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Everyone's a critic.
Nov. 28th, 2010 01:09 pmI love traveling for the holidays, don't you? First of all, we had the loveliest time and I hope all of you did too. No one really needs to hear details on oh, we ate food! drank drinks! Generally, it was a really good time. What I'm here to tell you about is the travel!
FIRST. No body scanners at any of our airports. Woohoo! Score one for travelers vs. the machine! None of the airports were too crowded! There was plenty of prime parking at PDX!
[travel travel travel, hi Denver, travel travel travel, hi NYC!]
We rented a car at LaGuardia airport and drove on Wednesday night from there to Connecticut in the middle of rush hour. I remember the roads being parking lots between NY and Connecticut (and for that matter, between Boston and Connecticut) the entire day before Thanksgiving but it really wasn't bad. The only thing that sucked was getting out of NY over the RFK bridge because there are 10,000 lanes merging into few before and after the toll booths. I-95 was a little slow in parts, mostly in beautiful downtown Connecticut between Stamford and Bridgeport, but what else is new? So we got to my parents' house around... 6:30 or 6:40, which is a minor miracle.
Then Thanksgiving happened.
Then yesterday, when we left, the only traffic we ran into again was at the Whitestone Bridge because of the toll booths. Only 3 lanes were for people paying cash and the rest were EZ-Pass, which is awesome when your rental car actually has EZ-Pass, but ours didn't. Oh well! We got to the airport in plenty of time, had some pizza (hey, it's NY, pizza is required), and got to the gate only to find out that our plane was experiencing mechanical difficulties and they were hoping to get another aircraft locally and if not, there would be an hour delay. Mmkay, we had an hour and a half in Chicago, so we were still okay. It turned out we had the hour delay, which became an hour and a half delay. But I have to say, the ground crew at LGA were very good and kept everyone informed and did their best to rearrange all the connecting flights people were bound to miss, and they said we would make it on time.
Our flight was scheduled to leave Chicago at 8:26. We arrived at 8:10. Then we had to deplane and hoof it across terminals and I don't know about you, but running through O'Hare on a holiday travel weekend is exhausting. In the meantime, my husband (who flies all the time) got notification that we'd been rescheduled by the airline to stay overnight in Chicago, fly today to Seattle, and from Seattle to Portland. Me: Screw that, I'm running to our gate to see what happens.
They held the plane for us. We got on-board with 5 minutes to spare before takeoff time, and then they announced they were waiting five minutes longer for just a few more people, but they promised to make up the time in the air and still get us to Portland on-time. Since the connection was so short -- fifteen minutes from when our plane landed to when it was going to leave -- we figured we'd make it home but our luggage wouldn't.
IT DID! I was so excited. We got home around midnight, which is when we would've gotten home anyway, with all our stuff.
BUT. I had my very own cute little George Clooney moment when the flight attendant came by, asked if we were Mr. & Mrs. Jackson, and when we said yes said "I have a note here for you from the captain." I had about five seconds of WTF-ery written all over my face, but she handed us the captain's business card, a hand-written thank-you from him on the back for being loyal to United because we're a "Mileage Plus" couple. I cracked up. My husband was all cavalier about it and said "oh yeah, they do that, sometimes the captain even comes back and thanks you personally" but he had to admit he'd never gotten a personal note to the family before.
Honestly, I hope I don't have to fly enough to keep getting that kind of treatment but it was kind of sweet. These days, we're more likely to wind up feeling like felons during air travel than simple passengers and while I understand the need for security, I do long for the days when you could just go to the airport and get on a plane with your dignity and shoes intact.
Anyway, here we are. Now to catch up on everything I missed while I was gone, and if you've read this far and have something you want to point me to, leave me a note!
FIRST. No body scanners at any of our airports. Woohoo! Score one for travelers vs. the machine! None of the airports were too crowded! There was plenty of prime parking at PDX!
[travel travel travel, hi Denver, travel travel travel, hi NYC!]
We rented a car at LaGuardia airport and drove on Wednesday night from there to Connecticut in the middle of rush hour. I remember the roads being parking lots between NY and Connecticut (and for that matter, between Boston and Connecticut) the entire day before Thanksgiving but it really wasn't bad. The only thing that sucked was getting out of NY over the RFK bridge because there are 10,000 lanes merging into few before and after the toll booths. I-95 was a little slow in parts, mostly in beautiful downtown Connecticut between Stamford and Bridgeport, but what else is new? So we got to my parents' house around... 6:30 or 6:40, which is a minor miracle.
Then Thanksgiving happened.
Then yesterday, when we left, the only traffic we ran into again was at the Whitestone Bridge because of the toll booths. Only 3 lanes were for people paying cash and the rest were EZ-Pass, which is awesome when your rental car actually has EZ-Pass, but ours didn't. Oh well! We got to the airport in plenty of time, had some pizza (hey, it's NY, pizza is required), and got to the gate only to find out that our plane was experiencing mechanical difficulties and they were hoping to get another aircraft locally and if not, there would be an hour delay. Mmkay, we had an hour and a half in Chicago, so we were still okay. It turned out we had the hour delay, which became an hour and a half delay. But I have to say, the ground crew at LGA were very good and kept everyone informed and did their best to rearrange all the connecting flights people were bound to miss, and they said we would make it on time.
Our flight was scheduled to leave Chicago at 8:26. We arrived at 8:10. Then we had to deplane and hoof it across terminals and I don't know about you, but running through O'Hare on a holiday travel weekend is exhausting. In the meantime, my husband (who flies all the time) got notification that we'd been rescheduled by the airline to stay overnight in Chicago, fly today to Seattle, and from Seattle to Portland. Me: Screw that, I'm running to our gate to see what happens.
They held the plane for us. We got on-board with 5 minutes to spare before takeoff time, and then they announced they were waiting five minutes longer for just a few more people, but they promised to make up the time in the air and still get us to Portland on-time. Since the connection was so short -- fifteen minutes from when our plane landed to when it was going to leave -- we figured we'd make it home but our luggage wouldn't.
IT DID! I was so excited. We got home around midnight, which is when we would've gotten home anyway, with all our stuff.
BUT. I had my very own cute little George Clooney moment when the flight attendant came by, asked if we were Mr. & Mrs. Jackson, and when we said yes said "I have a note here for you from the captain." I had about five seconds of WTF-ery written all over my face, but she handed us the captain's business card, a hand-written thank-you from him on the back for being loyal to United because we're a "Mileage Plus" couple. I cracked up. My husband was all cavalier about it and said "oh yeah, they do that, sometimes the captain even comes back and thanks you personally" but he had to admit he'd never gotten a personal note to the family before.
Honestly, I hope I don't have to fly enough to keep getting that kind of treatment but it was kind of sweet. These days, we're more likely to wind up feeling like felons during air travel than simple passengers and while I understand the need for security, I do long for the days when you could just go to the airport and get on a plane with your dignity and shoes intact.
Anyway, here we are. Now to catch up on everything I missed while I was gone, and if you've read this far and have something you want to point me to, leave me a note!
