Warning, long read. TL
R my work trip sucked but SW recovered a little bit.
Had about the worst business trip ever last weekend. I know I've said it here before, I umpire slow pitch softball as a side gig at a very high level. Had a tournament in Alabama last weekend with the 18 best men's teams and 16 best women's teams in the world. They are paying to fly me in for it on SW. MKE-BWI-BHM on the outbound and BHM-MCO-MKE on the return. Had to get a hotel in Milwaukee Thursday night since my flight was scheduled at 0505 Friday morning. Land at BWI, the plane currently at our gate has a mechanical, ended up sitting on the de-icing pad for over an hour before SW gets that plane moved and ATC lets us in, so of course I missed my connection. Got re-routed BWI-MCO-BHM as that's the only way I can get there the same day. Tournament was supposed to start at 1600, my flight lands at BHM at 1555. Manage to work a few games Friday night, left the field at 0115 Saturday morning and made it to my hotel room at just after 0200, supposed to be back on the field at 0800.
Weather saw that that didn't happen, completely washed out Saturday, loser's bracket cut, only have the championship games on Sunday. Work one of them and end up with some time to kill before I have to be at the airport. Join a couple of other umpires at a local establishment to watch some football. Get to the airport and the carryon screening machine in the one Precheck lane they are using goes down. 15 minute wait for them to move everything and everybody over to a new lane. Got through that, waiting at the gate and the incoming plane lands, way too many people getting off the plane for a HOU-BHM-MCO through flight. Right when I realize this I get a notification that my flight is delayed three hours. Plane sucked a bird into the engine on landing.
Was told my options were a hotel in BHM then flying Monday morning BHM-DAL-MKE with a long layover landing at 1530. Or see if they got the plane inspected quickly and try to still make my connection at MCO. I suggested a hotel at MCO and they put me on the 0700 flight to MKE if I miss my connection. They agreed. I was told that if I wanted my checked bag, I would have to specifically ask the baggage personnel for it, otherwise it would not come out on the carousel and would be on my morning flight. Missed my connection by 90 minutes. At BHM they have me a hotel voucher printed on BP stock that said I was going to get a room at the Hampton In and nothing else. Landed at 2355 at MCO, one of the APMs wasn't operating and three full flights landed at pretty much the same time. Took me 30 minutes to get from the gate to baggage claim, where my bag was going around on the carousel. Called the Hampton Inn Orlando Airport and asked for a shuttle. Got to the desk and was told they don't take SW vouchers, I needed to go to the Hampton Inn & Suites Orlando Airport on the other side of Semoran Blvd. Finally got checked in and to my room at 0145, with an alarm set for 0430.
Get up, shower, get a shuttle back to the terminal. Try to check my bag and the kiosks won't let me, thankfully the Customer Service station is open and not busy so I get up there, I guess my previous tags were still good and they just had to take my bag and put it on the belt. Flight was only two thirds full, no further issues and I managed to make it home just in time for a Teams meeting for a presentation I'm giving at a conference for my day job next month.
As soon as I got home and got through my meeting I put in a request for LUV Vouchers from SW for not getting me where I was going in a timely manner. They came through yesterday with a $300 voucher for each direction. So a total of $600. A lot more than I made working over the weekend since so many of the games were cancelled.
Now I'm already packing as I leave Tuesday for the World Championships in Viera and then three days at WDW with the wife for our 15th wedding anniversary. Hopefully American does better.
I'll gamble that the AA barclays will be an option long enough. While Hawaiian will still be an airline who knows what will happen there.
We went through Alamo and rented a Jeep, started out at $700+ for the week, but after lots of cancellations and rebooking because of price drops, as of yesterday it’s $490. We don’t really have much planned as this seems so overwhelming to me. We paid $1 each for Pearl Harbor tickets for Wednesday and I’m still confused as to what that allows us to do. Then we have Makahiki character breakfast on Thursday. That’s all we’ve planned. DS wants to find a good steakhouse to go to one night. We will just go out and drive around and just see what we stumble on to do I guess. I’m a big planner so just going with the flow is way out of my comfort zone. I want a relaxing trip, but also I want to do and see the things that make Hawaii special. I’m up for any suggestions! We will be at Aulani from Sunday to Saturday morning. We have an 8:00 am flight coming home. Will be back at BNA at 11:30 pm so we booked the Hyatt Place with 8,000 UR to spend the night and then will make the 4 hour drive back home Sunday morning. Then it’s back to work on Monday. I know we are going to be so exhausted with all the time changes catching back up to us. I hope this is the best trip. I know it’s not as extravagant as the places most of you go, but this is a big deal for us. I’m hoping these long flights go well and I can start talking DH into going to places like Europe soon! The struggle I have with him and smoking is a lot. I just wish he’d quit. 
