Thursday 1/5:
Our flight was scheduled for 8:10 that evening. I was at work doing my own thing that day, then all of a sudden I get an alert that our flight is delayed to 8:44-Okay, not so bad. When I got home to do some last minute preparations I decided to check the status of the flight again, it is now delayed to 8:54 without giving us a reason why, so I decided to give them a call, and the agent said it was due to the weather. It was rumored to snow that night beginning at around midnight, so I wasn’t sure what weather he was referring to.
So we got to the airport and could not find the virgin America check in counter. It was hidden behind Eithad and Emitates. An El Al agent actually saw me walking by and told me to follow her to check into the 7:45 flight; funny thing is that she remembered me from 6 years before where I waited by her desk over night when my flight was cancelled due to a huge snow storm, so she just assumed I was flying to Israel that night. We get to the check in counter and after checking in our bags the agent tells me I have to pay for the extra leg room (which I decided to pay out of pocket for a few months before). I told her it was already paid for. She said it was paid for on my original flight from EWR and it wasn’t transferred. I told her that makes no sense, but regardless, the agent on the phone told me that the extra legroom was confirmed and paid for. After checking her system she said that it WAS NOT paid for, but she’ll just let it go. I told her that I DID pay for it, but thanks. We checked in, went through security (long line). Then decided to find our gate before heading to the lounge (something I usually do). So I got to the gate and there were no chairs there, which was weird. We then decided to go buy a couple of things for the plane and then we started looking for the lounge. We passed by our gate on the way to the lounge and we saw the people who were hanging out by the chairless gate going through the gate doors, so we thought it was boarding time, it was after 8 o’clock, sort of made sense. We proceeded through the doors and we saw a stair case that led downstairs…
So we went downstairs and that’s actually where the gate was; I felt like I was in a third world country. I figured we would just stay there since it was basically boarding time. There was literally one person working the gate and he didn’t even work for Virgin. He explained to us that’s there’s a little delay and we have to wait for the bus of people from the last flight to come and then we can take the bus to the plan. Wait…Bus?!?! Where was I? I thought I was at JFK! The coolest part of the night is that Kareem Abdul Jabar walked into the gate; he just got off the virgin flight that just arrived. The gate agent started calling people to board the bus, not the plane; obviously first class first, etc. I then asked him why can’t people with infants board yet, he told me to wait. People with infants get to board with everybody else, how lovely. Anyway, we took the bus to the plane. We walked on the tarmac to these stairs that were enclosed in plastic and made our way up to the plane. Very strange experience, I thought we were in a third world country.
We get onto the plane and we get to our seats. I said that there must be some sort of mistake; I reserved extra legroom. If we fly in coach with DB, we like to get extra legroom because we make a bed area for her on the floor with blankets, pillows…I told the flight attendant that I reserved extra legroom; she responded that my seat was an extra legroom seat. The seat maybe had an extra inch compared to the standard coach seat. So I asked her if DW and DB can move a row up to the first row, they have tons of leg room, she responded no, it’s an extra $199 if you want to make the switch. I was furious beyond words (imagine how DW felt). I thought maybe I should have transferred some more MR points to book first. I asked myself why I listened to my friends who told me to fly virgin.
The pilot then explained why there was a delay. He said that there was construction on the tarmac in LAX which delayed the flight to JFK and since the flight was delayed, JFK decided to put them in their back up back up terminal; they got shafted due to their tardiness. The flight was decent. DB slept 5 of the 6 hours with the occasional kvetch because she didn’t have the room to move since she was in our arms the whole time.
We landed and got our bags. Waited by the rental car pick up area. Of course DB was awake. We got to Alamo, process was smooth. We chose the Hyundai Santa Fe. Car was good. Drove to the hotel, DB fell asleep in the car. I pulled up to the hotel and the valet asked me if he wanted me if I wanted valet. I asked him if there was any on street parking nearby, to which he responded “I don’t know.” I said, whatever, it’s three in the morning, it’s been a long night, I’ll valet for one night. I got to the check in desk and made sure the room was set up for DB, and he said that it was. He told me I had a $10 mini bar credit (doesn’t get a person much). We then went up to our room, DB in DW’s hands sleeping, and we walked in and something was off-we walked into the room and there was a pullout bed from a couch opened, not what I was expecting for a master in a suite, then DW walked down the hallway of our room and said they messed up. That area was the living room, the master was down the hall. They set up the room for a kid, not a baby. At this point DB woke up unfortunately and did not want to go back to sleep. I told them they need to fix it. They finally brought up the crib. DB decided she didn’t want to sleep because she thought it was 6 in the morning, but after a while we got her to finally go to sleep.
What a long night!
