Luann and I belong to a club through our local bank. It is called the First Priority Club and is managed by First National Bank of Muscatine. You must be over 50 to join it. Every two years the bank's marketing department coordinates a trip for its members to visit international locations. This year's trip was to Northern Italy and the travel company that was used was Collette Vacations. As I have a lot to write about with this nine day trip, it will be broken down by the individual days that we traveled and the flight down and back.
Before I begin, I will mention that there are some things that I learned from this trip, regarding travel, that I never really paid attention to in the past. I never realized the difference between a travel company and a travel agent. Lu and I have used travel agents in the past and found them to be helpful from the start to the end of a trip. This time we were using a travel company and we realized from the start that once you hit the airport, they are out of the picture until you arrive at your destination. This will be more evident as we go through the blog.
Our trip started on October 11, 2008 out of Muscatine, Iowa. The group that went was Herm and Lu Ferreira, Pat and Sharon Mullin (no s on the end, we learned this in Ireland), Ken and Shirley McDaniel, Bob and Bonnie Nichols (Bonnie was the bank's marketing representative), Anne Carroll and her wonderful mother Patsy and Doyle and Cindy Tubandt (Doyle has a nick name that we promised to keep to ourselves). Though we all come from different backgrounds and careers, we all pretty much have had experience in travel and love it. Our plane was to leave Cedar Rapids Iowa at 11:30 AM and fly to Cincinnati where we would make a connection and fly to JFK, ultimately ending up in Milan/Malpensa Italy early the next day. It was not the ideal flight plan , but the airline, (Delta) had cancelled the option of going to Atlanta and then flying over to Milan, according to our travel company. We were told at a briefing prior to the trip that we would be boarding a shuttle in Muscatine starting at 6:30 AM. and leaving no later than 7:15 AM. Lu and I were the last ones to arrive at 7:00 AM. which was probably a bleak foreboding to the rest of the group. The trip to the airport is only an hour and we knew that we had plenty of time before the flight. We apologize to the group if we caused them any undue stress.
A gorgeous fall morning (sunny and warm) was the perfect setting as the 12 of us headed for Cedar Rapids. We arrived at the airport and proceeded to check in. This airport is fairly small, but it didn't take long for most of the group to take a right instead of a left and end up at the opposite end of the airport. I mentioned earlier that we are experienced travelers. Check in was very non eventful, except that Delta must have seen us take the wrong turn and had at least 4 representatives at their ticket counter waiting on the 12 of us. We checked in and had a good 2 1/2 hours to departure. With this kind of time, our group did what was natural to us. We headed for the restaurant. After a nice breakfast, coffee and chit chat, we headed for the gate and waited for the announcement to board. The announcement came shortly afterwards and we were ready to board. We had to have a picture prior to boarding, which probably seemed unusual to others on that flight since we were only going to Cincinnati , but did I mention that we are experienced travelers?
The flight to Cincinnati took a half hour less than scheduled and we got there in plenty of time to make our connection to JFK. The weather was clear and it looked like our vacation was off to a great start. We arrived at terminal A and our flight left from terminal B, so we all had to march to the flight schedule monitors to see what gate we would soon be flying out of and how we would get to the other terminal. The monitor had roughly 10 screens listing the numerous flights that would be departing that day to all parts of the country. As we watched that screen with the eagerness that small children have when they are watching their favorite cartoon show, we were horrified to see that of all the flights leaving today, the only delays were to JFK and Newark, NJ. The flights to La Guardia, which is right by JFK, were even going. Bonnie, our rep and good friend, frantically got on her cell phone and started contacting Collette for help. That was when we learned that it was not their issue, but that we would have to deal with the airport. Luann called Delta for help, which informed us that there were weather problems at JFK. We also heard that the delay was coming from the inbound plane that had experienced mechanical problems. Some of the group went to eat, some went to the bathroom, some went walking, others were on cell phones, not me. I went to watch the news to see if there had been a terrorist alert in New York City. The great vacation had run into its first and biggest snag.
After the smoke had cleared and we regained our sanity and confidence, we were told that the plane from Phoenix had left and was on its way. We still had a chance. We figured out that if the plane from Phoenix showed up at the delayed time, we could still make it to the connection for Italy in time. The guy with the nickname that only we know and can't tell (Doyle) was going to sprint to the gate and hold the plane for us if he could, while Bob, Bonnie's husband, was going to block for him. That is the kind of group members we had (committed) We also found out that if we missed our flight, we could get on a flight to Paris and connect to Milan and be there in the morning. We patiently waited and the flight from Phoenix came in 15 minutes early. The gate monitor showed us that there was light rain at JFK, so we all felt that we were home free. All we had to worry about was whether there was any truth to the mechanical problem theory.
Just because a plane that's late comes in a few minutes early does not mean that they will board it and move it any faster. We steadfastly watched the clock run as angry passengers stormed out of the plane that had just landed, throwing carry ons on the floor and shooting at people with cosmic rays from their angry eyes, as they watched their connecting flight leave the gate next to them. It was like watching a comedy, but we couldn't laugh because we knew the feeling. There was only one among us that would act like that (me) so I moved to a corner where no one could see me and hoped that this would not repeat itself at JFK. Well, we boarded the plane and settled down, with a nervous anticipation. We were on the edge and any further delay would seal our fate. It is appropriate to mention that this was a one week trip and we paid handsomely for it. Any delay that could cause us to lose a day in Italy, made the trip that much more expensive and no one wants to think they got a bad deal, especially the experienced travelers that we were.
I have a hearing problem and have been accused of jumping the gun when I think I hear something that really wasn't said. This was the case in seat 28f when to my utter horror, I hear the fate sealing comment. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have been informed that we must remain at the gate for approximately 30 minutes more,while we get clearance from control to depart. We apologize for any inconvenience." If any one has ever seen the movie" The Exorcist", the part where Linda Blair's head does a 360 degree turn, well Luann saw a similar scene sitting there in seat 28E. Eyes red, head spinning, four letter words flying I turned my head without my body and asked her. "What did he say?" She tried to calm me down, but I was gone. I knew that we would miss the flight now in New York. I had studied Italian, not French. I wanted pizza, not crepes. There was a good chance we would not make it at all that night. I was frantically trying to figure out options, but we were all trapped. And then, it happened, the pilot again. " Ladies and gentlemen, we are having trouble getting clearance from control. We are offering you the opportunity to deplane as we may be here up to 2 1/2 more hours. If you deplane, it is possible that we could get clearance and have to leave immediately, so we advise you to stay close to the gate." There was no way we were going to spend our first night of vacation in Cincinnati Ohio when we paid to spend it in Italy. There was no way I was going to hang around the gate waiting for the inevitable. I bolted, looked at fellow group members sitting so calmly, saw the look of fear in Luann's eyes as she wondered, "what stupid thing is he going to do now?" and hustled off the plane to beat the rush to gate 24 where the Delta customer service was. I wasn't fast enough. There was a line four deep at the counter as Luann, Bonnie and the rest of the group started filing in behind me. There is nothing more disheartening to an experienced traveler as rehearsing every thing you are going to say to customer service about how upset you are, demand service, be tough and then have to stand in line and realize that you are helpless and at their mercy. I turned into a kitten in line. I watched as Bonnie and Luann talked to people that could help us get out of this mess and realized that I had forgotten what I was going to tell customer service about their air line. The kitten in line turned into a mouse. All I could do was watch and listen as Bonnie, Luann and Sharon were able to get us on a flight from Cincinnati to Frankfort Germany and then connect to Milan. All twelve of us. They were even able to get our bags off the delayed flight. It was like watching skilled surgeons operating on a patient. My only contribution was to talk to Alvaro Smith (can't remember his last name, but he deserves one for his help) about golf. It was finally done and we were going to depart at 7:35PM, arriving Frankfort at 11:30AM and ending up in Milan at 1:00 PM, experiencing a four hour delay versus a full day. Time for a beer and applause for the heroins at an airport bar. I declined the beer because mice don't drink beer and I didn't want any cheese.
At 7:00 PM, they announced the first boarding for the flight to Frankfort Germany. I always look at the flight as a leading indicator of how a vacation goes. If I get a window seat and Luann an aisle seat, it usually means good things will happen. It's not to say that we will have a bad time if we don't, because we usually have a good time wherever we go, it's just icing on the cake. We like our cakes iced. Needless to say, it didn't happen this time. We were in a 737, where there are three seats in the middle. Luann got her aisle seat, I got the middle seat and an elderly lady got the other aisle. I looked frantically for an open window and aisle seat, but to no avail. We were going to fly for 8+hours looking at the back of people's heads and not having a glimpse of land, sea or clouds. How depressing. As the doors closed and flight attendants were directed to prepare for departure, the elderly lady said something to one of the attendants and shot out of her seat to the back of the plane. To my shock, there was a window and aisle seat together not ten rows behind us. The lady took the window seat and I cried. It didn't take long to make a bad situation turn out right. I took her seat and now Lu and I had a seat between us to pile up our books, magazines, head phones and any other necessary item for the long transatlantic flight. All we had to do now was pass the time.
Luann and I like to travel and our preferred method of transportation is the airplane. It is fast, normally comfortable and you get waited on. However, a transatlantic flight in economy class at night tests us. Luann has the great ability to relax herself, which allows her to get a pretty good nights sleep considering the distractions that are constant on a trip such as this one. Me, on the other hand, can't relax enough on a flight like this to nap for more than 10 minutes. My friend Alvaro Smith (not his real last name) gave us all a free drink ticket to ease the pain and suffering we had incurred in Cincinnati. In addition, Delta offers a complimentary drink with their dinner on all international travel. My calculations told me that two drinks could possibly help me get sleepy enough so that I could get at least 3-4 hours sleep before we landed. I have to have some sleep or I am toast. I did not want to go through my first day in Italy feeling and looking like the walking dead. I had a scotch and water with the my drink ticket and a little later had a wine with my cheese ravioli dinner. The dinner service was actually pretty good and I thought I might be able to pull it off and actually sleep. The problem, however, was that it was still fairly early for me. I tried to work on my Italian and even tried the cross word puzzle in the magazine. My concentration was weak so I gave up on both. The movie had already started so I gave up on it. I just stared at the heads in front of me and wondered how the trip would turn out and wished I had taken a cruise ship instead. Oh well, too late for an alternate form of transportation. After an hour of this, the lights went low, the talking slowed down and I could see the heads start to sag and disappear. These lucky people in front of me were actually falling asleep. My lovely partner had already drifted off and I was sitting there with nothing to do and a long long time to do it. It was time to give it a shot and see if sleep would be a possibility. I closed my eyes, turned down my hearing aids and waited. It came. Not the sleep that I desperately needed, but the cough. The guy over my left shoulder could not quit coughing. If you have ever tried to sleep with a dog barking, you could go through the same ordeal with this guy's cough. It wasn't real loud, it was just at the right sequence and pitch that I could not tune it out. I tried real hard. I even put on the ridiculous red mask that goes over your eyes to make everything darker, but I kept picturing how stupid I looked with it, and that would keep me awake. I took the mask off, I watched the movie, I put the mask on , I turned off the movie, I worked the crossword, I quit the crossword. It was an endless sequence of activities that went unnoticed to everyone else on the plane, except me. My lovely partner was still out like a light. Man, was she a good traveler, boy was I a bad traveler. Oh well, the ordeal finally ended when we touched down in Frankfort Germany. I clocked approximately seven minutes of sleep time, which is a number I made up before I became the star of the "Day of The Walking Dead in Italy. " It was 11:00 AM in Germany, or 4:00 AM back home. Boy, Was I tired.
Before I begin, I will mention that there are some things that I learned from this trip, regarding travel, that I never really paid attention to in the past. I never realized the difference between a travel company and a travel agent. Lu and I have used travel agents in the past and found them to be helpful from the start to the end of a trip. This time we were using a travel company and we realized from the start that once you hit the airport, they are out of the picture until you arrive at your destination. This will be more evident as we go through the blog.
Our trip started on October 11, 2008 out of Muscatine, Iowa. The group that went was Herm and Lu Ferreira, Pat and Sharon Mullin (no s on the end, we learned this in Ireland), Ken and Shirley McDaniel, Bob and Bonnie Nichols (Bonnie was the bank's marketing representative), Anne Carroll and her wonderful mother Patsy and Doyle and Cindy Tubandt (Doyle has a nick name that we promised to keep to ourselves). Though we all come from different backgrounds and careers, we all pretty much have had experience in travel and love it. Our plane was to leave Cedar Rapids Iowa at 11:30 AM and fly to Cincinnati where we would make a connection and fly to JFK, ultimately ending up in Milan/Malpensa Italy early the next day. It was not the ideal flight plan , but the airline, (Delta) had cancelled the option of going to Atlanta and then flying over to Milan, according to our travel company. We were told at a briefing prior to the trip that we would be boarding a shuttle in Muscatine starting at 6:30 AM. and leaving no later than 7:15 AM. Lu and I were the last ones to arrive at 7:00 AM. which was probably a bleak foreboding to the rest of the group. The trip to the airport is only an hour and we knew that we had plenty of time before the flight. We apologize to the group if we caused them any undue stress.
A gorgeous fall morning (sunny and warm) was the perfect setting as the 12 of us headed for Cedar Rapids. We arrived at the airport and proceeded to check in. This airport is fairly small, but it didn't take long for most of the group to take a right instead of a left and end up at the opposite end of the airport. I mentioned earlier that we are experienced travelers. Check in was very non eventful, except that Delta must have seen us take the wrong turn and had at least 4 representatives at their ticket counter waiting on the 12 of us. We checked in and had a good 2 1/2 hours to departure. With this kind of time, our group did what was natural to us. We headed for the restaurant. After a nice breakfast, coffee and chit chat, we headed for the gate and waited for the announcement to board. The announcement came shortly afterwards and we were ready to board. We had to have a picture prior to boarding, which probably seemed unusual to others on that flight since we were only going to Cincinnati , but did I mention that we are experienced travelers?
The flight to Cincinnati took a half hour less than scheduled and we got there in plenty of time to make our connection to JFK. The weather was clear and it looked like our vacation was off to a great start. We arrived at terminal A and our flight left from terminal B, so we all had to march to the flight schedule monitors to see what gate we would soon be flying out of and how we would get to the other terminal. The monitor had roughly 10 screens listing the numerous flights that would be departing that day to all parts of the country. As we watched that screen with the eagerness that small children have when they are watching their favorite cartoon show, we were horrified to see that of all the flights leaving today, the only delays were to JFK and Newark, NJ. The flights to La Guardia, which is right by JFK, were even going. Bonnie, our rep and good friend, frantically got on her cell phone and started contacting Collette for help. That was when we learned that it was not their issue, but that we would have to deal with the airport. Luann called Delta for help, which informed us that there were weather problems at JFK. We also heard that the delay was coming from the inbound plane that had experienced mechanical problems. Some of the group went to eat, some went to the bathroom, some went walking, others were on cell phones, not me. I went to watch the news to see if there had been a terrorist alert in New York City. The great vacation had run into its first and biggest snag.
After the smoke had cleared and we regained our sanity and confidence, we were told that the plane from Phoenix had left and was on its way. We still had a chance. We figured out that if the plane from Phoenix showed up at the delayed time, we could still make it to the connection for Italy in time. The guy with the nickname that only we know and can't tell (Doyle) was going to sprint to the gate and hold the plane for us if he could, while Bob, Bonnie's husband, was going to block for him. That is the kind of group members we had (committed) We also found out that if we missed our flight, we could get on a flight to Paris and connect to Milan and be there in the morning. We patiently waited and the flight from Phoenix came in 15 minutes early. The gate monitor showed us that there was light rain at JFK, so we all felt that we were home free. All we had to worry about was whether there was any truth to the mechanical problem theory.
Just because a plane that's late comes in a few minutes early does not mean that they will board it and move it any faster. We steadfastly watched the clock run as angry passengers stormed out of the plane that had just landed, throwing carry ons on the floor and shooting at people with cosmic rays from their angry eyes, as they watched their connecting flight leave the gate next to them. It was like watching a comedy, but we couldn't laugh because we knew the feeling. There was only one among us that would act like that (me) so I moved to a corner where no one could see me and hoped that this would not repeat itself at JFK. Well, we boarded the plane and settled down, with a nervous anticipation. We were on the edge and any further delay would seal our fate. It is appropriate to mention that this was a one week trip and we paid handsomely for it. Any delay that could cause us to lose a day in Italy, made the trip that much more expensive and no one wants to think they got a bad deal, especially the experienced travelers that we were.
I have a hearing problem and have been accused of jumping the gun when I think I hear something that really wasn't said. This was the case in seat 28f when to my utter horror, I hear the fate sealing comment. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have been informed that we must remain at the gate for approximately 30 minutes more,while we get clearance from control to depart. We apologize for any inconvenience." If any one has ever seen the movie" The Exorcist", the part where Linda Blair's head does a 360 degree turn, well Luann saw a similar scene sitting there in seat 28E. Eyes red, head spinning, four letter words flying I turned my head without my body and asked her. "What did he say?" She tried to calm me down, but I was gone. I knew that we would miss the flight now in New York. I had studied Italian, not French. I wanted pizza, not crepes. There was a good chance we would not make it at all that night. I was frantically trying to figure out options, but we were all trapped. And then, it happened, the pilot again. " Ladies and gentlemen, we are having trouble getting clearance from control. We are offering you the opportunity to deplane as we may be here up to 2 1/2 more hours. If you deplane, it is possible that we could get clearance and have to leave immediately, so we advise you to stay close to the gate." There was no way we were going to spend our first night of vacation in Cincinnati Ohio when we paid to spend it in Italy. There was no way I was going to hang around the gate waiting for the inevitable. I bolted, looked at fellow group members sitting so calmly, saw the look of fear in Luann's eyes as she wondered, "what stupid thing is he going to do now?" and hustled off the plane to beat the rush to gate 24 where the Delta customer service was. I wasn't fast enough. There was a line four deep at the counter as Luann, Bonnie and the rest of the group started filing in behind me. There is nothing more disheartening to an experienced traveler as rehearsing every thing you are going to say to customer service about how upset you are, demand service, be tough and then have to stand in line and realize that you are helpless and at their mercy. I turned into a kitten in line. I watched as Bonnie and Luann talked to people that could help us get out of this mess and realized that I had forgotten what I was going to tell customer service about their air line. The kitten in line turned into a mouse. All I could do was watch and listen as Bonnie, Luann and Sharon were able to get us on a flight from Cincinnati to Frankfort Germany and then connect to Milan. All twelve of us. They were even able to get our bags off the delayed flight. It was like watching skilled surgeons operating on a patient. My only contribution was to talk to Alvaro Smith (can't remember his last name, but he deserves one for his help) about golf. It was finally done and we were going to depart at 7:35PM, arriving Frankfort at 11:30AM and ending up in Milan at 1:00 PM, experiencing a four hour delay versus a full day. Time for a beer and applause for the heroins at an airport bar. I declined the beer because mice don't drink beer and I didn't want any cheese.
At 7:00 PM, they announced the first boarding for the flight to Frankfort Germany. I always look at the flight as a leading indicator of how a vacation goes. If I get a window seat and Luann an aisle seat, it usually means good things will happen. It's not to say that we will have a bad time if we don't, because we usually have a good time wherever we go, it's just icing on the cake. We like our cakes iced. Needless to say, it didn't happen this time. We were in a 737, where there are three seats in the middle. Luann got her aisle seat, I got the middle seat and an elderly lady got the other aisle. I looked frantically for an open window and aisle seat, but to no avail. We were going to fly for 8+hours looking at the back of people's heads and not having a glimpse of land, sea or clouds. How depressing. As the doors closed and flight attendants were directed to prepare for departure, the elderly lady said something to one of the attendants and shot out of her seat to the back of the plane. To my shock, there was a window and aisle seat together not ten rows behind us. The lady took the window seat and I cried. It didn't take long to make a bad situation turn out right. I took her seat and now Lu and I had a seat between us to pile up our books, magazines, head phones and any other necessary item for the long transatlantic flight. All we had to do now was pass the time.
Luann and I like to travel and our preferred method of transportation is the airplane. It is fast, normally comfortable and you get waited on. However, a transatlantic flight in economy class at night tests us. Luann has the great ability to relax herself, which allows her to get a pretty good nights sleep considering the distractions that are constant on a trip such as this one. Me, on the other hand, can't relax enough on a flight like this to nap for more than 10 minutes. My friend Alvaro Smith (not his real last name) gave us all a free drink ticket to ease the pain and suffering we had incurred in Cincinnati. In addition, Delta offers a complimentary drink with their dinner on all international travel. My calculations told me that two drinks could possibly help me get sleepy enough so that I could get at least 3-4 hours sleep before we landed. I have to have some sleep or I am toast. I did not want to go through my first day in Italy feeling and looking like the walking dead. I had a scotch and water with the my drink ticket and a little later had a wine with my cheese ravioli dinner. The dinner service was actually pretty good and I thought I might be able to pull it off and actually sleep. The problem, however, was that it was still fairly early for me. I tried to work on my Italian and even tried the cross word puzzle in the magazine. My concentration was weak so I gave up on both. The movie had already started so I gave up on it. I just stared at the heads in front of me and wondered how the trip would turn out and wished I had taken a cruise ship instead. Oh well, too late for an alternate form of transportation. After an hour of this, the lights went low, the talking slowed down and I could see the heads start to sag and disappear. These lucky people in front of me were actually falling asleep. My lovely partner had already drifted off and I was sitting there with nothing to do and a long long time to do it. It was time to give it a shot and see if sleep would be a possibility. I closed my eyes, turned down my hearing aids and waited. It came. Not the sleep that I desperately needed, but the cough. The guy over my left shoulder could not quit coughing. If you have ever tried to sleep with a dog barking, you could go through the same ordeal with this guy's cough. It wasn't real loud, it was just at the right sequence and pitch that I could not tune it out. I tried real hard. I even put on the ridiculous red mask that goes over your eyes to make everything darker, but I kept picturing how stupid I looked with it, and that would keep me awake. I took the mask off, I watched the movie, I put the mask on , I turned off the movie, I worked the crossword, I quit the crossword. It was an endless sequence of activities that went unnoticed to everyone else on the plane, except me. My lovely partner was still out like a light. Man, was she a good traveler, boy was I a bad traveler. Oh well, the ordeal finally ended when we touched down in Frankfort Germany. I clocked approximately seven minutes of sleep time, which is a number I made up before I became the star of the "Day of The Walking Dead in Italy. " It was 11:00 AM in Germany, or 4:00 AM back home. Boy, Was I tired.
3 comments:
So I've learned to not read your blogs at work... Putting a whole new meaning into "laugh out loud."
Erin - Good point!! I was reading this just before going home today and those left here thought I had lost it!! I can't believe the detail you have included Herm - I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning and you are giving detailed descriptions of things as mundain as blinds in a hotel room! Great job herm!
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