Three weeks ago, I set off on my vacation. It was the first time we’d traveled outside of the country since COVID. We were going to Norway to see family and take an historic canal cruise, and then we were going to Southampton to take another cruise around the UK. Was I leery? Yes! I’d heard all about what a mess the airline industry was, about flight delays and missing luggage, but I knew friends who did a lot of traveling and they’d never had a problem, so why should we? And as for the cruise, well, I had my vaccines, 2 mild cases of the virus, and 4 boosters. If that didn’t protect me, nothing would.
Things started off well when we got to the airport–no line-up, checked in and through security in minutes, which gave us lots of time to settle in the business lounge until it was time to board the plane.
Unfortunately, the messages saying the flight was delayed started coming in regularly. We went to the gate four hours after the original departure time, only to be told the flight was canceled, and we would be rescheduled. In the meantime, we had to collect our checked baggage and present ourselves at a desk where we would be given a taxi voucher and a hotel room for the night. There was a mechanical problem with the plane, and by the time it got fixed, the crew would be unable to fly again because of the number of hours they’d been at work.
By now, it was almost midnight, and my hubby, not the most patient man, wasn’t a happy camper. We had a canal cruise booked in Norway, and if we didn’t arrive by Wednesday, we would lose it and the money we’d spent on it, not to mention, people would e waiting for us in Norway and I couldn’t get my damn phone to work. It had worked fine all day, but now, I couldn’t access any Wi-Fi or data.
It was after two in the morning by the time we got to our hotel in the east end of Montreal and managed to send our son a message. We had a voucher for the taxi and breakfast, and were told the airline was working on getting us another flight.
The next morning, it had — but with a different carrier which would take us to Nice before taking us to Norway where we needed to be. That wasn’t what we’d signed up for. Worse yet, we wouldn’t get to Norway until midnight the following day–assuming those planes were on time.
We decided to call our travel agent and see if she could do anything to help. She did! She managed to get us on the same flight we were supposed to take the following night, but we had to give up our business class seats we’d paid for.
The airline arranged for lunch at the hotel and then got a bus to take all of those staying at that hotel back to the airport were we checked in for the flight ready to wait again.
No longer in Business class presented another problem since our large bag was now overweight and we were allowed to check only two bags not three. When we explained that to the agents at the gate, somehow they were able to put us back in business class for the overnight flight to Amsterdam, but not for the flight to Norway, but since the bags were going on, it wouldn’t matter.
Back to the business class lounge we went and waited. Once again, the plane was delayed and I was afraid they would cancel this flight, too. The plane eventually took off only three and a half hours later than it should have, which cut our time down for our connection to Norway in the Amsterdam airport to three hours instead of six.
We made it to Norway, tired and jet lagged but happy to be there. We had a great time with family and friends. Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about that and the historic canal cruise.
Living the Dream 