Vans, Planes & Taxis...

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"If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." ~

Well God must have been slapping his knee in laughter over our plans to get home Weds. night & safely tucked into our beds. HA!

So here's the story...

Our flight from Cancun was delayed by 3.5 hours; this in turn, caused us to miss our connecting flight home. Our airline assured us we'd have vouchers for food and a hotel in Toronto. While not ideal having to go back & forth to the airport with heavy luggage & carry-ons (and no Al as he and Lara flew out on another flight), it was what it was. Talk about taking the wind out of a girl's sail after a tropical vacation. I had suggested to Martha we stay another night in Playa and get on Thursday's afternoon flight but no oh no, we forged ahead. Had we known what was coming we'd have done that for sure. Always trust your intuition folks.

So instead of wasting time hanging out in the Cancun airport, we just stayed in Playa for the extra few hours. That part was fine. We were treated to a free lunch and drinks on the house at one of our favorite restaurants. The general manager Juan hung out with us chatting and he made a joke that it was his turn to buy. What a great staff there.

SO...we got to the airport and no line ups! Weeeee! Until the baggage sticker machine got jammed and we waited forever it seemed for them to bag our luggage. I started to have a nagging feeling this was a bad omen. Boy was I right. The airline gave us $80 US dollars to spend on food at the airport. This was to help tide us over till we got home over 12 hours later. So what does $80 buy you at Cancun airport or perhaps any-over inflated airport?

4 sandwiches, 3 juices, 2 Gingerale, 2 mini breakfast cereal boxes, 2 small milk boxes, 1 Diet Coke, 1 banana, 1 apple and 1 container of Pringles...yep...crazy isn't it? AND, don't even think about using the vouchers for alcohol (frankly just when you need it the most.)

The flight to TO was uneventful but hauling our carry-ons (with sea shells & souvenirs not so dang much fun). Landed at 12:15 am, and had to search the bottom of our purses for change to get 2 carts for our luggage (I was cursing Pearson for charging people for luggage carts) Our luggage had to be the last sorry bags off the conveyer belt of course, & each bag weighed 50 pounds. 50 x 4 = a lot of back pain. It's good I don't know many swear words or otherwise... 😉

By then we were bedraggled looking, Ava had a headache & both girls were so tired but trying to help push the carts and carry bags. Such great girls...

The airport was empty and bordered on deserted. There were no airline reps handing our hotel vouchers... So there we were, not met by anyone and wandering around an airport having no idea what to do next.

The only people that seemed to be there were a few stragglers and us. We asked where to go to find someone who could help us and we were told to go back up one level. So there we are, pushing 500 pounds of luggage into one elevator, with the doors jamming on us, Rory getting elbowed, Ava wanting to push the elevator button (with glee even at 1:00 am) and Martha and I in complete utter disbelief that no kiosk is open to assist us? Better yet, no one that had been on our flight from Cancun was even there? It was surreal...

Once we hit the 2nd floor, we happened to run into the same security guard again who told us different directions to find an airline rep and so this time we just asked her where the elevators were on the 2nd level so we could play musical elevators one more time.

So she says, "there are 2 escalators" to your right. Escalators? What the hell are we going to do with escalators with two carts packed to the hilt with bags? Do I have Evil Knievel stamped on my forehead? I swear that woman did not even work there; I think she wandered off the street with a toy walkie-talkie and a whistle and pretended to be security.

By now Marth's blowing a fuse (I saw steam coming out of the top of her new Corona hat) and I think I was almost giddy with frustration that I was actually not the one blowing a fuse and was just shaking my head mumbling to myself.

Finally, we find information. And then the lady says to Marth in a very heavy European accent "I told you already lady, you go all the way to "B" section; this is "H" section and you need to go through the sliding doors" and blah blah blah. Marth tries to explain that we'd been down there already and she says, "stop being angry at me; you need to rush now or they'll all be gone home". As far as I could tell every airline had packed 'er up for the night because we were asking the homeless people where everyone went and they just laughed.

We were in our own reality show and it was not good. FINALLY we find an airline person, and guess what? They can't give us vouchers because their electricity just went out & can't print the vouchers for us...OMG OMG OMG. So Marth goes hopping up the escalator as mad as a wet hen, to find a supervisor, and will wonders never cease, we finally found a rep. They gave us a hotel voucher and a taxi voucher and then made us walk from gate 18 to 29 to catch a cab which by now added insult to injury. By now it's 1:45 in the morning, we're bordering on deranged, in both looks and mentally wise. Both Marth & I were limping and did not know how we'd lift these bags one more time.

We were dumped at the curb of the DownTree Hotel (the cab literally squealed out of the hotel lot). We look in and no one was working at the hotel desk (of course). So we find a baggage cart, and it wouldn't roll properly. It took us probably 15 minutes to just get in the front door. Through the doors I saw a guy peek his head out from the office; he was obviously hiding in there so he wouldn't be obliged to come help 4 females get their baggage into THEIR hotel. Now I was starting to fume. I had some choice words for that lad, and none of them are meant for public consumption.

We finally made it up to our 8th floor, and as we're walking down the hallway, 4 young rough looking young guys (thuggish) come out of the stairwell (when people come out of a stairwell at 2:00 in the morning you know it's not good). They were tattooed and smoking something. For the first time other than annoyance, I felt a sense of fear as they passed us at 2:00 in the morning in a deserted hallway. They walked by real slow. In the end, there was no issue, but it was a terribly frightening feeling to be with my children and something bad could've happened in an instant, changing the trajectory of our lives. All because of a missed airline connection. I had to wonder, will this nightmare ever end????

After 10 minutes of trying to push that bleeding baggage cart into our room, we collapsed on the bed that had these sweet little pillows that said, "Sweet Dreams". Yeah right, sweet friggin' *&^%$# dreams alright.

So finally the kids fell asleep and I had one dim light turned on to type Al an email. I felt like I was out of some bad schmaltzy 50's detective novel in a hotel room in the very darkness of night.

At 5:45 am on Thurs morning we were up and at it. I think I had one hour of sleep, and that one hour I dreamt pit bulls were chasing me (I should've checked to see if they had a 'certain' airlines names on them. 😉

After fighting with this same cart to get it downstairs, the same useless manager agreed to "watch" our cart while we had breakfast. Watch as in, "go in the back and sleep in his office" so there was NO way after all we'd been through we were leaving our cart. This manager couldn't have been less helpful if he tried.

We had $120 voucher for breakfast and guess what? We had 2 scoops each of the buffet and the total came to $66! What was in those scrambled eggs? GOLD? Honestly...And the waiters moved like Mr. Tudball from the old Carol Burnett show, small little shuffling steps, so you were darn lucky to get one cup of coffee, let alone two. If I ever end up back at the Double Tree hotel again for some reason, I will know I'm in the bowels of hell.

We finally caught the 7 am shuttle and by now our arms are jangled out of their sockets, our eyes feel like we have sand in them because of exhaustion, and the poor kids were on their last legs and all glassy-eyed and zombie-like.

Surprise...There was no porters to help us with our baggage when we got there, and it was another drawn out painful process. I was ready to leave our luggage & walk away from them. Good frigging riddance.

We finally made it to our gate and collapsed. I gave Marth the last voucher of $20 and Marth went hog wild at Tim Horton's and spent every last voucher dollar to buy a bag of drinks. Like we needed MORE heavy crap to carry, but she was so ticked off with the airline she just had to spend every last one of their dollars.

On our flight to Ottawa,we musta looked like we had been hit with baseball bats. We just lay there like a bunch of logs. Home was never so sweet. All in all, our tropical vacation was amazing, fun, and relaxing. I will try and seek counseling to overlook the g-damn trip home.

Will be in touch with those final videos once I'm done physio after the rigamarole of yesterday...

PS Mom brought you some honey from Mexico; guess what was accidentally packed in my carry on and confiscated? YEP, but I managed to get 2 small ones through for you. 😉

PSS we need another holiday now because of all that. However, you'll have to take me kicking and screaming onto another flight anytime soon.

Signing off, with a right arm that doesn't seem to want to work; it's permanently frozen around a carry-on backpack.

Sal - still a little deranged but nothing a shot of Tequila can't fix.

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Comments

[Cindy]

sweet dreams.
very entertaining read, Sally. I'm sure it was far from that as you experienced it. sweet dreams pillow- that was funny! I will say, however, that in reading your many blogs- you sure are resilient and do know how to roll with it. a positive trait, for sure. How wonderful that you were able to have another beautiful vacation with many great memories with your family. looking forward to reading about your next adventure.