Back to Reality

We're still holding on to our cloud 9 experience, but coming home definitely challenged that.

In the last post I mentioned it was an adventure. Traveling can always be a pain, but this one was extra special.

We left St. Thomas under the assumption we had one layover in Miami. We then learned there was a stop in San Juan. While we would have to change planes in San Juan, we would not have to in Miami. I guess that's ok.

San Juan went easily. Getting ready to descend into Miami, they announce that those going to DC would indeed have to change planes. Great. But not the end of the world. We land on time and learn that we have an hour before the other flight.

Then we sit. And sit. And sit. And we sit some more. We were sitting in airplane traffic that could apparently compete with the traffic on 495. So much so we were pulling into the gate 25 minutes before our next flight takes off. And we learn our next flight is 40 gates away. This should be fun.

They make an announcement to all those whose final destination is Miami to please let those that have connecting flights off first since we were so late. Great thought in concept, usually difficult to pull off.

They then decide to go even further - "for those of you connecting to Cancun or Minnesota, your planes are not holding and you need to hustle to make you flight. Please everyone let these passengers off first." Ok, now we've gone a little too far. What about DC people? We have 40 gates to go in now less than 25 minutes when they had 2 gates to go in 5 minutes.

Again, great concept but nearly impossible to pull off. How is the guy in the aisle going to step out, let us out, us step back in to let Cancun/Minnesota out going to make any of this go faster? It's not. While we appreciate the effort, it caused pure pandemonium.

People were pissed. Pushing started, yelling started, and for a brief minute I truly thought we were going to have to stand back and duck as a riot started. In reality, the announcements caused a cluster of confusion and fighting, resulting in the deplaning taking longer than it would have if everyone just got off.

Finally get off the plane. I was ahead of Nate making our way through the walkway thingy. The Cancun/Minnesota group were ahead of us. So was a sweet old lady to the right, trying to stay out of everyone's way. Then I hear her yell "ouch, please stop" and I look up to see those jerks nearly tossing her into the wall and yelling "get out of our way". And that's when saucy Kylee came out.

I don't usually get into others' business, especially strangers, but I had enough. So I started yelling at them "back off and calm down, we all have flights we might miss, how dare you push her around!" While they left her alone, they didn't apologize and kept rushing forward. She was yelling out "yeah, what jerk does that to an 85 year old lady?! Can you believe those people?" Poor thing.

We make it out - 12 minutes until our flight leaves, 40 gates to go. RUN!

Get to the gate 2 minutes before take off and there's still a ticket agent at the desk. We run up, tell her our situation, she looks us up and says "yes, Bailey and Meredith... but wait, we have a problem" ...of course we do.

Agent: "It says that you're already on the plane sir." Silence as she stares at Nate, expecting him to say what, I'm not sure.
Nate: "Well clearly we're not, so......"
Agent: "Ok fine, you can board." Really? That's it?
Nate: "What seats?"
Agent: "24 E and F."

Something told me to wait while Nate was rushing to board. I ask her "are you sure 24 E and F? Should we take printed tickets with us?"

Agent: "Yeah, you should. I'm printing them now, here you go."

Tickets said 35 E and F. Awesome. Could you imagine if we had boarded and told whomever was sitting in 24 E&F that they were in our seats when we didn't even have printed tickets?

All that mattered was that we made it. Land in DC and no surprise, our luggage didn't make it. Fill out the form for them to deliver it the next morning.

Home sweet home! Our travels started at 12:30pm that day and it was 12:13am as we climbed into bed. Exhausted doesn't begin to explain how we felt.

3:34am - every smoke detector in the house is going off.

In total panic we run downstairs. Nothing. No smoke, no indication of anything to set the alarms off and then they stopped. We checked everything to be sure, found nothing. Back to bed.

Then they started to go off every 5 minutes for the next 25 minutes. We checked the manuals, the detectors, googled it, nothing. Finally at 4:10am we're able to go back to sleep.

4:35am - phone rings. "Yeah, I have your luggage, I'll be there in the next hour."

5:16am - phone rings. "I'm downstairs with your luggage."

5:17am - attempt to sleep some more!


Never easy coming home from a vacation. But we survived. It's been fun sharing the story at work. And look what Andrew Church did to Nate's office... he's just so sweet and incredibly thoughtful!

PS - my boss totally nailed it with celebration champagne! She gifted us one of our favorite champagnes that we enjoyed out in Napa! Thank you Carrie!