The faculty wives decided that they want to go on a coastal cruise. Or at least try.
Our trip to Miami for the much vaunted Disney Cruise we have
anticipated all year.
The name of the airline who has a lock on almost all flights
out of here is Liat…..
Liat, known for disasters (Luggage Is Already on Tarmac,
Liat pronounced Leeate! Etc). Always
schedule hours of layover in San Juan or wherever. Because they WILL be late. But miracle of miracles, they actually put us on the plane
at THE RIGHT TIME. Miracle.. But wait, why are there so few seats for so
many of us, and why are they moving us about like pawns on a chessboard. Ahhh, enter the infamous LIAT WAY OF
OPERATING. See, they felt there weren’t
enough passengers for a larger plane so they stuffed us all on a small turbo
prop. Now these little turbo props are
fussy, you actually have to balance the people evenly based on weight. Heavy folks in the middle please, light ones
fore and aft... Yeah, THAT feels
safe. So we have wasted a good amount of
time with this baloney. Now we waste more
siting and sweating, and then more sitting, and sweating. I hear the attendant ask the pilot to turn on
the engines so the AC will turn on for us,.
Golly, thanks. Now how about
some damn flying?
So when you change planes you have to file new flight plans,
not a quickie job, and of course recheck the route, run maintenance over the
whole plane since it wasn’t scheduled to be used… and find your slippers, and
get a cup of coffee…….etc. At last we taxi
down the shortened runway, you can look out the windows to see where Tropical
Storm Erica chewed of one entire end. And a section of one side of a two lane
runway, now reduced to 1.5. No wonder the delivery jets won’t come here
anymore. I wouldn’t either. It looks like a death trap. We rattle and flap our way off the end of the
runway before it drops into the sea (You think I’m kidding don’t you? Look it up on Google.) I have an honest to god urge to stick my arm
out the window and flap up and down to see if it helps. We buzz and bounce our 90 minutes into San
Juan, a real international airport with indoor bathrooms and everything. Then there’s local customs, luggage retrieval
(you didn’t think they transferred it did you?). US Customs, USDA check and stickers, off into
line for the next leg of our flight. I
should mention US Customs is always a blast for me. Anyone who knows me knows a have a rather
severe tremor, stress makes it worse. My
whole damn body was jerking. “You seem a
little scared there ma’am. Any reason
why?” Oh shit. I do NOT want a body cavity search. “It’s neurological”. Actually it runs in the family. We got no freaking clue what it is. But that doesn’t sound so convincing. We finally trot off to a real airline this
time. American Airlines. We wait in line with everyone else, more
minutes ticking away on the clock. We
are now two hours late. There is a
picture of my face on facebook at this point, rather scary looking. Needless to
say we have to explain we missed our flight, want to check our bags and get on the
next. American Airlines. Professionals, right?
HAH!!!!!!!!
You thought this shit was finished didn’t you? Would I blog that short? I should mention airports now have hand
sanitizers EVERYWHERE. Must stay clean. We'll get back to that later.
We get to the counter at last where we are told we have to
go to the back of ANOTHER line, the one for “special people”. Yeah I’ll show you “special” princess. Matt grabs my arm and drags me over before violence
ensues. We watch people in front of us
unpack their suitcases trying to get them both under 50lbs. When Matt and I ran into that we MOVED OFF TO
THE SIDE. Nope. More time.
I practically stampeded up when it was my turn. I handed him our tickets, including Liat with
their original departure date. This
genius asked why we missed their plane, while holding the damn tickets. I looked him straight in the eye and said
“Liat is cheap" We get the "look" from our plague carrying desk jockey.
He is sniffling like a snot monster is about to drip out his nose. As he takes both of our pass ports in hand
and examines them. EEEWW. After hearing our problem he sucks more snot
down his throat, takes our tickets in hand and goes to find a supervisor. In the meantime he dashes into the back,
hopefully to evacuate his nose. With
glee in their voice and a gargle, we are told Liat has agreements with not a
single airlines so they can’t help. They merrily (I'm not kidding) tell us we missed the 3:00 flight. We
could go on standby. Standby my
ass. I've been waiting for a year for this trip you bozos. I look at him in exasperation and
say “Can’t we PAY to get on the plan"e?!".
He looks down his nose at me (a snargling trick) and says “Well sure, if
you want to pay (SLAP!) $75. The slap
was my credit card. Which the nose monster who had been tapping his nose with
the back of his hands was all too happy to paw over. This little operation took 20 minutes and two people, he and
a supervisor. What the Hell? Watching Gargles sneeze into cupped hands and
then hand my card and passports I took them with my fingertips like they were
infected with ebola. I actually went to
the rest room and used soap and water to scrub the passport, inside laminated
cover, and credit card. Outside I spent
a few minutes at the sanitizer station scrubbing them and myself thoroughly
Bet you think this is over now… not even close.
Off through more cattle gates and throwing our shoes and bags in a
bucket so we can be scanned a'la Star Trek. Once re-garbed we headed
casually to the gate, after all, we can't make it till 5, right? Guess who was
still casually loading the 3:00 we “missed”?
Yup, not even half way through and the list of stand-bys was obscene,
thank god for emergency credit. So for
20 minutes we watched them load the plane we wanted on and then had 2 hours to
kill. Oh goody, Junk shops and airport
food overpriced. Oh, it was about this
time the snap on my wallet broke… the one holding all the cash. Now open.
God bless long hair, it means we carry pony tail ties squirreled away on
our person and in our bags, one wallet lashed shut.
Now, let’s get to the FUN part. Boarding.
American couldn’t even put us together so we ended up in the same seat
two rows apart. Not the worst and I had
his suitcase in my overhead. As I
settled in I looked across the aisle and saw one of the most terrifying things
you can see on an airplane (insert ominous music here), An INFANT!!! I mean a tiny scream machine with only three
people between us. I yanked my bag out
from under the seat and began digging like a frantic Jack Russell Terrier. Ah Hah!
Earplugs. Cram cram stuff stuff
cram. I now have silicone plugged
halfway into my brain to muffle any screaming yet to begin. Gotcha!
Oh but fate was far more cruel than that. While our infant seemed to have been given a
valium, something far worse arrived.
TODDLER ALERT! TODDLER ALERT! Red lights flashed and sirens whooped. This monster from hell was seated exactly
between myself and Matt. We are still
boarding of course so let the kicking and shouting commence. I slammed headphones on over the silicone
plugs and turned my music to heavy metal, starting with Ozzy in my deafened
ears. Oh and I might have swallowed two
valium, dry….Do you know I could still hear the little fucker? This creature from hell believed every word
out his mouth should be shouted at the top of his rather impressive lungs. Once we took off he discovered the seat back
table and the fact you could slam it over and over and no one would stop you. The parents apparently were either in comas
or didn’t care. The man next to Matt
turned more than once and said something. These parents of quality didn't give a crap and let Damien continue his reign of terror.... for a THREE HOUR flight. I would have gone and told a flight attendant to shut him up, move his
seat or I would take care of it myself and they could call the Sky Marshall. (“Hey
kid, stop yelling and behave or I’ll sneak in your room while you’re asleep
tonight, rip your arm off and beat you with it”)
Upon landing departure looked something like people running
from a burning building. I watched a teenage
girl three rows behind me shove past people and was almost to where I was
waiting. Oh hell no. I turned into part octopus and managed to
open the overhead bin, grab Matt’s suitcase, pull it down without crowning
anyone all while barely leaving my seat.
As escape got closer I decided a hockey lesson was in order. The first thing I did was look at her cute
pink suitcase she was shoving ahead of hers like a snowplow, and slam mine
right on top. I looked at her with all
the hatred I had for little Damien and she took a step back. Smart move, I was going to body check her into the boards if she tried to leave me anywhere near airplane hell. My turn!
I took off down the aisle like my butt was on fire, Matt three paces
ahead of me moving at the at an even faster speed, I could barely keep up.
We didn’t stop moving until we had trotted through the
entire airport to baggage claim, leapt upon an elevator, got to the shuttle stop
to the hotel and were waiting outside at the curb. We stopped and gasped for air.
On my facebook is a shot of me dancing in the hall of an actual hotel.... a late night silent hotel....
