Don't you just love when
a nefarious plan comes
together??
Depends who's nefarious plan it is. Mine? Absolutely!
Let me introduce you to
all the players in this report!!!!
Me!
Well, that was anit-climactic.
There'll be actual prizes.
Or prize.
I don't know what it is yet.
Probably chocolate.
Or maple syrup.
Or something.
Probably not a hockey puck.
No hockey puck? I'm out.
I may also include instructions
or questions in the chapter
to see who's paying attention.
And if my guess is right...
that should be no one.
What are we talking about again?
I know I've already lost interest.
Interest in what? Sorry, I fell asleep.
Shall we begin?
Say "yes" if you think so.
…
For those of you keeping score,
that's three eight-hour shifts
or 24 hours worked in 40 hours.
Brutal
I hadn't really slept in the last
few days, but truth is...
I hadn't slept much for
the previous couple of weeks.
Wait a minute... will there be
MNSSHP on this trip? I mean you've got the zombie costume locked down.
That is... I get one free checked bag...
unless it's seven pounds overweight,
in which case it costs an extra $105.
Vanilla Bean Frappuccino
and a molasses cookie.
I hardly ever go to Starbucks,
mostly owing to the fact
that I don't drink coffee.
But there's no coffee in this
drink and those cookies?
I don't drink anything that comes from Starbucks. Mostly because I don't know what the heck it is.
And a big slurp of the
frozen concoction.
And then there's that...
My connecting flight in Toronto
was going to be tight.
It always is.
My flight was scheduled
to depart at 9:45am.
I made it through
customs with time to spare!
At 9:37am.
Woohoo!
"Did I make it?"
He looked at me and said.
"No."
yay.
But!!!
He then said. "Hang on."
Gotta love him giving you that slight sense of false hope before shattering your dreams.
I did ask him why on Earth
would WestJet schedule
and sell a ticket for a connecting
flight that wasn't even
possible to make?
Better question... Who would book that connection knowing the issues they've had on past flights getting through Toronto and making that tight connection?
And an hour or so later,
they announced that
WestJet's flight to Orlando
was now boarding!!!!
Not that it mattered...
I wasn't taking that one.
I had a four hour wait
for my flight.
I logged onto
MDE and
tried to cancel my lunch ADR,
but because it was for the
same day, I had to phone instead.
Long distance.
And roaming charges.
It turned out to be just
slightly less expensive
than incurring the ten dollar
no-show fee.
Well... that was well worth the time and effort to make the call.
I don't remember what the
hold-up was, but we wound
up taking off about an hour
later than scheduled.
At this point... what does it matter?
Can you guess what score
I gave them???
I don't see negative numbers on that scale...
I couldn't believe it.
I was stunned, frankly.
I'm ticked because of
the lousy scheduling
and they apologize
for not having food?
And that I should have
brought my own???
I've heard of tone deaf, but wow!
"Is this insulting email supposed to be funny???
What the hell! I’m stuck nowhere near my destination and you focus on the only thing I didn’t complain about? For real????"
That's probably nicer than my reply would have been.
"Terrific. How about refunding the price I paid to upgrade my seat for the 3 hour flight to MCO, but instead I get to sit cramped in the back of this DAL flight?"
Seems reasonable.
I will say this:
While the situation
wasn't ideal, and I
still think that connection
time isn't reasonable,
(I've never seen short lines
for customs at Toronto,
I always just barely make it.)
WestJet did answer my emails
promptly. Not always accurately,
but promptly nevertheless.
And in the end, I did get my
upgrade cost refunded to me
at least.
Well, at least you got that back.
As I sat waiting for the plane
to finish loading... I noted
one passenger who had
come... prepared.
This dude had brought
an entire pizza onboard!
I was in awe.
You read that e-mail about bringing your own food out loud while you were sitting in the terminal, didn't you? That guy wasn't going to make the same mistake you did!
The good news?
She discovered that Delta had
indeed, at some point, been in
possession of my bag.
The bad news?
Disney's bag service was closed
for the night and she couldn't
find out if they'd recovered it or not.
Well, there's a slight bit of hope!
In my slightly befuddled state,
I began to wonder how long
I could go with only one pair
of underwear.
Always pack at least 1 days change of clothes (underwear included) in your carry on! Air Travel 101.
I accepted
her offer and staggered over to the
gift shop in search of a shirt and
a can of shaving cream.
Because that $100 might actually be enough to cover the cost of a T-shirt and a can of shaving cream.
"Oh!" I exclaimed (mumbled, really.)
"You found it!"
Well, sucks to get woke up like that, but probably nice to know you had your stuff. And $100 of free stuff from Disney! All your travel issues paid off big time!