Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Our Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and We are NOT Moving to Denver!

So, last Thursday, we flew to Denver to visit Julie, Jared, Katie and kids. It was not the funnest travel day that we have ever had. And we travel quite a little bit! Even in the last month!

We get to the airport in plenty of time and go to check in at the kiosk. It says that it can't check us in and we have to talk to an agent. We stand in line FOREVER - amid all the agents going on break, crazy. Anyway, we finally get to an agent and we're telling her what it said. She asks for our paperwork and as I'm handing it to her, I notice that it says Wednesday on the top. Not Thursday. You know, Thursday, when we were at the airport. But Wednesday, when we weren't at the airport.

Yep, turns out, somehow I either made the reservations for the wrong day or remembered wrong or something but we missed our flight. **Sigh**

She starts looking to see if we can get on another flight because the 1p, which we were suppose to be on, was full. She couldn't find anything until the next day at 1p. **Another sigh**

Then she says that since we missed our first flight, it automatically canceled our return flight so she had to see if she could get us back.

She's on the phone talking to someone and keeps making faces and saying things like, "A 100 dollar change fee, uh huh, and different in the ticket, uh huh." I can see the amount going up and up. Brent and I agreed that if it was too much, we were just not going to go. Sad, but true.

Then the manager came over.

After a little bit of teasing, you know, about missing our flight because it was on Wednesday and we were there on Thursday, he found us two seats - together even - on the 7p flight to Denver. And he found us two seats - not together but on the same flight - coming back on Tuesday. Woho. Then he looks at the agent and says, "What do you think is fair, $25?" I didn't realize what he was talking about until he walked away and she charged us $25 to change our flight. That's it. It was amazing!

(He did says, "Bet they'll fly Alaska again after this." He's right. They were awesome!)

So, it's now noon and we're already at the airport for our 7 pm flight. We went to lunch at Anthony's and walked around the WHOLE airport and still had time to sit and wait for a while.

The flight was bumpy but fine and we got in 1/2 hour early. Woho!

We get our rental car and start driving to Julie's. Then as a car is cutting us off to fly across three lanes of traffic, they hit a piece of semi truck tire on the road, rocketing it into the air and it smashes our windshield.
Notice how happy I am as I'm on the phone with the roadside assistance for 40 minutes.

It was scary! Brent had little pieces of windshield all over him but luckily it didn't implode.

So, we had to wait at the side of the road for about an hour for them to bring us another car. After getting to the airport at 11 am, we finally got to Julie's at 1:30 am. It was the absolute worse travel day we have EVER had.

But, here are a few things I'm thankful for - because I'm still kind of annoyed and am trying to look on the bright side of things.

  • We did get there. Eventually. And only had to pay $25 for my brain fart.
  • The Seattle Airport is HUGE and had a lot to keep you busy for 7 hours.
  • The windshield didn't totally break. I mean, Brent could have been hit by the actual tire. (On a side note, our insurance says that since it was airborne, it is technically classified as a missile so we were hit by a missile.)
  • Brent didn't lose control of the car and crash.
  • We had a great time with the Denver contingent of the family.
  • And, we ended up being able to sit by each other on the flight home anyway. Because a guy switched seats with Brent. He didn't seem like he wanted to, but he did, so I'm thankful for that!
I think I'll wait until tomorrow to post all the good things that we did in Denver. Because the bad things were kind of bad.

But, another positive, our flight home was completely uneventful!

9 comments:

Angel said...

Yikes -- craziness! I hope you never have a terrible, horrible, no-good travel day again!

Jess said...

Okay.. HOLY CRAP!! I can say I have never been hit by a "missle" but I have gone to the airport on the wrong day.. LOL! I am so sorry. That does sound like the worse travel day ever. I hope you slept well once you got to Julie's!
I can't wait to see and hear all the fun things you did. When I booked Tay and my ticket to Seattle I almost put us on the 6 am flight home instead of the 6 pm flight. Phew.. it was close. Glad you guys are okay. Small miracles. Loves!

Jenny Moore said...

Oh Ashley...that is a horrible travel day.
I'm glad you had fun and it didn't snow on you while you were there!!
So I have to ask...did you get extra car insurance at the rental place or did you just use what we all have?
Just wondering!
Glad you're safe!!!

Mom said...

Boy...it is a good thing you didn't tell me about the car thing. How HORRIBLE...just glad that you guys didn't get hurt and that Brent had the ability to stay on the road. I always think to myself if something like that happened to me, I would probably over-correct!!! Talk about a bad travel day! Glad you guys are both ok!!! And Home safe and SOUND! (deja vu to our wonderful trip to California and I appreciated the "Alexander" reference in the title :)
Love you!

John and Laura said...

I'm sooo sorry! When John was telling me the story last night, after the horrible airport experience, and then he kept going, I couldn't believe there would be more bad news than the missed flight. ack! A missile?? That just makes it sound scarier.

I'm glad they were willing to work with you. It's so nice when you see real customer service. :) Glad you're back.

Chelsea said...

Can I just say yikes! That is crazy and scary! You should just be happy you survived the weekend! I'm so glad you guys are okay!

Katie & Jared said...

I'm glad you didn't start driving home when you got the 2nd rental car. Even though it was miserable getting here it was so great having you here.

Love you!

Kathy said...

I think we should ALL move to Denver! But, on the bright side - you did look at the bright side and what a great story you have to tell about getting hit with a missile and living to tell about it.

Julie said...

Okay, I know I am way behind on reading blogs, but that is an awesome picture! I mean really, how many people can say they have been hit by a missile? Glad you finally did make it safe and sound and I hope you will come back to Denver despite the horrible travel day getting here!