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Published: December 29th 2014
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Only photo for the day
There weren't s lot of memorable moments from today we wanted to capture. This was hthe key for our room in Seatle. Our morning started with a much needed sleep in. We packed our bags, checked out and headed for one last look at the lake. Knowing this was going to be our last day in Canada we bought some maple flavoured biscuits and fudge, which was supposed to last the trip home and got as far as 20 minutes into our bus trip. From there we headed back to wait for our bus. There was a wedding being set up for some people at our motel and it was a great day. At 12.15 we headed out to wait for our bus. This is when our day spiralled quickly out of control. Our bus was supposed to meet us at 12.15, however, someone at the Chateau decided to run 15 minutes late and expected everyone to wait for them. Once we got on the bus we were happy and on our way, until the driver estimated our arrival at Calgary airport for 3.50. This is when we did our calculations and worked out we probably didn't have enough time to get our 4.15 flight to Vancouver, for our connecting flight to San Fran to start our tour the following day. Due to the train derailment, we didn't have internet and didn't fully look into our departure and arrival times. We instantly got onto our travel agent, a good friend of Theresa's who was did her best contacting Air Canada who we were flying with. Every stop we were held up a little but we were still hopeful we would get to our flight on time. We checked in online and just needed to drop our bags off and get to our gate. Everything was going well, until the next unfortunate event happened when the wifi on the bus stopped working, cutting of our communication with Kendal, our travel agent. We arrive at the airport at 3.50 and headed straight for the Air Canada line to realise it was very long. The first person we spoke to was well, very unhelpful, she told us we had missed our flight and we needed to go speak to someone else. This second person was less helpful, first she was missing for 5 minutes, before we overheard her say how much she hates dealing with people before being even less helpful than the first person. This is when we had to accept the fact we missed our plane, not a great feeling. This was not helped by not getting straight onto the airport wifi where Kendal had organised for us to be checked in with priority and get through, but not to happen. We went to look at our options and they were very bleak, so we headed to a bar and got a drink. Ryan asked for a beer in a big glass and got more than he was expecting. Again Kendal was back in Australia working hard to get us to San Fran by the morning for our Topdeck tour. She came up with a solution which involved a stop over in Seattle before an early morning flight to San Fran, where our bus will hopefully pick us up from the airport. We were rushed through check in and customs to make our Alaskan Air flight where we got that sinking feeling again before making it comfortably. The staff at Alaskan air were brilliant as we had a chaperone help us through customs and walk us straight to the gate. Once on the plane the fun didn't stop. Outside it was minus 10 with snow and ice all over the plane and runway. The plane backed out, where it was doused in antifreeze to rid the plane of the ice, however they got carried away and sprayed to much in the engine causing it to stall. Just another comedic hiccup in our day. The engines were restarted and we were on our way to Seattle. We arrived safely, knowing our luggage would be loaded onto our 6am flight, which for Theresa was almost the biggest setback of the day. The airport at Seattle was chaotic, we hopped in a taxi before he informed us our motel had a shuttle, which getting in was no easy feat. Standing near the buses, where there were hundreds, we didn't know which one was ours. A friendly man, who welcomed us to his country helped us find the right transfer. He then introduced us to his wife who had their dog. Arriving at our motel we were a little worried as it was the value inn, possible the cheapest place near the airport. The motel would make a good setting for a an underbelly series. This was reinforced when the room card was a dominos pizza add. That leaves us at looking at 4 hours sleep for the night before making it to the airport with plenty of time for our flight so we can hopefully make our Topdeck tour in the morning. Hope everyone at home is well and traveling better over the Christmas period.
It's amazing that just from our short visit to the airport the differences between Canada and USA are noticeable. Most things in Canada were relaxed and so far the USA has been hectic.
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Val jordan
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A series of unfortunate events
That was a good read,but I do feel sorry for you both with all your travel hassles, only needs something little like that to snowball,I know it doesn't help now but it will all be funny holiday disasters when you get back?✖️