 9:20 pm, we headed back to the gate to find the flight was now an 11:05 pm flight. Two kids (and their two parents) were far to tired for that schedule. So it was back to the special services desk where they rebooked us for the next day, 2:40 pm and the hotel for overnight was our own expense. Technically we had guaranteed seats, I was told, and the gate agent would ask for volunteers to give up their seats to eliminate the overbooking.

So now we’re in Embassy Suites, with a "discount" price for the night ($119/night after the whopping $20 discount is not exactly cheap even by NYC metro standards). It is at least a nice two-room suite with a lovely lobby. Breakfast is (I think) included tomorrow AM, so that eases the pain a little.

So, maybe we get to see grandma tomorrow…