Greetings all, Part 1 is about our travel delays so skip to part 2 if you just want the actual fun vaca parts.
As my sister will tell you I have always been the one who crammed every inch of our trips with things to do. And while always enjoying our trips I'm often feeling some FOMO and missing something important. Well, at 65 (sister is 71) I've made peace with down time!! And realizing I will never "see everything" unless I move there, here's my latest trip :
Scotland! How green, how beautiful and how friendly!! Especially Glasgow- which I think is the friendliest city I've ever visited. We had massive delays leaving Pgh. Knew at the parking lot we were delayed too long to make our connecting flight in JFK. I think our original flight was to leave Pgh at 4:30 ish pm and boarding in JFK at 8:30. We now weren't leaving Pgh in time to make boarding in JFK. Attendant offered a reroute through Amsterdam that was boarding JFK at 1 am or a good bet that our JFK flight might be delayed. We decided to keep the first flight and sat in the airport as our flight got further delayed. Thanks to the Delta app , finally conceded and chose the 1 am AMS flight joking about how long we would sit in JFK. Of course the joke was on us. More delays and finally a flight out of Pgh. Then mechanical trouble and had to deplane (I really HATE deplaning), run 10 gates to another gate . More delays. Worrying that we would miss the 1 am flight to AMS!! Finally make it to JFK and sprint from one terminal to another to make boarding. (After years of back problems, I am grateful for two years of pilates physical therapy and a 30 lb weight loss!!) Made it to AMS. Waiting at the gate in AMS for our flight to Edinburgh I reserved bus tix to take us from Edinburgh to Glasgow where our vacation would begin and 5 minutes later was told our plane had mechanical problems and it was cancelled,. See the desk for rebooking and hotel vouchers. Then they said "Wait, Good news we found a plane" and then "wait, its not big enough for everyone". I thought this was going to be the Hunger Games of travel!! Yay, our names weren't called to stay behind so we sprinted again 15 gates back to another plane. Made it to Edinburgh but missed our scheduled bus tix. But of course our luggage decided to stay at JFK. About an hour filing our missing luggage report with an assistant who ensured me it would be delivered to my hotel the next day. I was very skeptical but he was right. For gosh sakes even I couldn't get out of JFK that fast and with that much assurance!! About 12 hours past our planned arrival we make it to Glasgow!
Lessons learned- I will plan for day 1 to be down time if possible, especially the way air travel seems to be headed. The mental gymnastics of "what if this happens, then what do we do" are exhausting. I know its necessary to have a planned vacation but we were flying into Edinburgh and immediately going to Glasgow (its an hour bus ride so not inconceivable) booked 3 nights in Glasgow, the West Highland train to Fort William (2 nights) a day trip to Mallaig then down to Oban for 1 night (a special hotel deal) then 4 nights in Edinburgh. Worry over the domino effect or losing a day in Glasgow were stressful, of course. Also our hotel in Glasgow did not have any check in after midnight. AND I originally planned to fly in and out of London with the train to Glasgow to save money (I hobbled this trip together using points, free nights, etc) - what was I thinking! Im sure getting our luggage to Glasgow from London would have added an extra (ha) wrinkle to the delayed clothes. We wore clothes that could go the distance if need be but failed , even though we know better, to pack at least a t shirt and underwear in our back packs. I've had delayed luggage before and while it sounds like fun shopping on the airlines dime, its not. It takes time out of your trip and if you're not an average size, shape or height, its tougher.