The long trip home, or how to spend 2 days in Newark and see "COPS"
We are assigned to the 7:15 am bus for our 10:30 am departure from the Barcelona airport. We get up at 6 am and make sure the kids are up and ready to go.
We head out there and the bus is ready and waiting. And guess who we see? The old lady from hell. Right there in the front. DD Jennifer literally does a double take, and mouths the words, "OMG!"
Tozzie and several other families we have gotten to know are also on the same bus. I'm surprised we didn't get yelled at, since we were the last ones to get on - but we were still before the 7:15 am time, so I think that saved us!
The drive to the airport was about 30 minutes. Upon arrival, the old lady from hell immediately starts screaming, "What airline is this?"
Doesn't matter, you batty old witch. All international departures leave from the international terminal.

Luckily, that is the LAST we see of her!
At the airport, we check in. There are the TSA equivalents there, asking you the luggage questions (Did you pack your bag? Have they been in your control the entire time? Has anyone asked you to bring anything onboard for them?). We get up to check our bags. We were worried about making the 50 pound limit, but our heaviest bag (mine!) weighs in at 47 pounds! Whew! We check them in and off we go through security.
We got to our terminal and there are several other cruisers there, including Tozzie and one of Mark's Club 18*21 friends is on our flight, so we spend some more time together. DD Jennifer goes to the duty-free store to buy some of those huge Toblerone bars - she loves those! Soon, it is time to board our long, trans-Atlantic flight. We are pleased that it is the Boeing 757-200 again, with the video-on-demand screens on the back of the seats again. We settle in for movies - I watched "Amour", "The Identity Thief", "Oz The Great and Powerful" (they were showing this on the ship, but somehow, we never had time for it), and "The Guilt Trip", which made me cry and made Jennifer give her mother funny looks.
We land in Newark, and manage to get our bags and go clear customs pretty easily. Some other cruisers were worried about their 1 1/2 hour connection, but we have 5 hours and are feeling pretty good. Tired, but good. Like, what can happen now? Only one more segment, from Newark to Des Moines, then a 2 hour drive and we'll be in our own beds tonight.
Boy, were we wrong.
We recheck our bags and head over to the gate. We settle in and wait. I fall asleep for a while, until, when it is almost boarding time, DD Jennifer says, "Momma ... you might want to check. The screen says our flight is CANCELED."
No annoucement, nothing.
So, I go to the gate, and the attendant just says (in a most blase manner) "You need to go to that line over there" indicating the Customer Service line.
We wait in the line for 2 hours. And we were near the front!
DH Eric, in the mean time, has gotten on the Reassignment phones. After much unhappiness, he comes back and says that they don't have another Newark-Des Moines flight until Sunday, but that they might have to reroute us through Houston.
We finally get to the counter, and the lady NEVER acknowledges us, never makes eye contact, never says a word to us. She takes our boarding passes and spends the next 15 minutes banging away at her computer and scowling at the screen. Finally, she hands some tickets to us, saying that we fly out tomorrow, connect in Houston. I asked about hotels, and only then does she pull out a list and tells me we have to call them on our own. I asked about meal vouchers - DH is so fed up he is grabbing the tickets and leaving - and the agent says that she can only give us what the computer indicates. Finally, I realize that we don't have our suitcases, so I said, "Can we get our luggage?" Agent looks at me and has the GALL to say, "Why didn't you say something?" to which I shot back, "Because you never ASKED! You never ever spoke to us at all!" She says that her job is just to get us on a flight. She askes us what the piecese looked like and then she said something about going to Carousel #9.
DH just wants to get away from her. We get the kids and head to Carousel #9. We also found the United Luggage Service Desk, and asked them. They were more pleasant and explained that they requested a "retrieval" for our suitcases, but this can take up to 2 hours - someone has to go in there and look for our bags, and they are very understaffed. By now, it is almost 10 pm. I called the hotels and found the Hilton Newark Penn Station that still had a room for $200, and it has a free shuttle. We wait for the luggage, and Eric, Mark and Jennifer all get their bags. We go back to check at the Service Desk, and this time they tell me that they will only check for the retrieval bags until 12:30 am; then they go home and start again at 6 am. So, we wait until 12:30 am - no bag. We head over to P4 and get the Hilton Shuttle - by now, almost 1 am. By the time we check in and settle in, it is well past 2 am. And, I have no clothes (I borrowed one of my husband's t-shirts to sleep in.) Lovely.
The next day, we wake up around 9 am. Upon further review of our tickets, we see that we are supposed to board our flight in Houston at 7:09 pm, BEFORE our incoming flight from Newark even lands (at 7:15 pm). So, clearly, this is not going to work and if we try this, we will then be stuck in Houston! Eric gets on the phone to United and the kids and I go to eat breakfast. At first, they wanted us to go to LaGuardia to catch an American flight, but we only had 1 1/2 hours to get there - not going to work. Finally,they said that they could get us on a flight the next day, Sunday, June 30, leaving Newark at 9, getting to Des Moines at 1 pm, with a 1 hour connection at Chicago-O'Hare. GREAT! We have to go to the airport to pick up our new boarding passes. Now I go to the front desk at the Hilton and tell them that we need another night . . . and they say that they are completely sold out.

They give me a list of other nearby hotels.
We are a bit bummed, and all sit at the restaurant for a while. Here, a wonderful thing happens - the front desk clerk, Teresa, comes over to the restaurant, and motions for me. She says that they had a guest leave early today and now, they have a room for us! Whoo Hoo!!
So then the kids head back to the room and Eric and I take the shuttle back to Newark Liberty to try to find my bag that is still missing, and to get our new tickets. We go back to Carousel #9 - no bag. I go to the same Serivce Desk and ask again - and again, they tell me they don't have enough manpower, but that I am still on the list and they are still looking. So, go and get our new tickets, which went fairly smoothly. And then we come back and wait.
We met a nice lady from Cameroon, who was going back to see her family. She got her retrieval bag and left.
We also met a lovely couple from Manchester, UK, who were also there last night and had lost bags. While we were talking to them, a burly man with an accent came by, followed by an airport police officer. The officer was telling the man that he had to leave, and the man was not listening. He says he has to go to the bathroom, and the cop says "OK, but then you leave". He goes to the bathroom with the officer still following him. After a while, they came back out, the officer still telling him that he had to leave or he would be "locked up". The man is becoming increasingly belligerant - he says why was he going to be locked up, and the officer says "for disorderly conduct". The man now starts to head toward a news stand, and the cop says "OK, I'm done playing games" and starts to cuff the guy, but the man starts resisting and shoving the cop back. The cop grabs the guys head and wrestles him to the floor, pinning him to the ground with his knee in the guy's back - I'm thinking, "Wow, this is just like COPS!" DH thinks about going to help the guy, but he is calling for back up and more cops arrive in about 2 minutes. They subdue the guy, finally cuff him and haul him away. About 15 minutes later, another cop comes back and asks us if we saw what happened. We talked to him and told him we thought the cop was very patient, very professional and gave the guy lots of chances. The second cop explains that they have had a lot of trouble with this guy, that he is there to try to steal cab fares from legitimate cabbies, and that this is a big problem there. He asks for our names and contact information, but we have not heard back from them.
Oh, yeah, the bags. Well, after that, I go back to the Service Desk and they check again. Well, now my case says "closed", which usually means they found the bag. Obviously, they didn't. The agent calls down to the luggage dock, and they can't find it. They have no idea where it is. She even called Des Moines to see if it somehow got there - nope. So, there is nothing else to be done except to file a missing bag report AFTER we get to our final destination. Lovely.
We head back for the shuttle for the hotel. We go to the hotel restaurant and eat dinner, then watch some TV and go to bed - what else is there to do when you are stuck in a hotel room?
The next morning, we wake up at 5:45. We make sure we get on the 7 am shuttle to the airport. We get on our 9 am flight - and FINALLY leave Newark! We land in Chicago - O'Hare, and we are pleased to see that our planes are right next to each other - we arrived in C29, and our outbound flight is at C31! And we have an hour layover - very doable. No cancellations today, and we are finally on our way back to Iowa.
We land on time in Des Moines. We go to baggage claim, and I filed my report on my missing bag. They still can't find it and it is not looking good. Meanwhile, the family is waiting to get their bags. Only Eric's and Jennifer's comes. Now Mark's bag is missing. So, back to the counter and the guy is able to find Mark's bag - it is still in Chicago! He says we should have that bag in a day or so. We head back, and luckily are able to get our pets (a chocolate Labrador and a cat) before the vet closes.
The next day, I go to United.com to see if I can track our bags. I can't get anywhere, so I call them, and they tell me that BOTH bags are on their way to being delivered that night!
So finally, we all got back, after quite an ordeal! Now I know how Ulysses felt in The Odyssey!