The day started about 4 am, with me listening to the sound of ice pelting the windows. Hmm. Unfortunately, I never fell back to sleep, so I was awake when the email came in that there would be a 2 hour delay, with a caution to keep watching for further news, because they might need to move to a full closure, due to lingering icy roads. I work for a VERY geographically large and diverse, but rural regional district, comprised of 7 towns, with significant elevation changes, and buses that collectively drive enough miles every day to drive to Utah from NH. We get impacted majorly by the weather.
They did. That call came by 6:30. I snuggled up with Gizmo, but never went back to sleep. Nick eventually headed to work for the morning, and I tried to occupy my time. I binge watched the latest season of Fuller House (no shame here), did a few chores around the house, but mostly just obsessively checked on flight statuses for our flight, and the flights leading up to it on our plane. Everything had our flight showing on time, but I was VERY doubtful. While the snow (ice? rain?) day made our departure from the house less stressful, it gave me far too much time to think about flight issues. And it gave Gizmo a lot of time to keep his eye on me. He knows what the suitcases mean.
By 3:15 we were on the road to my in-laws’. By now, the precipitation had turned to rain, and the temperature had risen to 58 degrees. After a white (and subzero) Thanksgiving, I guess there will be no white Christmas. DARN!
It was not a fun drive to my in-laws’. The rain was HEAVY. We made it though, and hauled the dogs and the Christmas presents into the house. My mother-in-law served up an early dinner of cheeseburger soup, and miraculously, our little separation anxiety dog (Gizmo) made himself right at home.
We were just finishing up “dinner” when there was a knock on the door. It was 4:30. The car service was scheduled for 5. But it was a man claiming to be our driver. I was a bit confused, because Axis usually sends me an email and text with my driver’s information when they dispatch said driver. I had not received these.
Turns out Axis (a car service company based practically next door to Manchester airport, which is about 10 minutes from my in-laws’ house) had outsourced my trip to a car service company based in Mass, which, in theory, explains the lack of dispatch communication (something I expressed my disappointment about in my post trip survey). As an added bonus, the driver had been visiting an uncle in my in-laws’ town prior to picking us up, and had given himself too much time to get to my in-laws’ house. For those in the northern Mass, southern NH area, I don’t recommend Black Tie car service.
Once it had been established that this was indeed our driver, we got on the road. It was dark at this point (yay shortest day of the year!), and the rain was brutal. The driver frequently let us know that the rain was brutal, it was difficult to see, and complaining about other drivers on the road, while proving he’s from Massachusetts with his driving (Don’t use Black Tie Car Service!). We made it to Logan Airport about 6 though, which was plenty of time. Our flight was still showing on time, but the gate had changed. No big deal.
We don’t typically check luggage for a weekend trip, but we were flying on an E190, and had learned the hard way in May that these really can’t accommodate carry on suitcases. So we checked our bags. Bag check took a surprisingly small amount of time. And the TSA precheck line also moved extremely quickly, with the only hang up being Nick’s belt. But we were both through security within 10 minutes of being dropped off at the curb. For Boston, this is unheard of.
We found our gate, and then went in search of food. That cheeseburger soup is good, but it’s not filling, and while this might be the shortest day of the year, it was going to be the longest for us. We settled on Potbelly’s Sandwiches. This ended up being an excellent choice. Great sandwiches. If we had Potbelly’s in NH, we’d be in trouble.
Upon return to the gate, we discovered this would be a great night for people watching. Good thing too, since we began getting notifications that our flight would be delayed. Well DUH!
I’ll spare you the details of our long evening in Boston, but I will share, that JetBlue’s communication skills still need some work. First, they shared the (initial) reasons for the delay. First was weather (obviously), and second was “customer issues”. Umm nope...no clue what that is, but that doesn’t sound like something you share!!
Next issue? About the same time our plane arrived, which was the time the gate agent had assured us boarding would start, we all got texts from JetBlue saying departure was being delayed by about another 2 hours. Uhh what?! And the gate agent had no knowledge of this whatsoever. She had to call operations in another state to discover that while our flight attendants and plane had arrived, the pilots hadn’t left Newark yet. Awesome.
So we settled in to wait some more. Once the gate agent had been informed that our pilots had landed in Boston, boarding began. This was about 9 PM. Our original flight was scheduled to leave Boston at 8, and land in New Orleans about 11 (New Orleans time). In the end, we pushed back from our gate about 10 pm, with a screaming baby and a VERY loud child that verbalized EVERYTHING happening on his iPad on board. At this point I was so tired (remember...4 am wakeup) that I was nauseous, so I couldn’t even put on my noise canceling headphones.
I slept in 20ish minute increments most of the way to New Orleans. At some point Nick fell asleep for a bit too. We arrived in New Orleans about 12:20 am, New Orleans time.
Deplaning was quick, as was the walk to baggage claim. MSY really is a surprisingly small airport. But the wait for luggage was pretty long. We got our luggage about 1 am, and called the hotel for a shuttle pick up as we walked across the street to the transportation center (basically a section of parking garage dedicated to hotel shuttle and Uber/Lyft pick ups). True to their word, the shuttle appeared within 5 minutes of my call, driven by the security guy from the hotel.
He loaded our luggage quickly and then we waited on the shuttle. A few minutes later a couple of pilots appeared and boarded the shuttle, and then we were on our way. The hotel was literally across the street from the airport entrance (it’s closer to the entrance than the cell phone lot) so it was a very quick trip.
Check in was quick, and we were both sound asleep by 1:30 am. For those keeping track, that was a 22 ½ hour day for me.
They did. That call came by 6:30. I snuggled up with Gizmo, but never went back to sleep. Nick eventually headed to work for the morning, and I tried to occupy my time. I binge watched the latest season of Fuller House (no shame here), did a few chores around the house, but mostly just obsessively checked on flight statuses for our flight, and the flights leading up to it on our plane. Everything had our flight showing on time, but I was VERY doubtful. While the snow (ice? rain?) day made our departure from the house less stressful, it gave me far too much time to think about flight issues. And it gave Gizmo a lot of time to keep his eye on me. He knows what the suitcases mean.
By 3:15 we were on the road to my in-laws’. By now, the precipitation had turned to rain, and the temperature had risen to 58 degrees. After a white (and subzero) Thanksgiving, I guess there will be no white Christmas. DARN!
It was not a fun drive to my in-laws’. The rain was HEAVY. We made it though, and hauled the dogs and the Christmas presents into the house. My mother-in-law served up an early dinner of cheeseburger soup, and miraculously, our little separation anxiety dog (Gizmo) made himself right at home.
We were just finishing up “dinner” when there was a knock on the door. It was 4:30. The car service was scheduled for 5. But it was a man claiming to be our driver. I was a bit confused, because Axis usually sends me an email and text with my driver’s information when they dispatch said driver. I had not received these.
Turns out Axis (a car service company based practically next door to Manchester airport, which is about 10 minutes from my in-laws’ house) had outsourced my trip to a car service company based in Mass, which, in theory, explains the lack of dispatch communication (something I expressed my disappointment about in my post trip survey). As an added bonus, the driver had been visiting an uncle in my in-laws’ town prior to picking us up, and had given himself too much time to get to my in-laws’ house. For those in the northern Mass, southern NH area, I don’t recommend Black Tie car service.
Once it had been established that this was indeed our driver, we got on the road. It was dark at this point (yay shortest day of the year!), and the rain was brutal. The driver frequently let us know that the rain was brutal, it was difficult to see, and complaining about other drivers on the road, while proving he’s from Massachusetts with his driving (Don’t use Black Tie Car Service!). We made it to Logan Airport about 6 though, which was plenty of time. Our flight was still showing on time, but the gate had changed. No big deal.
We don’t typically check luggage for a weekend trip, but we were flying on an E190, and had learned the hard way in May that these really can’t accommodate carry on suitcases. So we checked our bags. Bag check took a surprisingly small amount of time. And the TSA precheck line also moved extremely quickly, with the only hang up being Nick’s belt. But we were both through security within 10 minutes of being dropped off at the curb. For Boston, this is unheard of.
We found our gate, and then went in search of food. That cheeseburger soup is good, but it’s not filling, and while this might be the shortest day of the year, it was going to be the longest for us. We settled on Potbelly’s Sandwiches. This ended up being an excellent choice. Great sandwiches. If we had Potbelly’s in NH, we’d be in trouble.
Upon return to the gate, we discovered this would be a great night for people watching. Good thing too, since we began getting notifications that our flight would be delayed. Well DUH!
I’ll spare you the details of our long evening in Boston, but I will share, that JetBlue’s communication skills still need some work. First, they shared the (initial) reasons for the delay. First was weather (obviously), and second was “customer issues”. Umm nope...no clue what that is, but that doesn’t sound like something you share!!
Next issue? About the same time our plane arrived, which was the time the gate agent had assured us boarding would start, we all got texts from JetBlue saying departure was being delayed by about another 2 hours. Uhh what?! And the gate agent had no knowledge of this whatsoever. She had to call operations in another state to discover that while our flight attendants and plane had arrived, the pilots hadn’t left Newark yet. Awesome.
So we settled in to wait some more. Once the gate agent had been informed that our pilots had landed in Boston, boarding began. This was about 9 PM. Our original flight was scheduled to leave Boston at 8, and land in New Orleans about 11 (New Orleans time). In the end, we pushed back from our gate about 10 pm, with a screaming baby and a VERY loud child that verbalized EVERYTHING happening on his iPad on board. At this point I was so tired (remember...4 am wakeup) that I was nauseous, so I couldn’t even put on my noise canceling headphones.
I slept in 20ish minute increments most of the way to New Orleans. At some point Nick fell asleep for a bit too. We arrived in New Orleans about 12:20 am, New Orleans time.
Deplaning was quick, as was the walk to baggage claim. MSY really is a surprisingly small airport. But the wait for luggage was pretty long. We got our luggage about 1 am, and called the hotel for a shuttle pick up as we walked across the street to the transportation center (basically a section of parking garage dedicated to hotel shuttle and Uber/Lyft pick ups). True to their word, the shuttle appeared within 5 minutes of my call, driven by the security guy from the hotel.
He loaded our luggage quickly and then we waited on the shuttle. A few minutes later a couple of pilots appeared and boarded the shuttle, and then we were on our way. The hotel was literally across the street from the airport entrance (it’s closer to the entrance than the cell phone lot) so it was a very quick trip.
Check in was quick, and we were both sound asleep by 1:30 am. For those keeping track, that was a 22 ½ hour day for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment