Friday, January 17, 2014

Day 125 - The Airport Day

The day where we sat in a line at Norfolk airport for most of the day trying to get Daisy home.

We were feeling so proud of ourselves - we were up and out of the house early so that we could take a nice leisurely drive and see the beach, we even arrived earlier than expected and parked in short term parking. Then we got inside and saw that the switchback line in front of United was full. And heading towards the Delta line. And stretching past all of the Delta counters. And turning the corner at the end of the ticketing hall. Well then...

It turned out that due to that crazy little polar vortex thing, the morning flights to DC had been cancelled. Not for other airlines, not the later flights on United, just the first two of the day. We went into problem solving mode - they had auto re-booked her on an earlier flight, but even with 90 minutes until it left it was clear that we weren't going to make it to the front of the slow moving line before then. We called the phone number listed on the email, went through a series of (in hindsight) hilarious mishaps with the automated directory ("No, I said the 5th! The 5th! Not the 10th!") that proceeded to tell us that he was sorry he couldn't help us, he would love to transfer us to a representative but due to high call volume there was no one available, goodbye. We got hung up quite a few times - it's a little embarrassing to get rejected over and over by a machine!

As we researched other flights from other airports, train tickets, even car rentals, we started chatting with our similarly-situated neighbors and had a pretty nice sense of camaraderie going by the time we all got to the front of the line 5 hours later. There were some people that were getting frustrated and upset, but between the guy in front of us and the couple waiting behind us, we all managed to keep a sense of humor and accept that there wasn't anything we could do but wait. We finally got up to the desk with the lady who had earlier been visibly angry with the people she was talking with, but Daisy turned on her charm and got the last ticket on the last flight out to D.C, with a continuing flight on to Hartford in the morning. Sweet! We hugged our neighbors goodbye and wished them well, and were on our way back to Uncle Bruce's house.

When we returned to the airport that evening we were still a bit nervous about her getting home in the face of the wave of airport closures and continued reports of flight delays. She made it all the way to DC! And then she got stuck - the next flight to Connecticut wasn't expected for a few days. But we went ahead and kept searching for other solutions, and she happily made it home by rental car the next day - a happy ending to a day of travel madness

 Look, a beach in Virginia Beach!
 Ummm....
 Wait - there's one! One poor guy who gets to deal with...
...a very long line of frustrated delayed travelers.

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