And so a new adventure begins. Those of you who have followed my travels may recall that 2019’s unexpected hiccups included cutting our Japan trip short and narrowly escaping what was reported to become a deadly Tsunami, a 3 night
Disney cruise that turned into 6 nights because Hurricane Dorian decided to hang out and not move and of course the added experience of being stranded in Scotland when all of British Airway flights got canceled during a system outage and taking an Uber all the way to London from Scotland so we would not miss our flight back home with an Uber driver that was happy to have an excuse not spend time with his mother in law, so he took our fare
This is our first trip outside of Florida since the pandemic hit and clearly the Universe has decided to remind me it has a sense of humor when it comes to travel and so should I. The morning began with our friends in Orlando who are meeting with us in Hawaii, informing us at 4 am that their flight is delayed because American Airlines and TSA systems are down. I just knew this was essentially foreshadowing for how this morning was going to go.
We booked an Uber to go to the airport and I was shocked to see the pricing which used to range from $10-$12 is now $68-$100 and the closest one is 25 minutes out. 20 minutes comes and goes and we see on tracking that the driver winds up getting off the wrong exit, no where near us and then is not moving at all and won’t answer his phone. We cancel and decide to suck it up with long term parking and drive over ourselves. We get to the airport and the line to even get to the parking stretches back to the exit of the interstate! It will be well over and hour or more to get through that line which is at a complete standstill. No way we’d make the flight. PlanePrincess drops me off to go check in the bags while he sees about parking.
My uncoordinated self is doing a shuffle, nudge with knees and feet to navigate 5 bags by myself to check in. I must have looked like the world’s slowest and most inept herding dog with trying to keep all these bags together and moving in the same general direction. The long term parking line isn’t moving at all according to PlanePrincess so I told him to go find short term parking. That’s gonna cost an arm and a leg but whatever. Somehow after having a $1000 and 6 hour plus Uber drive from one country to another, everything seems reasonable in the name of making your flight. Silver lining, it will be 3 points on the dollar towards my next travel hacked trip.
We board the plane on time and move away from the gate. No sooner do we breathe a sigh of relief that we are on the way and should make our tight and against my better judgement, connection, the Captain announces that there is a maintenance issue. Of course there is
We depart an hour later than we were scheduled and I see we are due to arrive at the exact time boarding for our connection ends. This should be fun
At least I’ll get my cardio in today.
We ran to the gate and the Hawaii safe travel check in to get our wrist band and avoid a 3 hour line to be cleared once we arrive thanks to the United partnership with Hawaii safe travels. We are on board though! United Polaris is definitely worth earning miles for in my opinion.
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