John & Colette's Adventures

It started out with entirely good intentions – to go visit Jack before he ships out to Kuwait for 15 months. We had over 110,000 points on our Capital One mileage card which you would think would be more than enough to go from Portland to Newport News, VA. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so simple. After much searching we found we could get ‘free’ tickets from Boston to Newport News if we were willing to accept 2 connections. Trying to save over $300, we agreed.

So, Friday morning at 6:15 we left our house for an 11:00 flight out of Logan airport. It’s normally a 2 hour drive but with rush hour and having to stop and park our car we decided to leave plenty of time. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad. We arrived at the Holiday Inn about 9:30 where we planned on leaving our car (they have a Park, Stay & Fly deal), filled out the paperwork for the car, hopped in the shuttle and got to Logan in plenty of time.

The plane took off on time, it was a beautiful day and we had every expectation that we’d be in Newport News by 4:30 as planned. Looking back, there was one indication the day would not go as planned when the pilot announced that we was about to land at La Guardia but had to wait for ATC (Air Traffic Control) to slot us in. But, we didn’t think anything of it. The plane landed, we found our connecting gate, had a small snack and waited to board.

At about 1:45 or so, we boarded the plane and found to our dismay that the air conditioning wasn’t working! The flight attendant apologized and one of the AC units wasn’t working but it’ll be ok once we get airborne. They closed the door and then… we sat. Eventually, they announced that the ATC was having computer problems and it was causing a delay. They were having to talk to each plane individually before allowing them to take off (don’t they do this all the time?). After some more waiting, the pilot decided to go get in line to take off with the caveat that there were 30 planes ahead of us and it could be awhile.

The flight attendant started passing out water.

A poor woman is traveling with a baby and a 5 or 6 year old brat who does not want to stay in his seat.

The plane continues to get hotter. I feel like a baked potato.

2 Hours later, the water runs out. The flight attendant starts passing out damp paper towels. I start to feel like a steamed potato. The pilot is still saying there are 30 planes in front of us. But I hear planes taking off! Who’s butting in line?

3 hours into waiting, the flight crew declares a medical emergency and we leave the line and head back to the gate. The woman with the kids is in early stages of heat exhaustion. We make it back to the gate and the paramedics come on to help the woman off. She doesn’t want to go! They eventually convince her to leave and the pilot says we’re all to get off the plane to get some relief in the AC.

By this point, we’ve missed the connecting flight in Philly so we get in the line to talk to the gate agent. Fortunately, we got in line before everyone else’s head cleared and they started thinking about doing the same. She was able to rebook us on the next flight leaving at 10:40 PM. We were talking about the likely-hood of making it since it was almost 5:00 by then and you could still see a huge queue of planes waiting to take off. She said we could probably take a train and get there before the flight – easy! So, since we didn’t know when our flight would take off again we went to call Amtrak.

I ‘talked’ with Julie – Amtrak’s ever-so-helpful automated ticketing agent and found there were 2 trains leaving from Penn Station – one at 6:30 and one at 6:45 that would be inexpensive and get us into Philly by 8. Perfect! Since I wasn’t sure if we could make it to Manhattan by the 6:30 train, I booked us on the 6:45. Off we went to catch a cab.

We made it to Penn Station by 6 and looked up at the big board and noticed that train 55, the Vermonter, was scheduled to leave at 6:45. After it, was the notice “2:10″. I had no idea what that meant (or wasn’t thinking too clearly due to the baked potato incident). Off we went to the ticket machine, punched in our credit card and got our tickets.

“Whew! We’re all set and boy aren’t we clever to do this rather than wait for that stupid airline to get their act together!” we said, all smugly, as we went in to a bar for dinner.

At about 6:30 we went out to find out what track our train was on. Now the notice said “2:30″. Hmmmm. What does that mean? We then found out that it meant the Vermonter, our train, was running 2 hours and 30 minutes late!! The only train running late on the entire east coast was our train!

After some cursing we climbed into the line to see what we could do. I got on the phone and eventually talked to an Amtrak ticket agent who was able to rebook us on the 7pm Acela (the ‘fast’ train). But we had to exchange our 6:45 tickets for the 7pm tickets. And we weren’t in the Acela line (although I expect we could have done it in that line), so we went over to the other queue – which was now much longer! 7pm comes and goes while we’re waiting in line. 7:30 starts to loom. Finally we get up to the counter and have another confusing conversation with a ticketing agent. While Colette’s talking with her, I’m on the phone to US Air trying to see what’s happening in Philly. That’s when I found out our flight from La Guardia left at 6:30. We’re not feeling so clever anymore. We decide to just hang onto the tickets we have and get into Philly and then figure out what to do from there.

I’m about to have a stroke at this point. I was just so furious & frustrated! We decide to go outside for a little walk and relax a bit. We stopped in at Borders and got a coffee and lounged around a bit. At some point, we decide to go back in and check on our train. We’re just coming down the stairs and hear a voice saying “Final boarding for Acela service to Washington – Also accepting passengers with tickets to train 55.”

“That’s us,” we shout and race to the track. We weren’t sure if we heard it right, but they let us through and we climbed on the train! Hooray!

We walked the length of the train to find 2 seats together but had no luck. Oh well, the seats were comfy, the train was moving and they had a snack bar. What more could you want! By this time it was about 8:15. The train was very comfy compared to the planes.

We arrived in Philly at 9:30. We just might be able to make our connection! I stopped at the information counter and asked about getting to the airport.

“Easy. Take the R train. It leaves at 9:36 and it’s 20 minutes to the airport.” Too long, I think. Let’s get a cab.

We got a cab and made it to the airport in 15 minutes. “Ha! We beat the train” we cried!

Off we went into the terminal thinking at 9:30 there shouldn’t be any lines. Big mistake! There were 3 very tired looking agents at check-in and about 30 people in front off us. 30 is an evil number.

We waited a bit but it was getting close to the departure time, so I jumped the queue and ran up to the counter and accosted a poor woman.

“Wehavethese3:20ticketsthatwecouldn’tmakeandwegotrebookedontothe10:40. Doweneedtorecheckinorcanwejustgothroughsecurity?”

“What?” she said.

Big breath.

“We have these 3:20 tickets that we couldn’t make and we got rebooked onto the 10:40. Do we need to recheckin or can we just go through security?”

“Oh, just go try it.” she advised and waved her hand to dismiss us.

So off through security – which had no line! We found the departure board and our gate was like B100 or something on the far side of the state. I go off in a run and hit a 4 way intersection and just about miss the turn. I skidded to a stop and darted down the left concourse to encouraging shouts of “Go OJ!” in the background.

I get to our gate and find about 100 people milling about. It’s 10:10.

The gate agent, who was still in a good mood, amazingly enough, was happy to print out our new boarding passes. She does some typing and reaches down for the passes and goes “oops – out of ticket stock, be right back” and wanders over to the customer service desk. Meanwhile a boy of about 10 or so has decided to be her little helper and is manning the desk and trying to answer questions for people.

5 or 10 minutes go by.

I look over to customer service (which has a line of, yup, 30 people in it) and she’s helping someone else! What!? I go over and ask “uh, did you forget us?”.

“No, I’ll be right back”.

She did indeed come back over and said she was waiting on her supervisor to return with the tickets. No idea where he went. Blah blah blah. I asked if she could just print them somewhere else. She agreed and went off and returned in a couple minutes with a new pass.

10:30. No plane in front of the gate yet. An announcement that our flight has had a gate change to B5. The mob of 100 people group up and race off back to the other end of the state. Colette says she should call Jack and update him. She hunts in her bag but can’t find her phone. I start pawing through the back pack but still no phone. Where’s her damn phone!? I tried calling it to see if it’s just buried somewhere, but we hear no ringing. She sits back a minute and figures she left in the women’s room in Penn Station! Crap!

We called her mom to get Jack’s number. Her mom starts telling her that she got a very strange call from some woman who found a phone and why didn’t Colette tell her she was traveling and she had no idea what was going on. The woman said she would leave it at the lost & found in Penn Station. That’s pretty nice of her, we thought. How are we going to get it? Maybe I can have a friend who lives in NYC pick it up.

11:00: we’re finally boarded.

12:15: We’re off the ground! Yay!

1:00: Finally we’re in Newport News! And, amazingly enough, our luggage arrived too!

The next morning we get up and my phone is beeping. It’s a message from the woman that found Colette’s phone! She saw I called and thought I could help her return it. I gave her our address and she said she would drop it in the mail. There are nice people out there!

We called USAir to see if we could get a credit on the missed flights. No joy, but they did reschedule our return for free and put us on a 1-connection flight from Newport News to Charlotte to Boston on Monday. Great! I called the Holiday Inn and canceled our reservation for Sunday night.

Monday arrives and we make all our planes with no dramas. We get to the Holiday Inn and stop at the front desk to pay for the parking but they have no record of us in their computers. I jokingly say that we’re willing to just hop in the car and leave. By this point there were about 10 people waiting to check in. The guy looks up and smiles and says “Sounds good to me. Have a nice day.” So, not paying for a hotel room and for parking in boston more than made up for the train fare.

Oh, and we had a great time with Jack & his family.